The Red Book Magazine/Volume 39/Number 6/The Great Elusion

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

The dramatic climax of this great series is here related by Mr. Oppenheim with skill. The detective Sir Norman Greyes, begins the story.

 

The Great Elusion

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

Illustrated by W. B. King

Illustration: It was not until he wheeled his horse and I saw something glitter in his right hand that I realized who he was.

IT was toward the close of a dinner-party at Kindersley Court, in Devonshire, where Janet and I were spending a fortnight, that our host suddenly directed the conversation to me.

“One has heard a great deal of your successes Greyes, especially during your last few years at Scotland Yard. What do you count your greatest failure?”

“My inability to bring to justice the greatest criminal in Europe.” I replied after a moment's hesitation. “I had him on my book for three years, but when I retired, he was still very much at large. We have been up against one another continually. Sometimes he has had the better of it, sometimes I. But the fact remains that though there have been at least a dozen misdemeanors which might have been brought home to him, he has slipped out of our hands every time we have formulated even a nominal charge.”

“Has he ever been in prison?” some one asked.

“Never,” I replied. “Not only that, but he has never even been apprehended, never even brought before a magistrate.”

“What is his name?” Lord Kindersley asked with some interest.

I smiled.

“A name, with him, I suspect, is an affair of the moment. I have known him under a dozen different pseudonyms: but his real name is, I believe, Michael. He did me the honor to attend my wedding reception as Colonel Escombe.”

I happened to meet the glance of Beatrice Kindersley as I looked across the table. She drew herself up for a moment, and I fancied that there was a steely glint in her beautiful eyes.

“I met a Colonel Escombe there, whom I thought charming,” she said coldly.

“It was probably our friend,” I assured her. “He is quite the most accomplished scoundrel in Europe.”

“Sometimes,” she remarked, “I think it would be interesting to hear how the goats talk of the sheep. I expect they would be able to find faults in the lives of the most perfect of us law-abiders.”

“But tell us about this man Michael?” Lord Kindersley intervened. “I remember, seven or eight years ago, hearing something about the duel between you fellows at Scotland Yard and a wonderfully led criminal gang. Where is the fellow now?”

“The answer to that question,” I told him, “would bring you in about five thousand pounds in rewards, and possibly a bullet through your heart as an informer.”

“You really couldn't lay your hand upon him at the present moment if you wanted to?”

I shook my head.

“I shouldn't have the faintest idea where to look for him. If he comes into the limelight again, my friend Rimmington at Scotland Yard will certainly send for me.”

“And you would join in the hunt?” our host persisted.

“I am not sure,” I admitted.

“You would do nothing of the sort,” Janet intervened, looking across at me. “That is a promise.”

I smiled back at her reassuringly. Prosperity and peace of mind had agreed with Janet. The dignity of wifehood sat well upon her. Her complexion seemed to have grown more creamy, her beautiful eyes softer, her carriage, always graceful, more assured. There was no woman in the county more admired than she—certainly no one less spoiled. She was absolutely and entirely contented with our simple country life. I sometimes think that if she had had her way, she would never have wandered at all outside our little domain. More than once, when I broached the subject, she had evaded the question of a visit to London or Paris; but curiously enough, it was only at that moment that I realized the truth. She still feared Michael.

“There is just the one possibility,” I remarked, “that I might not be able to evade the challenge. If I do not go after Michael, he may come after me.”

It was precisely at this moment that the amazing event happened. We were a party of twelve at dinner, seated at a round table in the center of the large banqueting hall of Kindersley Court. The room was rather dimly lighted, except for the heavily shaded for table lamps and the shaded electrics over some on during the meal at the request of one of the guests. The two footmen had left the room, presumably to fetch the coffee, and the butler standing behind Lord Kindersley's chair was the only servant in attendance. Suddenly every light in the place went out, and we were plunged into the most complete darkness. Conversation was broken off for a moment; then there was the usual little medley of confused exclamations.

“Never knew such a thing to happen before,” our host declared in an annoyed tone. “Somebody must have been tinkering with the power-house. Fetch some candles, Searle.”

The butler turned to grope his way toward the door, but he was not allowed to reach it. A further sensation was in store for us. From various parts of the shadowy spaces on every side of us, little pin-points of fire blazed out and steadily approached, without sound or movement. One of them came to a standstill immediately behind Lord Kindersley's chair. Wielded by some unseen hand, the dazzling brilliancy of a high-powered electric torch was flashed round upon twelve amazed faces. Then a strange voice broke the spellbound silence, a voice still and cold and perfectly modulated. Every word seemed to have the crispness of a pistol-shot.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the intruder said, “there is no need for any particular alarm. This is, to use a slang phrase, a 'hold-up.' If you all sit still and keep still and obey orders, you will be moderately safe. If anyone attempts to leave his chair or to strike a match, I, or one other of my four friends, will shoot. We have automatic pistols, and I trust that you will realize the absurdity of resistance.”

