The Red Book Magazine/Volume 39/Number 4/Michael's Wedding Gift

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

The greatest series of detective-mystery stories since “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”

 

Michael's Wedding Gift

By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Illustrated by
W. B. King

The gifted Mr. Oppenheim handles this thrilling episode in the adventures of a master criminal with his usual skill, The story is told, at the outset, by the criminal himself, Michael Sayers.

FOR many months after my somewhat ingenious escape from the café of Madame Ponadour in the Maritime Quartier of Marseilles, I lived in the Forêt du Dom, on the far side of Hyères, the life of a dog. There were three of us woodmen in the hut—Pierre, Jacques and myself. My two unchosen companions, after twenty years of the same monotonous labor, had grown very much like the trees whose branches we lopped off and whose trunks we hauled down the road to the mountainous stack whence they were fetched by motor-lorry from Nice. These two men, so far as I was able to discover, possessed no virtues. They cheated at cards—we had one filthy pack which had lasted them for a year before I came; they drank to excess, when they could afford the wine or the fiery brandy of the country; and I am convinced that they would have murdered anyone for a few francs, if they could have been sure of evading detection.

Their complexions were, as mine soon became, almost black. They were clods of the earth, men ageless and passionless except when the wine was in their blood, from whom I hid at the same time and with equal discretion my thoughts and my purse

Solitude more complete than that which I shared with these two men I have never imagined. I grew to hate the very things which had, at first, appealed to me—the fresh, pungent smell of the newly hewn trees, the scent of the freshly turned red soil, cloven by the plow, the sun-baked furrows, scarred with fissures and cracks through which the odors of wine itself seemed to steal. Sometimes, while the others slept, I read the newspapers, which we obtained with difficulty from the neighboring village—read of myself as the most notorious criminal at large, read of all the world-famed detectives of London, Paris and New York who had sworn to effect my capture, read of my crimes, my daring, my cunning, read of all these things outside my shanty on the hillside—and smile Given a certain amount of resignation and patience, and I knew very well that I was safe as long as I chose.

There, however, was the trouble. Corduroy trousers and a woodman's smock were not to my fancy as articles of dress. Nor did I care about dark bread and soup, apples and sour wine, as a means of keeping body and soul together. There was money for me in London, plenty of it. I knew that to reach that money I should, before long, come out into the open and once more challenge the world of my enemies.

Illustration: It was I who clambered down to where our victim was lying, and drew a pocketbook from his coat.

One day a chance incident set me thinking. We had paused for a second to fill our pipes with filthy tobacco, barely a dozen yards round one of the hairpin corners of the forest road, leaving our wagons, as usual, in the middle of the thoroughfare. Suddenly a car swung round the corner, traveling too fast for the driver to apply his brakes with safety. With great skill he passed us, grazing the long trunks of the lopped trees and escaping the precipice by a matter of inches. The chauffeur drove on, turning round for a moment, however, to shake his fist and shout abuse at us. I waved my hand in friendly fashion, for the incident had given me an idea. That night I saw that Pierre and Jacques drank more than their usual share of the sour wine, and afterward I propounded my scheme.

“Comrades,” I said, “it is a dog's life we lead.”

They growled assent. They seldom spoke coherent words.

“Today,” I continued, “an idea came to me. If our wagons had been an inch or two nearer the outside corner of the road, or the man in the automobile a shade less skillful, he could not possibly have escaped. His automobile would have been smashed, and he would have gone over the edge of the precipice.”

They made strange noises in their throats and continued to listen.

“It is a dog's life, this,” I repeated. “What we need, to make things endurable, is money—money, so that you two can go down to the café at the foot of the hill and drink brandy with the daughters of the village, they who leave you now so unkindly alone because you have nothing to spend upon them.”

Their pipes were out of their mouths now, and they were listening intently.

