Low tide at three-fifteen! Captain Francis Newcombe, in the stern of a small motor boat, drew his flashlight from his pocket and consulted his watch. Five minutes after two. He nodded his head in satisfaction. Just right! And the night was just right—just cloudy enough to make of the moonlight an ally rather than a foe. It disclosed the island there looming up ahead now perhaps a mile away; it would not disclose so diminutive a thing as this little motor boat out here on the water creeping in toward the shore.
The boat was barely large enough to accommodate the baggage, piled forward, and still leave room for Runnells and himself. Also the boat leaked abominably; also the engine, not only decrepit but in bad repair, was troublesome and spiteful. Captain Francis Newcombe shrugged his shoulders. The engine was Runnells' look-out; that was why, as a matter of fact, Runnells was here at all. As for the rest, what did it matter? The boat had been bought for the proverbial song over there on the mainland, and it was good enough to serve its present purpose.
Again he changed his position, but his eyes narrowed now as they fixed on Runnells' back. Runnells sat amidships where he could both nurse the engine and manipulate the little steering wheel at his side. Runnells was a necessary evil. He, Newcombe, did not know how to run the engine. Therefore he had been obliged to bring Runnells along, and therefore Runnells would participate after all in the old fool's half million—temporarily. Afterwards—well there were so many things that might happen when Runnells had lost his present usefulness!
Runnells spoke now abruptly.
"It's pretty hard to make out anything ashore," he said; "but if we've hit it right, we ought to be just about heading for a little above the boathouse. Can you pick up anything?"
"Nothing but the outline of the island against the sky," Captain Francis Newcombe answered. "We're too far out yet."
Runnells' sequence of thought was obviously irrelevant and disconnected.
"The blinking swine!" he muttered savagely. "Stripped to the pelt and searched, I was—and you, too! And kicked ashore like a dog! Gawd, it's too bad they ain't going to know they'll have had the trick turned on 'em after all! I'd give a good bit of my share to see Locke's face if he knew. He wouldn't think himself such a wily bird maybe!"
"You're a bit of a fool, Runnells," said Captain Francis Newcombe shortly.
His train of thought had been interrupted. Runnells had suggested another—Locke. Captain Francis Newcombe's hands clenched suddenly, fiercely in the darkness. Locke! Some day, somewhere—but not now; not until the days and months, yes even years, if necessary, were past and gone, and Locke had forgotten Captain Francis Newcombe, and Scotland Yard had forgotten—he would meet Locke again. And when that time came there would be no ammunition wasted as there had been in that damned thicket that night! Locke! The fool doubtless thought that he had been completely master of the situation and of Captain Francis Newcombe—even to the extent of obliterating Captain Francis Newcombe. Well, perhaps he had! It was quite true that the clubs of London, and, yes, for instance, the charming old Earl of Cloverley, would know Captain Francis Newcombe no more—but Shadow Varne still lived, and Shadow Varne with half a million dollars, even in a new environment, wherever it might be, did not present so drear and uninviting a prospect. Ha, ha! Locke! Locke could wait—that was a pleasure the future held in store! What counted now, the only thing that counted, was getting the money actually into his possession—that, and the assurance that the trail was smothered and lost behind him. Well, the former was only a matter of, say, an hour or so at the most now; and the latter left nothing to be desired, did it?
He smiled with cool, ironic complacency. Locke, having in mind Scotland Yard, would expect him to disappear as effectually and as rapidly as possible. Locke ought not to be disappointed! He had disappeared; he and Runnells—and, equally important, their luggage. One was sometimes too easily traced by luggage—especially with that infernally efficient checking system they employed on the railroads here in America! It had been rather simple. When Runnells and the luggage and himself had all been dumped with equal lack of ceremony on a wharf over there on the mainland, he had had some of the negroes that were loitering around carry the luggage into a sort of storage shed that was on the dock, and, merely saying that he would send for his things, he and Runnells had unostentatiously allowed themselves to be swallowed up by the city. And then they had separated. The rest had been a matter of detail—detail in which Runnells, with the experience of years, was particularly efficient. A purchase here, a purchase there—quite innocent purchases in themselves—and later on a man, not two men, but one man, a man who did not at all look like Runnells, seeing the chance of picking up a bargain in a second-hand motor boat somewhere along the waterfront, had bought it and gone away with it. Later on again, but not until after nightfall, not until nine o'clock in fact, he, Captain Francis Newcombe, had "sent" for the luggage—by the very simple expedient of forcing an entry into the shed and loading it into the motor boat that Runnells had brought alongside the dock. Thereafter, Runnells, the luggage and himself had disappeared. Surely Locke ought to be quite satisfied—he, Captain Francis Newcombe, was doing his best to guarantee Polly against any unseemly publicity in connection with Scotland Yard! And he would continue to do so! With any kind of luck, he would be away from the island here again long before daylight; then, say, a few nights' cruising along the coast, laying up by day, and then, as circumstances dictated, by railroad, or whatever means were safest, a final—
With a smothered oath, Captain Francis Newcombe snatched at the gunwale of the boat for support, as he was thrown suddenly forward from his seat. The boat seemed to stagger and recoil as from some vicious blow that had been dealt it, and then, as he recovered his balance, it surged forward again with an ugly, rending, tearing sound along the bottom planks, rocking violently—then an even keel again—and silence.