“God bless my soul!” Lord Kindersley exclaimed. “Where are all my servants? How the devil did you get in?”

“It is scarcely policy to let you into the secret of our methods,” the same cold voice continued; “but I have no objection to telling you that we came in through the front door, that your servants are locked up and guarded in the servants' hall very much as you are, that your telephone wires are cut, your electric-light supply is in our hands, and the lodge-gates guarded. You ladies will kindly place all the jewelry you are wearing, upon the table in front of you. There must be no delay, please, or any attempt at concealment. —Madam,” the voice continued, and there was something terrible in its menacing quality, the torch flashing at the same moment into the startled face of a woman on the opposite side of the table, “if you attempt to drop any of your jewelry upon the floor, or to conceal it in any way, you will force us to adopt measures which we should regret.”

“What shall I do?” the woman next to me whispered hoarsely. “I am wearing my emeralds—Jack implored me not to—they are worth twenty thousand pounds.”

“You will have to do as the others are doing,” I told her. “The first act of this little drama must be played out according to orders.”

She unclasped the necklace with trembling fingers, and the unseen figure behind Lord Kindersley's chair spoke again.

“Will it be Sir Norman Greyes who struts across the stage in the second act?” he asked mockingly.

THEN I knew who was there, and I remembered that Michael had sworn to take my life when and how the opportunity offered. I was an easy mark for him, sitting there, but somehow the idea of assassination never had any terrors for me.

“I may occupy the stage for a little time,” I answered, feeling for my wine through the darkness. “But after all, it will be the third act that counts. Which will you choose, I wonder, Michael—the gallows at Wandsworth Gaol or the electric chair at Sing Sing?”

This, of course, was sheer bravado, a touch of melodrama of which I repented as soon as I had indulged in it. I heard the click of a weapon, and in the steady glare of that small circle of light I saw the flash upon its barrel as it drew level with my head. There was a silence as poignant as it was hysterical; then a cry from Janet rang through the room. All this time the business of collecting the jewelry was proceeding without interruption.

“A familiar voice, I fancy,” Michael said coldly as he lowered his weapon. “You do well to intervene, dear lady. Some day or other, I think that your husband will kill me or I him: but unless he hunts me with a posse of policemen, it will be when we are both armed and the odds are even.”

There was a little sobbing sigh from somewhere in the background. Then the silence was broken again in less dramatic fashion.

“May I speak, please?” Beatrice Kindersley asked.

Instantly the light flashed upon her face. I was amazed at her composure. Her eyes were bright and sparkling, and her cheeks full of color. She had the air of being one of a vitally interested audience following the mazes of some fascinating drama. I heard the voice from the darkness answer her. It was no longer the voice I recognized.

“Say what you have to say as quickly as possible, please.”

“I have put my rings and bracelets upon the table. I am wearing around my neck a miniature set with brilliants. It is not really very valuable, but it was left me by a relative. May I keep it?”

The light flashed for a moment upon the pendant which she seemed to be holding forward for examination, flashed on the little heap of her jewelry upon the table.

“Pray keep your miniature,” the voice conceded. “Do me the further honor, if you will, of replacing your jewelry upon your fingers and wrists. We are not here to rob children of their baubles.”

BEATRICE'S laugh was a most amazing thing. It was perfectly natural and full of amused enjoyment.

“I don't like the reflection upon my jewelry,” she complained. “However, since you are so generous, I will accept your offer.”

“Look here,” Lord Kindersley broke out, finding a certain courage from his niece's complete composure, “is this a practical joke? Because, if so, it has gone damn' well far enough!”

“You will discover if it is a practical joke or not, if you attempt to leave your seat!” was the instant reply.

“These fellows can't think they're going to get away with a thing like this,” muttered Lord Harroden, the lord lieutenant of the county, from the other end of the table.

“Your Lordship is mistaken,” was the confident reply from the unseen figure who was directing the proceedings. “I will lay you five to one in hundreds that we do, payment to be made through the personal column of the Times in thirty days' time.”

“Gad, he's a cool hand!” chuckled Anstruther, the master of hounds, who was seated next but one to me. “I wish I could see his face for a moment.”

“It would be your last if you did,” he was promptly told.

“What if I strike a match?” a young man who was seated next to Beatrice Kindersley inquired.

“I should put it out with one bullet and you with the next,” Michael assured him grimly. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, after a brief pause, “our business seems to be over. Any one who leaves his seat before we reach the door, will be shot. As soon as we get there, we shall lock you in, and then you can commence your part of the fun as soon as you like. If you care for suggestions, why not leave it to Mr. Anstruther to organize a midnight steeplechase, everyone to choose his own mount—motorcar, hunter or bicycle. We sha'n't leave much of a trail but for once in a while you'll be worrying something to death that can spit death back. Why don't you come and try? You'll all be welcome.”