“A man like that one today would have money—a pocketbook. Whilst he was unconscious, look you, we would take it. One of us would bring it up here, here where there are a hundred hiding-places, in the ground, the trees, the cracks of the earth. A pocketbook which is lost, is lost. What do you say, comrades?”

There was no doubt about how the scheme appealed to them. Jacques was showing all the fangs of his yellow teeth in one tremendous smile. Pierre's round black eyes were lighted with a covetous gleam.

“It would be an equal share between the three?” he urged.

“Between the three,” I agreed. “Leave the details to me.”

We went to our work the next morning with a new zest. All the time that we were at work in the forest, lopping the branches from the fallen trees and piling them onto the wagons, we were thinking of what fortune might have in store for us on our homeward crawl. When, at last, the time came to start, my two companions seemed more like human beings than at any time I had known them. They marched stolidly but hopefully on by the side of the horses. I, having the better eyesight, watched the winding road, down in the valleys below and up on the hillside. We crawled round each corner, loitering at the psychological spot always with the same evil hope in our hearts.

The affair, however, was not so easy. Sometimes we were seen from above or below; sometimes drivers were too careful. On the fourth day, however, success rewarded our perseverance. A small automobile which I had spotted from a distance came round the corner where we were, so to speak, anchored, driven with that full measure of recklessness which only a Frenchman, anxious to save his engine, can obtain. There was a wild cry from the driver, a crash into our wagon, and over went the automobile and man down the side of the precipice. It was an agreeable sight.

It was I who clambered down to where our victim was lying, and drew a pleasing-looking black pocketbook from the inside of his coat. Afterward I felt his heart, and discovered that he was alive. I ordered Pierre to move the wagons over to our own side of the road, and we secreted the pocketbook among the logs we were carrying. Then we waited for events, and although I really cared not in the least whether the man lived or died, I found myself, to my surprise, bathing his head and loosening his clothing. Presently a public touring car from Cannes, on its way to Hyères, arrived. The accident was explained; room was made for the injured man; and a liberal pourboire was given us, collected among the passengers. We then made our way home, and later on, when we had lighted our evening fire, we opened the pocketbook. There were nine hundred francs there, and I shall never forget the evil faces of my two companions, in the light of the dancing flames, as they leaned over and watched me count the notes. I divided the money into three portions, but I spoke to them as a master.

“Listen, Jacques, and you, Pierre,” I said. “I am a man of justice, but although I am one of you, I have traveled beyond these forests, and I know the world. If you take this money with you to the village tonight, you will be drunk, the truth will be known and we shall all go to prison. I will swear to you the woodcutters' oath, the oath across the flames, that your share shall be saved. But go to the village tonight with twenty francs each, the pourboire given us by the Englishmen, and let me keep the rest for you, or hide it for yourselves.”

They had just sufficient wit to realize that I was their superior in intelligence and that my advice was good. So we growled an oath in the strange dialect of those parts, and I gripped their gnarled and knotted hands, which reminded me always of the roots of the trees we felled. Afterward I went down to the village with them, had one drink, for good-fellowship's sake, and returned to the shanty and solitude, with a bottle of the best brandy and some tobacco. I drank moderately, as I have always done in life, but the brandy was good to my palate and the tobacco better. I lay at my ease on the outskirts of the clearing, with my back to a sweet-smelling pine tree and my face toward the valley, and as I watched the shadows droop over the hills, their slopes became blurred and their summits like a fine-drawn line of ink against the violet background. Here and there a light sprang out from a lonely farmhouse; later a yellow star gleamed over my head through the motionless branches of the trees, and an owl fluttered up from the hollow with a mournful cry. I sipped my brandy and smoked and thought. Though the beauty of my surroundings appealed to me, they filled me with only a negative joy. Still, life at the best could bring me nothing but a kind of passionless content. I thought of the great cities with their thronged thoroughfares, their mighty roar of turbulent life, the crowded parks, the theaters, the opera, with its wonderful music, which I had always loved, the voices and laughter and presence of beautiful women. I would win my way back to these yet. Beauty such as that by which I was surrounded on that still evening was the kind which reaches only through the soul, and its appeal to my esthetic sense, although disturbing, was wholly unsatisfying. What I craved for was the joy of the cities, the throb of life around me, beauty and comfort, from the material point of view, the proper clothes to wear, the proper food and wine to drink.....