Runnells had stopped the engine.
"My Gawd," Runnells cried out wildly, "we've gone and done it!"
Captain Francis Newcombe was on his feet peering through the darkness to where Runnells, who after stopping the engine had sprung forward from his seat, was now groping around beneath the pile of luggage.
"A reef, eh?" said Captain Francis Newcombe coolly. "Well, we got over it. We're in deep water again. Carry on!"
Runnells' voice came back full of fear.
"We're done, we are," he mumbled. "I stopped the engine the minute she hit, but she had too much way on her—that's what carried her over. She's bashed a hole in her the size of your head. She won't float five minutes."
"Start her ahead again, then!" Captain Francis Newcombe's voice snapped now.
"It won't do any good," Runnells answered, as he stumbled back to his former place. "She won't anywhere near make the shore—it's half a mile at least."
"Quite so!" said Captain Francis Newcombe. "But, in that case, we won't have so far to swim!"
The engine started up again.
"It ain't as though we didn't know there was reefs"—Runnells was stuttering his words—"only we'd figured with our light draft we wouldn't any more than scrape one anyhow, and it wouldn't do us any harm. But she's rotten, that's what she is—plain rotten and putty! And we must have hit a sharp ledge of rock. Gawd, we've a foot of water in us now!"
"Yes," said Captain Francis Newcombe calmly. "Well, don't blubber about it! We'll get ashore—and we'll get away again. There's half a dozen skiffs and things of that sort stowed away in the boathouse that are never used now. One of them will never be missed, and we can at least get far enough away from the island by daybreak not to be seen, and eventually we'll make the other side even if it is a bit of a row."
"Row!" ejaculated Runnells.
"Yes," said Captain Francis Newcombe curtly. "Why not—since we have to? We can't steal a motor boat whose loss would be discovered, can we?"
"My Gawd!" said Runnells.
The water was sloshing around Captain Francis Newcombe's feet; the boat had already grown noticeably sluggish in its movement. He cast an appraising eye toward the land. It was almost impossible to judge the distance. Runnells had said half a mile a few minutes ago. Call it a quarter of a mile now. But Runnells was quite right in one respect; it was certain now that the boat would scuttle before the shore was reached.
"How far can you swim, Runnells?" he demanded abruptly.
"It ain't that," choked Runnells, "I can swim all right; it's—"
"It was just a matter of whether your body would be washed up on the shore, which would be equally as bad as though the boat stranded there for the edification of our friend Locke," drawled Captain Francis Newcombe. "But since you can swim that far, and since the boat's got to sink, let her sink here in deep water where she won't keep anybody awake at night wondering about her—or us. Stop the engine again!"
"But the luggage," said Runnels, "I—"
"It will sink out of sight quite readily, but run a rope through the handles and lash the stuff to the boat so it won't drift ashore—yes, and anything else that's loose!" said Captain Francis Newcombe tersely. "I can't swim a quarter of a mile with portmanteaus! Stop the engine!"
"Strike me pink!" said Runnells faintly, as he obeyed and again stumbled forward to the luggage.
Captain Francis Newcombe sat down and began to unlace his boots. The water was nearly level with the bottom of the seat.
"Hurry up, Runnells!" he called.
"It's all right," said Runnells after a moment.
"Take your boots off then, and sling them around your neck," ordered Captain Francis Newcombe.
"Yes," said Runnells.