No one attempted a single word of reply. The little points of fire were kept turned upon us while our visitors slowly retreated. We heard the door unlocked, heard it slammed, heard it locked again—the signal for our emancipation. Very nearly simultaneously we all started to our feet. Two of the women were sobbing and shrieking. The woman whose emerald necklace had gone was the least discomposed of any.

“I wouldn't have missed this show for the world,” she declared.

“I'm all for the steeplechase,” Anstruther proposed. “Gad that fellow would be worth hunting!”

“I'll sack every servant in the house,” Lord Kindersley growled. “Curse them all, why doesn't some one come?”

Everyone was talking at once, without much result. We rang bells that made no sound and battered at the door, a somewhat futile proceeding as it was several inches thick. Some one found a box of matches, and illuminated by the fitful flame, the faces of the little company made a study for a Holbein. With the help of some chairs, I mounted to the windows, but they were too narrow to allow the passage of even the slimmest of us. Finally Lord Kindersley groped his way back to the table from the sideboard with a fresh decanter of port in his hand.

“Dash it all,” he exclaimed, “let's have another glass of wine! I don't mind telling you that I'm shaking all over. It was like having the Lord High Executioner behind one's chair. His pistol was real enough, too. I felt it once against my neck. Ugh!”

ANSTRUTHER asked me a question from somewhere in the shadows.

“Greyes,” he said, “you were speaking of a famous criminal, a man named Michael. You called that fellow—”

“That was the man,” I told him.

The drama of it all was curiously poignant. We sat around in the match-lit darkness, talking in disjointed fashion, waiting until such time as the servants might find their way to our relief.

“Greyes seems to me to be the lucky man,” Lord Harroden remarked. “He could have settled scores with you, all right—potted you like a sitting rabbit, any moment he wanted to.”

“Quite true,” I admitted. “But the one thing which has made the pursuit of Michael so fascinating is that he is the sort of man who would never shoot a sitting rabbit. He spoke the truth when he said that the end would come when one or the other of us was driven into a corner and both were armed..... So far as I am concerned,” I added, glancing across at Janet, “I am rather inclined to let it be a drawn battle. The hunting of men is a great sport, but the zest for it passes with the years.”

Release came at last; another key to the apartment where we were imprisoned was found; the door was thrown open, and a stream of servants with lamps and candles entered. A few minutes of incoherent exclamations followed. It seemed that the servants' hall had been locked at both ends and guarded in the same way as the banqueting hall; the guests' bedrooms had been systematically ransacked, and it became clear that the marauders must have numbered at least fifteen or twenty. The orders which Lord Kindersley roared out were almost pitifully ineffective. In due course we discovered that the telephone-wires had indeed been cut, that every motorcar in the garage had been rendered useless, the stables emptied and every horse driven out into the Park. We were seventeen miles from a market town and five miles from a village, and the moor which stretched from the park gates led across the loneliest part of England. The more we discussed it, the more we realized that it was, without doubt, a most amazing coup.

Illustration: I watched the two figures. I waved my hand in farewell, but Michael never once turned back.

NATURALLY, the press devoted a great deal of attention to a robbery of such sensational magnitude, and several journalists and photographers traveled down specially from London in search of material. The fact that I was one of the guests at Kindersley Court, and my wife among the victims of the robbery, gave a certain piquancy to the affair of which the facile pens of some of my literary acquaintances took full advantage. Even Rimmington himself came down from Scotland Yard with two of his shrewdest assistants, but as he acknowledged to me upon the third night after their arrival, the whole affair had been carried out with such amazing foresight that it seemed impossible to lay hold anywhere of a clue.

A large reward was offered for the recovery of any portion of the jewels, the total value of which was estimated at something over two hundred thousand pounds, and every outlet from the country was carefully watched; but neither in Paris, London nor Amsterdam was there the slightest movement among the known dealers in stolen gems. The little company of robbers seemed, indeed, to have driven away in their cars, and within a mile and a half of the front door of Kindersley Court, to have vanished from the face of the earth. No shepherd upon the moors had seen them pass; none of the inhabitants of the small hamlets around had been awakened from their slumbers by the rushing through the night of those mysterious automobiles. Even Rimmington, who had more optimism than any other man of my acquaintance in the profession, returned to London a saddened and disappointed man.

Janet and I stayed on at Kindersley for the last meet of the stag-hounds—a day which neither of us likely ever to forget. We motored over to Exford, where our host had sent all his available horses two days before. Janet, Beatrice Kindersley and I were among those of the house party who rode, Beatrice looking remarkably well on a fine Dartmoor-bred chestnut, a present from her uncle within the last few days. We had one short hunt and a great deal of waiting about.