Our next adventure, engineered in similar fashion to the last, brought us a matter of a couple of thousand francs. This time, however, there was trouble, for the driver's neck was broken as he pitched head foremost from the seat of the car; and his wife, who was only slightly injured, gave vigorous evidence as to the position of our wagon and the disappearance of her husband's pocketbook after we had dragged his body up from a ledge of the precipice. A gendarme from the neighboring village visited us that same night and made a careful search through our belongings. There was nothing to be found, however, and by preserving a stolid silence and leaving all speech to me, my companions escaped suspicion just as I did. Afterward, however, I spoke to them seriously.

“Comrades,” I pointed out, “this game is too good to last. For a time we must go warily. Afterward we will seek one more adventure, which we must select with great care, for it will be my last. If it is successful, I shall leave you. Afterward you two had better bury your savings in the ground and abandon the game, for it needs brains to be made successful, and you two have not the brains of a rabbit between you.”

They knew that I was right, and they held their peace. After that we let many cars go by. It was a month later, indeed, before we made our last coup, and it ended in very different fashion from what I had anticipated. From my lookout place on a stretch of the road above the wagons, I saw a gray touring car, piled with luggage and golf-clubs, approaching from the direction of Cannes. There was a girl in front, seated by the driver, and an elderly gentleman behind. I called down to the others.

“Comrades, this is our chance,” I announced. “Move the wagons on around the corner, and be prepared for what may happen.”

What did happen was not in the least what I had expected. A certain phase of it remain entirely inexplicable to me, even to this day. From where I lay, crouching amongst the scrub, I could see that something was wrong with the car, or with the manner in which it was being driven. The chauffeur was rocking in his seat, and the car was swaying from side to side—it seemed at one time, indeed, as though it would go over the precipice without any intervention on our part.

But it was the girl's face from which I could not remove my eyes, the girl's face which produced such an amazing impression upon me. She must have fully realized the danger she was in, but she showed not the slightest signs of fear. I heard her speak to the chauffeur, trying to bring him to his senses; but it was obvious that he was either ill or had completely lost his nerve. Then she leaned over and tried to put on the foot-brake, succeeding so far, in fact, as momentarily to check the progress of the car. The chauffeur, suddenly seizing his opportunity, jumped from his seat and rolled over in the dust. The girl's foot apparently slipped from the brake and the car once more gathered speed. She clutched at the wheel but it was obvious that she had never driven. Somehow or other she got round the corner, but at the next—the wagons!

I saw her eyes, as the car came bumping down the hill, hear the wild shouting and exclamations of the old gentleman behind and there came to me one of those extraordinary moment which I make no attempt to explain, moments when action decided purely by impulse, and by an impulse irreducible law. We had made the most careful plans to wreck this auto mobile. Yet I risked my life to save it!

Illustration: “Good!” I said. “I shall attend the reception after the ceremony.” “If you do, you're a madman,” the lawyer declared.

I half slid, half scrambled, down the slope into the road, drew in my breath, poised myself for a great effort, and at the psychological moment leaped for the front splashboard. More or less I succeeded. I found myself sprawling across the seat, but my left hand was upon the wheel. The girl yielded it as though with instant understanding, and slid away to make room for me. In a matter of seconds I had the wheel in both hands, half kneeling, half sitting. We were within two inches of the precipice after my jump, and we just touched the farther side of the road with my grab at the wheel. After that it was easy. I righted the car without much difficulty, applied the brake, gently but with increasing force, took the corner with only a moderate skid and brought the car to a standstill within a few feet of the wagon. When the girl saw it, the first look of fear crept into her face She looked at me with shining eyes.