Captain Francis Newcombe stood up and divested himself of a light raincoat he had been wearing. From the skirt of the garment he ripped off a generous portion, and, taking out his revolver and flashlight, wrapped them around and around with the waterproof cloth. The coat itself he thrust into an already water-filled locker under the seat where it could not float away.
"Ready, Runnells?" he inquired.
"Yes," said Runnells.
"Come on, then," said Captain Francis Newcombe.
The gunwale was awash as he struck out. A dozen strokes away, as he looked back, the boat had disappeared. He cursed sullenly under his breath—then laughed defiantly. It would take more than that to beat Shadow Varne.
Runnells swam steadily at his side.
Presently they stepped out on the shore.
Captain Francis Newcombe stared up and down the beach, as he seated himself on the sand and began to pull on his boots.
"We're a bit off our bearings, Runnells," he said. "I couldn't see any sign of the boathouse even when I was swimming in. And I can't see it now. Which way do you think it is?"
Runnells was also struggling with his wet boots.
"We're too far up," he answered. "I thought I had it about right, but I figured that if I didn't quite hit it, it would be safer to be on this side than the other so we wouldn't have to pass either the wharf or the house in getting to it."
"Good!" commented Captain Francis Newcombe. "We'll walk back that way, then."
They started on along the beach. For perhaps half a mile they walked in silence, and then, rounding a little point, the boathouse came into view a short distance ahead. A moment later they passed in under the overhang of the verandah.
And then Runnells snarled suddenly.
Captain Francis Newcombe was unwrapping his flashlight. The faint, stray rays of moonlight that managed to penetrate the place did little more than accomplish the creation of innumerable black shadows of grotesque shapes.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
"The damned place in under here gives me the creeps after last night," Runnells growled.
"It's not exactly pleasant," admitted Captain Francis Newcombe casually.
"You're bloody well right, it ain't!" agreed Runnells fervently. And then sharply, as the ray from the flashlight in Captain Francis Newcombe's hand streamed out: "That's where he lay last night, only the water's farther out now. It's blasted queer the thing never tackled the old madman in all this time."
"On the contrary," said Captain Francis Newcombe, "it would rather indicate that the brute was a transient visitor."
"Then I hope to Gawd," mumbled Runnells, "that it didn't like the quarters well enough to stick them for another night."
"I agree with you," laughed Captain Francis Newcombe coolly; "but, as it happens, it's low tide now and the water is out beyond where we are going—which may offer an alternative solution to old Marlin's escape. However, Runnells, that's not what we are looking for—we're looking for a keyhole."
He led the way forward, his flashlight playing on the big central concrete pier, some eight feet square, in front of him. He was chuckling quietly to himself. It being established that the old maniac's hiding place was here under the boathouse, a hiding place that was opened by a key, and that, except at low tide, was inaccessible, the precise location of that hiding place became obvious even to a child. The row of little piers that supported the structure at the sides and front were all individually too small to be hollow—and there was absolutely nothing else here except the big centre support.
With Runnells beside him now, he began to examine this centre pier under the ray of his flashlight. He walked once completely around it, making a quick, preliminary examination. The pier was some six or seven feet in height, and the concrete construction was reinforced with massive iron bands placed both horizontally and transversely between two and three feet apart, the small squares thus formed giving a sort of checkerboard effect to the mass. The lower portion was green with sea-slime. There was no apparent evidence of any opening.
But Captain Francis Newcombe had not expected that there would be.
"Look for a little hole, Runnells," he said. "Anything, for instance, that might appear to be no more than a fault in the concrete. And look particularly above high water mark. The opening is below because the old man could only get in at low tide; but the keyhole is more likely to be above out of the reach of the water because it must be watertight inside."
"Yes," said Runnells.
They made a second circuit of the pier, but carefully now, searching minutely over every inch of surface. It took a long time—a very long time—a quarter of an hour—a half hour—more.
And still there was no sign of either keyhole or opening.
"Strike me pink!" grumbled Runnells. "It looks like it was sticking to us to-night! This is what I calls rotten luck!"
"And I was thinking that it was excellent—even beyond expectations, Runnells," said Captain Francis Newcombe smoothly. "The old man has done his work so well that it is certain no one would stumble on it. Therefore, when we get away, we do so with the absolute knowledge that an empty hiding place will never be discovered. You follow that, don't you, Runnells? No one except you and I will know that the money was ever found—or taken."