Early in the afternoon we found ourselves on the fringe of the hunt, on the southern slope of Hawksley Down. Below us, at the bottom of the coomb, hounds were being put through a thick jungle of dwarf pines, through which, if a stag were found, he was almost certain to make for Dooneley Barrow, on our right. Suddenly Beatrice, who had been looking over her shoulder, gave a little exclamation. A man, riding a dark bay horse, whom I had noticed once or twice always on the outskirts of the hunt, came round the side of a piled-up mass of stones and boulders, and rode straight up to us.

I must confess that at first the incident possessed no significance for me. In his well-cut and well-worn riding-clothes, and possessing the assured seat of a practiced rider, there was nothing to distinguish this man from half a dozen of Lord Kindersley's neighbors with whom we had exchanged greetings during the day. It was not, in fact, until he suddenly wheeled his horse round to within a yard or two of us, and I saw something glitter in his right hand, that I realized who he was.

“Norman Greyes,” he said, “I call an armistice for five minutes. You will admit,” he added, glancing downward at his right hand, “that I am in a position to call the game.”

“Let it be an armistice, Michael,” I agreed. “What do you want with me?”

“With you, nothing,” he answered. “I came to speak to Miss Kindersley.”

He looked full at Beatrice as he spoke, and his voice seemed for the moment to have gained a strange new quality.

“I find that my confederate misunderstood me the other night,” he continued, “and that after all he took your jewelry from the table. I have stayed in the neighborhood to return it.”

He leaned over and placed a sealed box in Beatrice's hand. I could have sworn that I saw her fingers clutch passionately at his as he drew away.

“I knew that it was a mistake,” she said softly, looking across at him as though striving to call him back to her side. He kept his face, however, turned steadily away. His expression had changed. The old mocking smile was back upon his lips.

“Upon reflection, Janet,” he continued, “especially when I considered the richness of our haul, I felt a certain impulse of distaste toward robbing you of your newly acquired splendors. Permit me.”

HE handed her also a little packet. Then he backed his horse a few paces, but he still lingered, and I knew that he had something else to say.

“So our friend Rimmington has given up the chase and gone back to London!” he observed. “Give him a hint from me some day. Tell him not to take it for granted that the first impulse of the malefactor is to place as great a distance as possible between himself and the scene of his misdemeanors. Sometimes the searching hand passes over what it seeks to grasp.”

“I will remember your message,” I promised. “You realize, of course, that I shall report your being still in the neighborhood?”

“If you did not,” was the cool reply “the next few hours would be empty of interest to me. Even if you yourself take a hand in the game, Greyes, and I will do you the credit to admit that you are the cleverest of the lot, I promise you that I shall make my way to safety as easily as I shall canter across this moor.”

He leaned suddenly toward me.

“Send the women on for a moment,” he begged. “I have a word for you alone.”

JANET turned her horse at once in obedience to my gesture. Beatrice however, lingered. She was gazing across at my companion. I saw their eyes meet, and it seemed to me a strange thing that such a look should pass between those two. Then I saw Michael shake his head.

“I must speak to Greyes alone,” he insisted. “Every moment that I linger here makes my escape more difficult.”

She turned and rode slowly after Janet but reined in her horse scarcely twenty paces away. Michael rode up to my side. He had dropped his weapon back into the loose pocket of his riding-coat. He was at my mercy, and he knew it. Yet, rightly enough, he had no fear.

“Norman Greyes,” he said, “this is the end of our duel, for I have finished with life as you and I understand life. Fate has made us enemies. Fate might more than once have given either of us the other's life. Those things are finished.”

“You speak as though you were making a voluntary retirement—yet how can you hope to escape?” I asked him. “There is a price upon your head wherever you turn. Even though my day has passed, there are others who will never rest until they have brought you to justice.”

“I am not here to speak about myself,” he answered indifferently. “I want a word with you about that girl.”

“About Beatrice Kindersley?”

“Yes.”

“What can you have to say about her?” I demanded, puzzled, although the memory of that look was still with me.

“Never mind.... You know life, Greyes, although you walk on the wrong side of the fence. You know that the greatest of us are great because of our follies. That girl is the folly of my later life. There is a touch of romance in her, a sentiment— For God's sake, Greyes, don't sit and look at me like a graven image! Be a human being and say that you understand.”

I remembered that look, and I nodded. “I understand,” I said. “Go on.”

“Tell her, then, for the love of heaven, who and what I am. Tell her that I have wives living, women whom I have deceived in every quarter of the globe. Tell her that a policeman's hand upon my shoulder would mean the gallows in England or the electric chair in America. Tell her what manner of life I have lived. Strip off the coverings. Show her the raw truth. Tell her that I am a criminal at heart from the sheer love of crime.”