“You were just in time,” she said. “That was a wonderful jump.”

“What was the matter with your chauffeur?” I asked.

“Our own chauffeur was taken ill, and this was a boy we engaged in Cannes,” she answered. “He was not equal to driving the car. He lost his nerve at the top of the hill.”

The old gentleman was in the road by this time and gripping my hand.

“My good fellow,” he exclaimed, “you have done a great day's work for yourself! For God's sake, say that you understand English.”

“I have hewn wood in Devonshire,” I told him. “I speak English or French, which you will.”

He was recovering himself now, and I could see that he was a very pompous person, the very prototype of the traveling Englishman of wealth, who believes in himself.

“My name,” he announced, “is Lord Kindersley. You will never regret this day's work.”

I made some attempt to descend, but he held me in my place.

“You must drive us to the next town,” he insisted, “to Hyères or Toulon. I will reward you handsomely, but we cannot be left here, and I will not let that wretched youth touch the car again.”

“Where are you going to?” I inquired.

“England,” the girl answered, “to Boulogne.”

“I will drive you to Boulogne,” I said, “if you will give me that young man's livery and papers, and recompense my comrades there for my absence. They will have to engage another woodman.”

Illustration: “Poor Colonel Escombe!" she exclaimed. “Why, he is one of Dad's oldest friends.”

The elderly gentleman was spluttering out notes. It seemed as though he could not get rid of them fast enough.

“It is agreed,” he declared eagerly. “We shall not quarrel about terms, I promise you!”

A dusty figure came staggering down the hill, a youth sobered by fright but evidently recovering from a debauch. I wasted few words upon him, but I took him round the bend of the road, stripped him of his clothes and left him mine. Then I mounted the driving seat of the car and tested the gears. Pierre and Jacques were gazing with amazement at the little bundle of hundred-franc notes which the English milord had thrust into their hands.

“Farewell, comrades,” I said, waving my hand to them. “Some day I may come back, but I think not. Good luck to you both!” They returned my farewell in wooden fashion. I let in my clutch and glided down the hill. So we started for Boulogne.

During the whole of our four days' journey, the girl, who sat by my side all the time, remained as though wrapped in her thoughts and spoke to me only after long intervals. All the time, though, I was conscious of her presence, and I think that she was conscious of mine.

“How is it that you, a woodman, can drive a motorcar?” was her first question.

“I have not always been a woodman,” I answered.

“Why did you want that boy's papers?” she asked.

“Because I wished to reach England, and I might find it difficult to get a passport of my own,” I admitted.

She abandoned the subject a little reluctantly. I knew very well that she was longing to ask me further questions, but I gave her no encouragement. On the following day, after a prolonged silence, she again adopted an interrogative tone.

“Why did you risk your life for us?” she asked, with curious abruptness, toward the close of a long day's run.

“Because I admired the way you were facing what seemed to be certain death,” I told her. “The worst of us are liable to an impulse like that.”

“Is it true,” she went on, “that some of the woodmen of the Forêt du Dom frequently rob travelers who have met with accidents while motoring?”

“Quite true,” I admitted. “They have even been known to contribute to the accidents. I have done it myself.”

She shivered.

“I wish you would not tell me those things,” she said reproachfully.

“It is the truth,” I assured her. “We rather thought of wrecking your car, but I watched you coming down the hill, and afterward I only thought of saving you.”

She laughed a little nervously, but for the moment she avoided meeting my eye.

“You are a strange person,” she declared. “Why were you masquerading as a woodman?”

“Because I have wrecked other things besides motorcars,” I answered. “I was hiding from the police. This is a great opportunity for me to break away.”

She sighed.

“I am sorry,” she confessed. “All the same, I hope that you succeed.”