"Yes," said Runnells gruffly; "but we ain't got it yet. And we must have been at it a good hour already—and the tide's coming back in now."
"Quite so!" said Captain Francis Newcombe evenly. "But if we don't get it to-night, there is to-morrow night—and the night after that again. There are always the woods, and your ability as a thief guarantees us plenty to eat. Meanwhile, we'll stick to this side here fronting the sea—it's the logical place—one couldn't be seen even from under the verandah back there. Go over every bit of the iron work now."
Another quarter of an hour passed in silence—save for the lap of the water that, with the tide on the turn now, had crept up almost to the base of the pier. The flashlight moved slowly up and down and to right and left as the two men crouched there, bent forward, their fingers, augmenting the sense of sight, feeling over the surface of the cement and iron that here was barnacle-coated, and there covered with festoons of the green slime.
"It's no good!" said Runnells pessimistically at last. "Let's try around on another side, and get out of the water—I'm standing in it now."
"It's here—and nowhere else," said Captain Francis Newcombe doggedly. "And, furthermore, I'm certain it's one of these squares inside the intersecting pieces of iron. It would be just big enough to allow a man to crawl in and out—and not too big or too heavy for one man to handle alone. It can't be anything else. Whatever's here the old man made himself—no one helped him, understand, Runnells? His secret wouldn't be worth anything in that case. Go on—hunt!"
But Runnells, instead, had suddenly straightened up.
"I thought I heard something out there like—like a low splashing," he said tensely.
Captain Francis Newcombe paid no heed. He was laughing, low, jubilantly, triumphantly.
"I've got it, Runnells!" he cried. "Here's a bit of the iron down here that moves to one side—just a little piece. Look! And the keyhole underneath! I was wrong about the keyhole being above high water—it isn't, or anywhere near it—but we'll see how the contrivance works." He thrust his hand into his pocket, brought out the bronze key, fitted it quickly into the keyhole, and turned it. A faint click answered him. "Push, Runnells, on that square just above the water—it's bound to swing inward—these iron strips hide the joints."
But he did not wait for Runnells to obey his injunction. He snatched the key out of the lock again, and even as he saw the piece of iron swing back into place covering the keyhole, he was pushing against the concrete slab himself. It swung back and inward from its upper edge with a sort of oscillating movement. His flashlight bored into the opening. Clever! The old maniac had had the cunning of—a maniac! It was quite clear. Old Marlin had cut away the square and fitted it with a new block—yes, he could see!—the interior would, of course, have been flooded at high water while the old madman was preparing the new block, but that made no difference—the place would always empty itself at low tide again because the flooring, or base, in there was on the same level as the lower edge of the opening—and it would be when it was empty of water, naturally, that the new block would be fitted into place—and thereafter it would remain empty.
He was crawling through the opening now—the weight of the swinging block causing it to press against his shoulders, but giving way easily before his advance. There was just room to squeeze through. Very ingenious! The walls were a good foot to a foot and a half thick. The lock-bar worked through the side of the pier wall into the middle of the edge of the movable block so no water could get in that way; and the block when closed fitted in a series of gaskets against the inside of the iron bands that reinforced the outside of the pier, which latter, overlapping the edges of the block, hid any indication of an entrance from view. It must have taken the old fool weeks! Again Captain Francis Newcombe laughed. His head and shoulders were through now, and, with his flashlight's ray flooding the interior, he could see that—
A cry, sudden, wild, terror-stricken, from Runnells reached him.
"Quick!" Runnells cried frantically. "For the love of Gawd make room for me—the thing's here! Quick! Quick! Let me get in!"
The thing! In a flash Captain Francis Newcombe wriggled the rest of his body through the opening, and, holding back the movable block, sent his flashlight's ray streaming out through the opening. It lighted up Runnells' face, contorted with fear, ashen to the lips, as the man came plunging along; and out beyond, it played on a waving, sinuous tentacle, another and another, groping, snatching, feeling—and from out of the midst of these a revolting pair of eyes, and a beak, horny, monstrous, in shape like a parrot's beak.
With a gasp Runnells came through, sprawling on the floor.
The movable block swung back into place with a little click.
Captain Francis Newcombe shrugged his shoulders.
"A bit of a close shave, Runnells," he said. "I fancy you're right—last night was enough to his liking to bring the brute back again. Rather a bore, too! Unless he moves off again, he's got us penned up until low water."