“I'll tell her what you say,” I promised

“Damn it, man!” he answered passionately, as he turned his head to windward for a moment and swung round his horse. “Tell her nothing from me; tell her from yourself! You know the truth, if any man does. Give her pain, if you must. Show her the ugly side. As man to man Greyes, enemy to enemy, swear that you will do this.”

“I swear,” I answered.

He must have touched his horse with his whip, unseen by me, for the words had scarcely left my lips before he was galloping away, making for the loneliest and bleakest part of the moor. I heard a stifled cry from Beatrice, a cry that was almost a sob.

“Why did you let him go, Norman? I wanted to say good-by!”

“He left some messages for you,” I answered, a little grimly.

Michael Takes Up the Story.

I LUNCHED one Sunday morning at the Café de Paris with my friend Gaston Lefèvre, the well-known insurance agent of the Rue Scribe—a luncheon specially planned to celebrate the winding-up of one of the greatest coups of our partnership. We had a table in the far corner of the restaurant, and we were able by reason of its isolation to speak of intimate things.

“You must now be a very wealthy man, my friend,” Lefèvre said to me a trifle enviously, for all Frenchmen worship money, “a very wealthy man indeed.”

“I have enough,” I answered. “As a matter of fact, that is one of the reasons why I have decided to levy no more contributions upon the fools of the world.”

“You are not going to retire?” Lefèvre cried in a tone of alarm.

“Absolutely,” I assured him. “I have burned all my boats in England, destroyed all ciphers, sealed up my secret places of refuge and said good-by to all my friends. I have said good-by even to Younghusband, the cleverest rascal who ever successfully carried out the bluff of being a respectable Lincoln's Inn solicitor for over fifteen years. The rascal is actually getting new clients every week—genuine clients, I mean. He is almost as wonderful as you.”

“As for me,” my companion confessed, sipping his wine, “my position has never been so difficult as yours. I have run no risks like you. I have never stolen a penny in my life, or raised my hand in anger or strife against any of my fellow-creatures.”

I laughed softly. After all, the hypocrites of the world are among the essential things.

“You have made a million or so by those who have,” I reminded him.

“Money which has been thoroughly well earned,” was the confident reply. “Under the shelter of my name and position, many things have been rendered possible which could not otherwise have been even attempted. Take this last business, for instance. Could you ever have smuggled a quarter of a million pounds' worth of jewelry out of the country without my aid?”

“It is agreed,” I assented. “In such matters you have genius.”

M. Lefèvre waved his hand.

“It is a trifle, that,” he declared. “Let us speak of yourself, my friend. You are in the prime of life; excitement is as necessary to you as his sweetheart to a Frenchman or his golf to an Englishman. You have just brought off one of the finest coups which has ever been planned. A hundred and fifty thousand pounds to divide for the sale of these jewels, and not a single clue left behind! It was genius indeed. What is going to take the place of these things to you in life?”

I shrugged my shoulders, for indeed I had asked myself the same question.

“There is plenty of amusement to be found,” I answered.

Monsieur Lefèvre had his doubts.

“That is all very well,” he pointed out, “but if you destroy for yourself, as you say you have done, all the hundred and one means of escape which our ingenuity has evolved, you will have to step warily for the next few years. Neither London nor New York will forget you easily.”

“My disappearance,” I replied, “will be your task. Today we divided the last installments of our recent profits—amounting, I think, to a little over two million francs. Half a million I have placed in this envelope. They will be yours in return for the service you are about to render me.”

My companion's eyes glistened.

“It is a difficult matter, this, then, my friend?” he asked anxiously.

“On the contrary, it will give you very little trouble indeed,” I assured him. “You have, I think, among your other very useful connections, a friendly one with a certain French hospital. I will mention no names.”

“That is, in a measure, true,” Monsieur Lefèvre assented cautiously.

“YOUR task, then, is simple,” I explained. “In the bag which I left at your office yesterday are clothes, jewelry, papers and other trifles of apparent insignificance. The next unknown man who dies in the hospital, of my height and build, will be wearing these clothes, and will have in his possession the other trifles I have spoken of, which have been all carefully chosen to establish my identity. The authorities will notify the French and New York police, Scotland Yard and the press. You, also, will assist in making it publicly known that a well-known criminal has passed away.”

“I see no difficulty,” my companion admitted thoughtfully.

“There is no difficulty,” I assured him.

“And afterward?”

I shook my head.

“There is no person breathing,” I told him, “to whom I shall confide my plan. I am in no hurry. I think you will agree that for a certain length of time, I could move about Paris without fear of being recognized.”