AT Boulogne I was intrusted with the car, which I drove to London and delivered according to instructions at the garage of the house in South Audley Street. There I received a message that the young lady, whom I had avoided seeing at Folkestone, wished to speak to me the moment I arrived. I was shown into a little sitting-room in the great house, and she came to me almost at once.

“My uncle wished me to give you this,” she said, handing me an envelope. “And I wondered”—she raised her eyes to mine—“whether you would care to have a little memento of me?”

She gave me a picture of herself in a tortoise-shell frame, and I put it into my pocket with the envelope. She made room for me to sit by her side on the sofa, but I affected not to notice her gesture of invitation.

“I shall never forget that evening,” she continued softly. “It was a wonderful jump, wasn't it?”

I was the victim of new impulses, bewildering and incomprehensible.

“I think, Miss Kindersley,” I said, “that you had better forget as much of the whole affair as you can. Remember that I deliberately planned to wreck your car as I had done others. It was only a fancy which made me change my mind. Believe me, I am not a creditable acquaintance.”

“But you might be,” she persisted. “Wont you try?”

I shook my head.

“It is too late,” I told her. “I am a hunted man today, and shall be to the end. There is no country in the world where I could find safety or even rest for a little time. And what is coming to me I have earned.”

In these chronicles of my life there is just one vice, the vice of cowardice, to which I have never had to plead guilty. Just at this juncture, however, the sight of her small white hand stealing out toward me, the little quiver of her proud lips, perhaps a faint waft of that perfume of which I had been dimly conscious on those four days when she had sat by my side, some one of these things or all of them together gripped at my heart, filled me with a vague terror of myself, so that I did the only thing which seemed possible—I hurried out of the room and out of the house.

MR. YOUNGHUSBAND'S face was a picture when I visited him next morning at his offices in Lincoln's Inn. I was still in my chauffeur's livery, which, with its visored cap, afforded an excellent disguise, but he recognized my voice at once, and he shook in his chair.

“Surely,” he faltered, “this is most unwise!”

“My friend,” I answered, seating myself at the other side of the table, “it may be unwise but it is necessary. I found a perfectly safe means of getting into England, and now that I am here I want money.”

He drew his check-book from the drawer, but I brushed it on one side.

“I will have a thousand pounds in Bank of England notes,” I told him, “and a draft on the Bank of England for the same amount. Send your clerk out for it; then we can talk.”

He obeyed me, struggling hard to retain his composure. I watched him with a smile.

“When you are in London, I never have a moment free from anxiety,” he complained.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I shall not trouble you much longer,” I promised. “There is another matter to be cleared up, though. In Marseilles I was told that Janet Soale had drawn a large sum of money from you.”

“It is utterly false,” the lawyer replied. “She has not even applied for a penny.”

I knew the truth then, of course. Louisa was never one to brook a rival. I felt a momentary compunction when I thought of Janet's terror in the café at Marseilles. After all, although we had ceased to care for one another, she had been faithful to me after her fashion.

“We heard that you were drowned at Marseilles,” my companion remarked.

“It was a narrow escape,” I admitted. “Rimmington and Greyes were both over there, and they got on my track through Janet and Louisa. I had luck that night—and I needed it.”

“Why don't you retire?” the lawyer suggested, leaning across the table. “You have sufficient money, and you are fond of the country. Why not make full use of your wonderful genius for disguise, choose some quiet spot and run no more risks?”

“The matter is worth considering,” I admitted. “There are a few little affairs to straighten out first, though.”

Mr. Younghusband looked at me curiously; then he laid his forefinger upon the copy of the Times which he had been studying when I entered the office:

“You are interested in tomorrow's event, I suppose?”

“What event?” I inquired.

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. I could see quite well that he did not believe in my ignorance.

“The marriage of your old friend Norman Greyes.”

I stared across the table incredulously.

“I have, indeed, been living out of the world,” I observed. “Whom is he marrying?”