"That'll be twelve hours," whimpered Runnells; "and it'll be daylight then—and another twelve before we could get out when it's dark."
Captain Francis Newcombe shrugged his shoulders again. His flashlight was playing around him. The hollow space here inside the pier was perhaps six feet square, and solid concrete, top, bottom and sides. This fact he absorbed subconsciously, as he reached quickly out now to a little shelf that had been built out from one side of the wall. There was a half burned candle here and some matches, and, lying beside these, a package wrapped in oiled-silk. He struck a match, lighted the candle, switched off his flashlight, thrust it into his pocket, and snatched up the package. An instant more and he had unwrapped it.
And unholy laughter came, and the soul of the man rocked with it. It rose and fell, hollow and muffled in the little space where there was scarcely room for the two men to move without jostling one another. The money! He had won! It was his! Locke—Paul Cremarre—Scotland Yard—ha, ha! Well, they had pitted themselves against Shadow Varne—and Shadow Varne had never yet failed to get what he went after, in spite of man, or God, or devil—and he had not failed now—and he never would fail!
He was tossing the bundles of bank notes from hand to hand with boastful glee.
"This'll buck you up a bit, Runnells!" he laughed. "You'll be well paid for waiting even if it has to be until to-morrow night—eh, what?"
Runnells, on his feet now, a sudden red of avarice burning in his cheeks, grabbed at one of the bundles, and began to fondle the notes with eager fingers.
"Gawd!" he croaked hoarsely. "Thousand-dollar notes! Strike me pink! Gawd!"
Captain Francis Newcombe was still laughing, but his eyes had narrowed now as, watching Runnells, there came a sudden thought. Would he need Runnells any more? There wasn't any motor boat to run—but it was a long way in a rowboat for one man over to the mainland. Here in the old maniac's hiding place—ideal—and a bit of irony in it too—delicious irony! Well, it did not require instant decision. Meanwhile it seemed to be strangely oppressive in here in the confined space.
"It's stuffy in here, Runnells," he said. "Pull that door, or block, or whatever you like to call it, back a crack and freshen the place up."
The "door" was fitted with a light brass handle, similar to a handle used on a bureau drawer. Runnells stooped, still clutching a bundle of bank notes in one hand, and gave the handle a careless pull. The block did not move. He gave the handle a vicious tug then, but still with the same result. He dropped the bundle of bank notes, and used both hands. The block did not yield.
"I can't move the damned thing," he snarled. "It seems to be locked."
Captain Francis Newcombe's voice was suddenly cold and hard.
"Try again!" he said. "Here, I'll help you! Take your coat off and run the sleeve, the two of them if you can, through the handle so we can both get hold."
Runnells obeyed.
Both men pulled.
The handle broke away from its fastenings. The block did not move.
"It's locked, I tell you," panted Runnells. "Haven't you got the key?"
"Yes," said Captain Francis Newcombe quietly; "but there's no hidden keyhole here. It's locked from the outside—a spring lock. I remember now hearing it click. The old man would set it so that he could get out, of course, every time he entered. We didn't."
"Gawd!" said Runnells thickly. "What're we going to do?"
Captain Francis Newcombe's eyes studied the four walls and roof. He spoke more to himself than Runnells.
"Say, six by six by six," he said. "Roughly, two hundred cubic feet. Watertight—hermetically sealed—no air except what's in here now. One hundred cubic feet per man—short work—very short."
"What do you mean?" whispered Runnells with whitening face—and coughed.
"I mean that brute out there, if it still is out there, counts for nothing now," said Captain Francis Newcombe steadily. "We could at least fight that—we can't fight suffocation. I'd say a very few minutes, Runnells, before we're groggy if we can't get air—I don't know how long the rest of it will take."
Runnells screamed. His face grey, beads of sweat suddenly spurting from his forehead, he flung himself against the cement "door," clawing with his finger nails, where no finger nails could grip, around the edges of the block. And then in maniacal frenzy he attacked the wall with his pocketknife.
The blades broke.
Captain Francis Newcombe, with a queer, set smile, drew his revolver, and, holding the muzzle close to the wall, fired. The bullet made little impression. With the muzzle now held over the same spot he fired again.
And now he choked and coughed a little.
The acrid fumes helped to vitiate the air.
"You're making it worse—my Gawd, you're making it worse!" shrieked Runnells. "I can't breathe that stuff into me."