“It is, without doubt, true,” my companion assented, leaning back in his place and studying me thoughtfully. “I passed you on the boulevard and here, in the entrance, without a single impulse of recognition. I did not know you even when you spoke to me. You look precisely what I took you to be, an elderly Frenchman of good birth, retired from some profession, rather an elegant, something of a boulevardier, nothing whatever of an Englishman. I tell you, Michael,” my companion concluded with some enthusiasm, “that no artist upon the stage or off it, in our day, is such master of human disguise as you.”

“I will not attempt to say that you flatter me, Lefèvre,” I replied, “because, as a matter of fact, I believe that what you say is the truth. Very well, then, just as I am, I commence so much as may be left to me of the aftermath of life. Within a week I shall leave Paris. You may never see or hear of me again. On the other hand, I may feel the call. I make no rash promises or statements.”

“It would interest me strangely to be in the secret of your whereabouts,” Lefèvre persisted.

I shook my head, as I called for the bill.

“I have a fancy,” I told him, “for stepping off the edge of the world.... Let us take an automobile and watch the beautiful women at Auteuil.”

A FORTNIGHT later I read my obituary notice in a dozen papers. The New York Herald devoted a column to me, and the Continental Daily Mail followed suit. The Times dismissed me with half a dozen lines of small print, which seemed unkind when one considered the quantity of free sensational material I had afforded them. The Daily Telegraph seemed to think that Scotland Yard was at fault in having allowed me to slip out of the world according to my own time and inclination. The Morning Post thought that society at large must breathe a sigh of relief at the passing away of one of the world's greatest criminals. Only one French paper reported a little incident which for a single moment brought the fires of madness into my blood—madness, and a weakness of which I shall not speak. Some one in England, a woman, had wired to a Paris florist, and there were flowers sent to the hospital on the morning of the funeral, with no hypocritical message, just the name “Beatrice” on a card.... Well, it was my choice.

Janet's Narrative.

IT was chance which brought us to St. Jean de Luz, chance and Norman's desire to escape from the pandemonium of an overcrowded golf-course. We sat out on the veranda of the golf club on the late afternoon of our arrival, I watching the pink and mauve outlines of the lower hills and the somber majesty of the snow-capped mountains beyond. There had been a wind earlier in the day, but the stillness here was almost incredible. The trees which crowned the summit of the grassy slopes were silent and motionless; the cypresses beyond, against the background of the pink-fronted farmhouses they sheltered, seemed darker than ever; the poplars leading to the villas on the south side of the valley stood like silent sentinels. I was conscious of a curious sense of tranquillity, inspired a little no doubt, by my surroundings. Norman, after a few words of appreciation, looked longingly at his golf-clubs and suggested a game to the secretary, who had come out to welcome us.

“Sorry, but I've had two rounds already,” the latter regretted. “There's a man named Benisande out there, practicing. He's a Frenchman, but a thundering good player. Would you care about a round with him?”

“I should like a round with anyone,” Norman declared enthusiastically.

The secretary strolled across toward the man who was practicing mashie shots onto the last green, a slim man with a slight but graceful stoop, silver-gray hair and clean-cut, weather-beaten features. He was dressed in tweed golf-clothes of English fashion, and was attended by his own manservant, who was carrying his clubs. He apparently accepted the secretary's suggestion with alacrity, and the two men came over to us at once.

A few words of introduction were spoken, and we all made our way to the first tee. The Frenchman, discovering that Norman's handicap was the same as his own, insisted upon the latter taking the honor. Norman drove an average ball straight down the course—and then came the great moment. Monsieur Benisande glanced curiously at us both, handed his cap to his servant, swung his club and addressed the ball. I gave a little cry. Norman stood as though he were turned to stone. In that moment we had both recognized him. Unmoved, Michael drove straight and far up the course, and watched his ball for the length of its run. Afterward we three stood and looked at one another upon the tee. The secretary had disappeared in the clubhouse; the caddies had already started after the balls; we were practically alone.

“This is an interesting coincidence,” Michael remarked with smile that seemed to have lost all its cynicism. “Our acquaintance, Sir Norman, if I remember rightly, commenced with a game of golf at Woking.”

“We thought that you were dead!” I gasped.

Michael sighed.

“I took great pains to insure your thinking so,” he declared. “It is my misfortune to have run up against the two people who were bound to recognize me. Still, I have had a very pleasant four years.”

“Is it so long?” I murmured, for Norman seemed still incapable of speech.

“Four years and a few months,” Michael continued. “It is a great deal to have snatched from a life which I should have been ended. I have a charming little villa, a converted farmhouse—you can see it through the trees there, a delightful garden—my violets and carnations are famous; and there are very few English flowers which I have not managed to grow. I play a round of golf whenever I feel like it, and when the wander-hunger comes, I vanish up there into the Pyrenees. Antoine, my servant, is a Basque and an accomplished mountaineer. Today I can follow him anywhere.”

“What are we going to do about this?” Norman muttered.