“Do you mean to tell me that you do not know?” he demanded.

“Of course I don't,” I replied a little irritably. “You seem to forget where I have been for the last four months.”

“Norman Greyes is marrying the lady whom I have met as Mrs. Stanfield. She calls herself now Janet Soale.”

That was, undoubtedly, one of the shocks of my life. Janet and I were parted; I had deceived her as I had one many other women; and in her day, she had served me well and faithfully. I had no ill-feeling against her, especially now that I realized she had left my money untouched. More than ever, however, I meant to kill Norman Greyes. I held out my hand for the Times and read the little announcement.

“Good!” I said. “I shall attend the reception which I see is being given after the ceremony. It will be interesting to see Norman Greyes' taste in pearls. I see that he is having his collection strung as a wedding present for his wife.”

“If you do, you're a madman,” the lawyer declared angrily.

“Madmen for luck!” I replied.

Janet Takes Up the Story.

IT was exactly two months after I had left Marseilles when Norman Greyes walked into my little sitting-room in Smith Street, Westminster, where I was busy typing a play for the agency which occasionally sent me work. He was gaunt and thin, and it was obvious that he had not wholly recovered his strength, but he showed every sign of his old promptitude and decision of character. Before I had got over my surprise at his coming, I felt his arms around me—and every atom of strength leaving my body. The most wonderful moment of my life had arrived!

“When will you marry me, Janet?” he asked a little later on, when he had set me back in my chair and seated himself by my side.

“Marry you?” I gasped. “How can you talk of such things!”

“Simply because they have to be talked about before they can be undertaken,” He replied. “I look upon you as Michael's widow, but you have never cared for him as you are going to care for me.”

“But you don't even know if Michael is dead,” I protested.

Norman held my hand tightly.

“We are very sensible people, you and I,” he said, “and we are going to look stark facts in the face. It doesn't matter in the least legally, whether Michael is dead or not. He had at least two other wives alive in America when he married you.”

I leaned toward him. Somehow or other, what would have seemed in my saner moments a sheer impossibility, seemed at that moment a perfectly natural and reasonable thing. Then suddenly the old horror rose up in my mind.

“You forget,” I told him, “you forget that I too—”

He placed his hand gently over my lips.

“Janet,” he interrupted, “nothing that either of us could do, no penance we could undertake, would bring Ladbroke back to life. His widow has her pension; I have seen to that. For the rest, you must forget as I have forgotten.”

“I killed him, Norman,” I faltered.

“I have killed men myself in my day,” he replied, “and I shall probably kill Michael, if he is still alive, before our accounts are finally settled. That affair does not concern us any longer. You acted on a momentary impulse. You were protecting the man whom you fancied, at that time, you cared for.”

“I was doing more than that,” I told him. “I was avenging myself. I was a stupid girl in those days—but I had ideas. No man had ever kissed me upon the lips. He took me unawares. If I had had the weapon in my hand then, I should have killed him without any other thought.”

I saw a look almost of content in the face of the man I loved.

“I always guessed that there was something of the sort,” he said.... “The immediate question is, when are you going to marry me?”

I suppose I was weak, but all women are weak when the man they care for pleads. I had been through years of misery, and the time came when I was simply incapable of any further resistance. I became entirely passive; I did exactly as I was told; and marvelously happy I was in doing it. Just as I was, in my shabby clothes, we went out to a restaurant in Soho and dined. It was a queer little place, overcrowded and not too well ventilated, but to me it was like a room in a palace. All the time we made plans, or rather he made plans and I listened. My long struggle was at an end. We were to be married almost at once, to travel tor a time in Italy, Egypt—all the places I had longed to visit—and afterward to settle down in the country and forget.

It was not until after Norman had left me in my rooms, and the joy of the evening was merged into memories, that I felt that chill sense of apprehension which I did not altogether lose until long afterward. A sudden fear of Michael set me shivering. I fancied that I could see Michael's cold, ageless face, with his strange smile and gray-green eyes, behind which lurked that curious sense of power.