"I prefer to be doing something, even if it's pretty well a foregone conclusion that it's useless—than sit on the floor and wait," Captain Francis Newcombe answered. "A bullet probably hasn't the ghost of a chance of going through—but if a bullet won't, nothing that we have got to work with will."
The lighted candle on the shelf began to flicker.
Captain Francis Newcombe fired again—once more—and yet still another shot.
Runnells moaned and staggered. He went to the floor, his fists beating at the wall until they bled.
Captain Francis Newcombe watched the candle.
The minutes passed.
The light grew dim.
Captain Francis Newcombe sat down on the floor.
A strange coughing, a mingling of choking sounds.
The candle flickered and went out.
Captain Francis Newcombe spoke. There was something debonair in his voice in spite of its laboured utterance:
"The house divided, Runnells. Do you remember that night in the thicket?"
There was no answer.
Again Captain Francis Newcombe spoke:
"I've saved two shots. Will you have one, Runnells? Suffocation's a rotten way to go out."
"No!" Runnells screamed. "No, no—my Gawd—no!"
Captain Francis Newcombe's laugh was choked and gasping.
"You always were a stinking coward, Runnells," he said. "Well, suit yourself."
The tongue flame of a revolver lanced through the blackness.
Runnells screamed and screamed again. Sprawling on the floor, his hand fell upon the package of bank notes he had dropped there. He tore at them now in his raving, tore them to pieces, tore and tore and tore—and screamed.
But presently there was no sound in the old madman's hiding place.
The tides are tongueless. They came and went, and kept their secret. In England, Scotland Yard sought diligently for the murderer of Sir Harris Greaves; and on a little island of the Florida Keys long search was made for a great sum of money that an old madman in his demented folly had hidden—but neither the one nor the other was ever found.
THE END
The crash of guns. A flare across the heavens. Battle. Dismay. Death. A night of chaos.
And four men in a thicket.
One of them spoke:
"A bloody Hun prison, that's us! My Gawd! Where are we?"
Another answered caustically:
"Monsieur, we are lost—and very tired."
A third man laughed. The laugh was short.
"A Frenchman! Where in hell did you come from?"
"Where you and the rest of us came from." The Frenchman's voice was polished; his English faultless. "We come from the tickling of the German bayonets."
The first man elaborated the statement gratuitously:
"I don't know about you 'uns; but our crowd was done in good and proper two days ago. Gawd! ain't there no end to 'em? Millions! And us running! What I says is let 'em have the blinking channel ports, and lets us clear out. I wasn't noways in favour of mussing up in this when the bleeding parliament says up and at 'em in the beginning, leastways nothing except the navy."
"Drafted, I take it?" observed the third man coolly.
There was no answer.
The fourth man said nothing.
There was a whir in the air ... closer ... closer; a roar that surged at the ear drums; a terrific crash near at hand; a tremble of the earth like a shuddering sob.
The first man echoed the sob:
"Carry on! Carry on! I can't carry on. Not for hours. I've been running for two days. I can't even sleep. My Gawd!"
"No good of carrying on for a bit," snapped the third man. "There's no place to carry on to. They seem to be all around us."
"That's the first one that's come near us," said the Frenchman. "Maybe it's only—what do you call it?—a straggler."
"Like us," said the third man.
A flare, afar off, hung and dropped. Nebulous, ghostlike, a faint shimmer lay upon the thicket. It endured for but a moment. Three men, huddled against the tree trunks, torn, ragged and dishevelled men, stared into each others' faces. A fourth man lay outstretched, motionless, at full length upon the ground, as though he were asleep or dead; his face was hidden because it was pillowed on the earth.
"Well, I'm damned!" said the third man, and whistled softly under his breath.
"Monsieur means by that?" inquired the Frenchman politely.
"Means?" repeated the third man. "Oh, yes! I mean it's queer. Half an hour ago we were each a separate bit of driftwood tossed about out there, and now here we are blown together from the four winds and linked up as close to each other by a common stake—our lives—as ever men could be. I say it's queer."
He lifted his rifle, and, feeling out, prodded once or twice with the butt. It made a dull, thudding sound.
"What are you doing?" asked the Frenchman.
"Giving first aid to Number Four," said the third man grimly. "He's done in, I fancy. I'm not sure but he's the luckiest one of the lot."