“That remains with you,” Michael replied.

WE started to walk slowly where the two balls were lying almost side by side. I passed my arm through my husband's and looked into his face. It was obvious that he perfectly well realized the crisis with which he had to deal. During the last four years—wonderful years they had been—we had spent scarcely more than a month or two in London. We had traveled in Italy and Egypt, wintered twice in the south of France, and the remainder of the time had been devoted to Greyes Manor. I had my two babies to look after, and Norman his farms. The ties which had bound him to his old profession had naturally weakened; yet I knew now how his mind was working. Here, by his side, was a man whom he had sworn to bring to justice, a notorious criminal, a man who by every code of ethics and citizenship he ought promptly to denounce. And I knew that for some reason he hated the task almost as much as I hated it for him.

They drew near to their balls, and Norman came to a standstill. He had arrived at his decision. I, at any rate, awaited it breathlessly.

“Michael,” he said, “you shall have your chance. You know my duty. You know that I am a man who generally tries to do it. Yet, to be candid with you, I have a conviction that your career as a criminal is over, and my personal inclination is to leave you alone. We will let Fate decide it. We are as nearly equal at this game as two men can be. Fate made you my partner this evening. I will play you this round for your liberty and my silence.”

I saw Michael's eyes glitter, and I knew that the idea appealed to him. He looked toward the green and swung his cleek lightly backward and forward.

“Let us understand one another,” he insisted. “If I win, I am free of you for the rest of my life. If I lose, I am to face the end.”

“If you lose,” Norman said, “I shall send a telegram to Scotland Yard, and another to the chief of the police at Marseilles.”

“The terms are agreed,” Michael declared, taking up his stance. “My life against your bruised conscience.”

SO the match started. The first hole was halved in four, and from then onward commenced a struggle which I can hardly think of, even now, without a shiver of excitement. Neither was ever more than two up; but toward the sixteenth hole, I began to realize that another factor besides skill was at work. Norman topped his second shot but jumped the bunker and lay upon the green. Michael carried the bunker with a perfectly played mashie shot, but pitched upon a mowing machine and came back to an almost unplayable place in the long grass. He lost the hole. Norman, who was as nearly nervous as I have ever seen him, muttered something about bad luck, but his adversary only shrugged his shoulders.

At the seventeenth hole Norman drove fairly well but was still sixty yards short of the green. It was the old Michael who took his stand afterward on the tee, hard and dogged. I saw his teeth gleam for a moment, and the whitening of the flesh around his knuckles as he gripped his club fiercely. He hit the most wonderful drive I have ever seen, long and low and straight. It carried on and on, while we watched it breathlessly. Finally it ran onto the green and ended within a couple of clubs'-lengths of the hole. I gave a little gasp of relief, for from the first I had prayed that my husband might lose.

But I had reckoned without that unseen force. Norman topped his mashie shot, which bumped along the ground onto the green, passed Michael's ball, and to my horror, dropped into the hole. Even Norman himself seemed to have no words. He stood looking at the spot where his ball had disappeared, his face averted from his opponent.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “My second fluke in two holes, I'm afraid.”

Michael made no remark. He studied his putt long and carefully, hit it with a musical little click, and we all watched it run straight for the hole. At the last moment some trifling irregularity of surface seemed to deflect it; it caught the corner of the hole, swung round inside and came out again. It rested on the very edge, and we stood there waiting. Nothing, however, happened. Michael turned away, and I fancied that I saw a little quiver upon his lips.

“We are now all square,” he said. “I scarcely expected to lose the last two holes.”

“I have been lucky,” Norman admitted a little brusquely, “but I can't help it. It might have been the other way.”

AT the eighteenth, a strong wind was against them. Norman, pulling a little, escaped the bunkers; but Michael, hitting a far better ball, carried them with a few yards to spare. Norman played a fine second and reached the green four or five yards from the hole. When Michael reached his ball, I saw him stop and look at it. His servant gave an exclamation. It was lying where a huge clod of earth had been knocked away by some beginner and never replaced, without it and on a downward slope. I looked across toward my husband.

“It isn't fair,” I whispered hoarsely. “Move it with your foot. Norman can't see. Besides, I'm in the way.”

Michael, who was choosing a club, just glanced up at me for a moment, and I felt as though I had said something sacrilegious.

“We don't play games that way,” he rejoined quietly. “I am afraid this is going to be rather a forlorn hope, though.”

He took a niblick, and against the wind he was only able to get about half-way to the green. This time, however, his ball was lying well.

“I play the odd,” he murmured as he selected a running-up cleek. We waited breathlessly for the shot. Norman's caddy and Michael's servant, although they had no idea, of course, of the significance of the match, had gathered from our tense air that it was of no ordinary interest. We all watched Michael's ball, when at last he played it, spellbound. It was a low shot, beautifully straight for the flag, and I could scarcely keep back a little cry of joy when I saw it land on the green and run slowly two or three yards past the hole.