THE night passed, but even during those wonderful days that followed, the fear remained. It came back even at the moment of my supreme happiness, some weeks later, when I passed down the aisle of the church with Norman—his wife! I suddenly felt convinced that Michael was in the church. It was a terrible moment, although a brief one. I faltered, and Norman looked down at me anxiously. Then I laughed and pretended to gather up my train. It was nothing, I told him—just a shiver.

The rest, for some time, was just a dream. There were crowds of people at the house in Southwell Gardens where Norman's sister was giving a reception for us. Everybody was wonderfully nice to. me, and I made new friends at every moment. Just as I was warned that it was time for me to go and change into my traveling gown, an uncle of Norman's, a Mr. Harold Greyes, asked me to show him the pearl necklace which had been Norman's present to me. I took him, at once into the little room where the wedding-gifts were set out. There was a small gathering of guests there, nearly all of whom were known to me. At the far end of the room, seated in a chair and apparently taking little interest in the proceedings, was the detective who had come from Scotland Yard to watch over the jewelry.

“I know that you have only a moment to spare,” Mr. Greyes said to me. “I will just look at the pearls and be off. I am curious to see if Norman is really a judge.”

I pointed to where the neckace was lying in its case. I myself was talking to one or two people who had finished their inspection. My companion glanced downward, frowned, adjusted his eyeglass, dropped it and turned to me with a little smile.

“Quite a reasonable precaution,” he observed, “but was it necessary with a detective in the room?”

“I don't understand,” I told him, a little bewildered.

“The substitution of the necklace,” he explained. “Of course, these are very fair imitations, but I wanted to see the real thing.”

I leaned down and felt a sudden thrill of apprehension. The necklace, which was twined around its setting of ivory satin, was one which I had never seen before. It was certainly not the one which I had taken in my fingers and showed to some friends of Norman's less than half an hour ago.

I called to the detective.

“My pearl necklace has been taken within the last half-hour!” I exclaimed. “This is an imitation one which has been substituted!”

The detective first closed the door and then came back into the room. We both of us looked around. Besides myself and my companion, Mr. Harold Greyes, there were present a very charming girl called Beatrice Kindersley, a great friend of Norman's, an elderly lady, Mrs. Phillipson, and a slim, soldierly-looking man who was a complete stranger to me but who, on account of his sunburnt complexion, I put down as an Anglo-Indian.

“Dear me,” the latter exclaimed, “this is very distressing! A great many people have passed in and out during the last half-hour.”

“It is only within the last three minutes,” the detective said, “that I have moved to the farther end of the room. May I ask, Lady Greyes, if everyone here is known to you?”

“Miss Kindersley, certainly,” I replied, “and Mrs. Phillipson. I don't think I have met you, have I?” I added, turning to the man.

He looked at me with a rather peculiar smile. I noticed that he had a particularly high forehead and thick white hair. I cannot say that he actually reminded me of anyone; yet something in his appearance filled me with a vague sense of uneasiness.

“I fear that I have not yet had that honor, Lady Greyes,” he acknowledged quietly. “Your husband, however, is an old friend. My name is Escombe—Colonel James Escombe of the Indian Army.”

“If you are unknown to Lady Greyes, I must ask you to remain until Sir Norman arrives,” the detective said.

“With the utmost pleasure,” Colonel Escombe replied. “I have already had the privilege of renewing my acquaintance with him.”

Beatrice Kindersley, who had been standing looking on, suddenly began to laugh. Her eyes shone, and her apparently genuine amusement, after the tenseness of the last few moments, was a very pleasant interlude.

“Poor Colonel Escombe!” she exclaimed, passing her arm through his. “Why, he is one of Dad's oldest friends. He hates weddings and functions of all sorts, but I persuaded him to come here with me because he had met Sir Norman in India once. Please, Lady Greyes may I take him away? We promised to call for Dad at his club, and we are half an hour late already.”

THE detective was obviously disappointed. I murmured something conventional and shook hands with both.

“I may be permitted, although a comparative stranger,” Colonel Escombe said as he bent over my fingers, “to wish you all the happiness which I am sure you deserve.”

They passed out, without any undue haste, laughing and talking to one another. The detective hurried away, on the track of some fresh inquiry. I moved back, urged by some irresistible impulse, to the case where the imitation pearl necklace was lying. For the first time I noticed a little label attached to it. I turned it over and read two words, written in a familiar handwriting: “Michael's Gift.”

Suddenly Norman came hurrying in, already changed into a gray tweed traveling suit. He thrust his arm through mine and swung me toward the door.

“Janet dear,” he said, “you have exactly a quarter of an hour.”

“One question, please,” I begged “Did you ever know a Colonel Escombe in the Indian Army?”

“Never in my life,” he answered.

I saw the detective hurrying toward us and I clutched Norman's arm. I think that he must have guessed from my face that something had happened.

“Norman,” I whispered, “supposing the necklace—”

“Well, dear?”

“Supposing it was stolen?”

His grasp on my arm tightened.

“I shouldn't care a hang, sweetheart,” he whispered, “so long as we catch that train in half an hour and I have you all to myself for the rest of my life.”

Michael Resumes:

THE greatest genius in the world cannot foresee all contingencies. It has always been my practice to leave something to Fate. How on earth I was going to get out of the house in Southwell Gardens, if the theft of the necklace were discovered before I could get away by natural means, I had been quite unable to decide. Fate, however, settled the matter for me. I left with flying colors, rescued by the girl with the steadfast eyes, whose lips had mocked at danger on the precipices of the Forêt du Dom.

“Where to?” she asked, as we took our places in her automobile.

“To the British Museum Tube, if you can take me so far,” I answered.

She gave the order to the chauffeur through the speaking-tube. Then she leaned back in her place. Her expression puzzled me. She was as pale as she had been on the day when she had faced death, but there was none of the exaltation in her face.

“You are disturbed?” I ventured.

“I am unhappy,” she answered.

“You regret your intervention?”

She shook her head.

“It is not that. You stole the pearls.”

“Of course I did,” I admitted.

“You are a thief!”

“I never pretended otherwise.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I will give you that credit,” she confessed bravely. “Can I—would it be possible for me to buy the pearls from you?”

“For what purpose?” I inquired.

“To return to Lady Greyes, of course. Don't you see that I am partly responsible for their loss?”

“My dear young lady,” I said earnestly, “the pearls are yours, with pleasure. I took them because the dramatic side of the theft appealed to me. Norman Greyes and I are old enemies. He has hunted me as only man can hunt man. His wife is an old acquaintance. It flattered my vanity to attend his reception unrecognized and to help myself to his wife's pearls. Allow me.”

I took off my silk hat and laid it upon the opposite seat. Then I passed my hand slowly from my forehead back over my hair, pressed the top of my skull and handed her the necklace. She looked at me with her eyes wide open in wonder,

“I appreciate your surprise,” I told her. “As a matter of fact, this false top to my head is one of the most ingenious things my friends in Paris ever made for me. If Norman Greyes succeeds and I fail, you will probably see it some day in the museum at Scotland Yard.”

The car pulled up outside the Tube station. The girl held out her hand.

“I think that you are a very terrible but a very wonderful person,” she said. “Anyhow, I like to think that I have paid a part of my debt.”

The madness had me in its grip. I lifted her fingers to my lips. I laughed in my soul because she made no effort to withdraw them.

“The whole of it is paid,” I told her as I turned away.

A thrilling new episode in this pursuit of an arch criminal by a master detective will be described by Mr. Oppenheim in our next issue.