“A fine recovery,” Norman said thickly. “My turn now to play the like.”

He took his putter and my heart sank as I saw him strike the ball well and firmly. For a moment it seemed as though he had holed it and the match was over. It came to a standstill about eighteen inches short.

“This for a half,” Michael remarked as he went toward his ball.

I saw him half close his eyes as he took up his stance, and I wondered for a moment what he was thinking of. He took the line carefully and struck the ball straight for the back of the hole. I gave a little gasp. It seemed as though the half were assured. Then a cry of dismay from Michael's caddy startled me. The ball, although it had seemed to hit the back of the hole, spun round and came out again. Again it lay within a foot or so of the hole. Michael stood quite still, looking at it. He glanced up and our eyes met.

“The Fates,” he said quietly, “are against me.”

NORMAN took out his putter, and I scarcely dared to watch. He was only a few inches from the hole. The result seemed certain. Then as I forced myself to watch him, a strange thought came to me. He seemed to be taking unusual care, but he was holding his putter oddly, and he seemed to have lost his confidence.

“This for the match,” he said, looking across at his opponent.

“For the match,” Michael repeated hopelessly.

Norman struck the ball with a little stab—and I could scarcely believe my eyes. It missed the hole, passing it on the left-hand side and coming to a standstill at least two feet away. Norman looked down at the ground in a puzzled manner.

“This is the rottenest green on the course,” he muttered. “Whose play caddy?”

The caddy considered the matter for a moment and pointed to Michael. This time there was no mistake. The ball went well and truly to the bottom of the hole. Norman again surprised me. He studied his ridiculous little putt with exaggerated care, brushed away some fancied impediment and reproved his caddy sharply for talking. When he hit the ball, he hit it crisply enough, but again with that little stab which drew it once more to the wrong side of the hole. There was a little murmur.

“I never saw such filthy putting in my life!” Norman exclaimed, looking exactly like a normal man who has lost an important match by a moment's carelessness. “Your match, Monsieur Benisande. I think perhaps you deserved it. You had all the worst of the luck until my putting paralysis set in.”

Michael took off his hat, and I saw great beads of perspiration upon his forehead.

“I am thankful for my win,” he said quietly, “but I scarcely expected it.”

We all walked back to the clubhouse together.

“Janet and I will leave St. Jean de Luz at once,” Norman announced.

“It will not be necessary,” Michael rejoined quickly. “Tomorrow I start for the mountains. I shall be gone for a week or more. I beg that you will not hurry your departure.... May I speak to you for a moment, Janet?”

Norman made his way, without remark, to the clubhouse. He neither spoke to nor looked toward Michael again. Men are strange beings. This was the passing of the feud which left them both forsworn.

I SPARED Michael the question which I knew was upon his lips.

“Beatrice is well,” I told him. “She still unmarried.”

There was a light in Michael's face which I pretended not to see. It was gone in a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was quite steady.

“I am sorry to hear that she is unmarried,” he said, “although no man in the world could be worthy of her. I am going to intrust you with a mission. If ever the truth concerning me should come to light, I want her to know this.”

He drew from his pocket a letter-case of black silk with platinum clasps, a simple but very elegant trifle for a man. Out of it he drew what appeared to be its sole contents, a crumpled card, upon which was written, in Beatrice's handwriting, her own name. The card was smeared as though with the stain of crushed flowers.

“I planned my death,” he continued with a faint return to his old cynical smile, “very much as I have lived my life—with my tongue in my cheek. Then I read in some French paper that Beatrice had sent flowers to the hospital for my funeral, and I felt all the bitter shame of a man who has done an ugly thing. I made what atonement I could. After having reached absolute safety, I risked my life in almost foolhardy fashion. I attended my own funeral. I stole that card and one of the flowers from the grave. If ever she should learn the truth,” he added, his face turned away toward the mountains, “I should like her to know that. She may reckon it as atonement.”

I laid my hand upon his arm. Speech of any sort seemed to have become extraordinarily difficult. When I had found the words I wanted, Michael had gone.

THE last we saw of Michael was, in its way, allegorical. As we climbed one of the grassy slopes of the golf-club on the following morning, we saw two men on the other side of the river, walking steadily away from us along the path which led across the lower chain of hills toward the mountains. They carried knapsacks on their backs and long staves in their hands. They had, somehow, at that distance, the air of pilgrims.

“There goes Benisande, off on one of his mountain expeditions,” the secretary who was playing with Norman, remarked, pointing them out. “They say that he made up his mind to climb that farther peak beyond the pass. Even the Basque guides call him foolhardy.”

I watched the two figures. I waved my hand in futile farewell. But Michael never once turned back.

The End