"You're bloody well right, he is!" gulped the first man. "I wouldn't mind being dead, if it was all over, and I was dead. It's the dying and the thinking about it I can't stick."
"I can't see anything queer about it." The Frenchman was judicial; he reverted to the third man's remark as though no interruption had occurred in his train of thought. "We all knew it was coming, this last big—what do you call it?—push of the Boche. It has come. It is gigantic. It is tremendous. A tidal wave. Everything has gone down before it; units all broken up, mingled one with another, a mêlée. It has been sauve qui peut for thousands like us who never saw each other before, who did not even know each other existed. I see nothing queer in it that some of us, though knowing nothing of each other, yet having the same single purpose, rest if only for a moment, shelter if only for a moment, should have come together here. To me it is not queer."
"Well, perhaps, you're right," said the third man. "Perhaps adventitious would have been better than queer."
"Nor adventitious," dissented the Frenchman. "Since we have been nothing to each other in the past, and since our meeting now offers us collectively no better chance of safety or escape than we individually had before, there is nothing adventitious about it."
"Perhaps again I am wrong." There was a curious drawl in the third man's voice now. "In fact, I will admit it. It is neither queer nor adventitious. It is quite—oh, quite!—beyond that. It can only be due to the considered machinations of the devil on his throne in the pit of hell having his bit of a fling at us—and a laugh!"
"You're bloody well right!" mumbled the first man.
"Damn!" said the Frenchman with asperity. "I don't understand you at all."
The third man laughed softly.
"Well, I don't know how else to explain it, then," he said. "The last time we—"
"The last time!" interrupted the Frenchman. "I did not get a very good look at you when that flare went up, I'll admit; but enough so that I would swear I had never seen you before."
"Quite so!" acknowledged the third man.
"Gawd!" whimpered the first man. "Look at that! Listen to that!"
A light, lurid, intense for miles around opened the darkness—and died out. An explosion rocked the earth.
"Ammunition dump!" said the Frenchman. "I'm sure of it now. I've never seen any of you before."
The third man now sat with his rifle across his knees.
The fourth man had not moved from his original position.
"I thought you were officers, blimy if I didn't, from the way you talked," said the first man. "Just a blinking Tommy and a blinking Poilu!"
"Monsieur," said the Frenchman, and there was a challenge in his voice, "I never forget a face."
"Nor I," said the third man quietly. "Nor other things; things that happened a bit back—after they put the draft into England, but before they called up the older classes. I don't know just how they worked it over here—that is, how some of them kept out of it as long as they did."
"Godam!" snarled the Frenchman. "Monsieur, you go too far! And—monsieur appears to have a sense of humour peculiarly his own—perhaps monsieur will be good enough to explain what he is laughing at?"
"With pleasure," said the third man calmly. "I was laughing at the recollection of a night, not like this one, though there's a certain analogy to it for all that, when an attack was made on—a strong box in a West End residence in London. Lord Seeton's, to be precise."
The first man stirred. He seemed to be groping around him where he sat.
"Foolish days! Perverted patriotism!" said the third man. "The family jewels, the hereditary treasures, gathered together to be offered on the altar of England's need! Fancy! But it was being done, you know. Rather! Only in this case the papers got hold of it and played it up a bit as a wonderful example, and that's how three men, none of whom had anything to do with the others, got hold of it too—no, I'm wrong there. Lord Seeton's valet naturally had inside information."
"Blimy!" rasped the first man suddenly. "A copper in khaki! That's what! A bloody, sneaking swine!"
It was inky black in the thicket. The third man's voice cut through the blackness like a knife.
"You put that gun down! I'll do all the gun handling there's going to be done. Drop it!"
A snarl answered him—a snarl, and the rattle of an object falling to the ground.
"There were three of them," said the third man composedly. "The valet, who hadn't reached his class in the draft; a Frenchman, who spoke marvellous English, which is perhaps after all the reason why he had not yet, at that time, served in France; and—and some one else."
"Monsieur," said the Frenchman silkily, "you become interesting."
"The curious part of it is," said the third man, "that each of them in turn got the swag, and each of them could have got away with it with hardly any doing at all, if it hadn't been that in turn each one chivied the other. The Frenchman took it from the valet, as the valet, stuffed like a pouter pigeon with diamonds and brooches and pendants and little odds and ends like that, was on his way to a certain pinch-faced fence named Konitsky in a slimy bit of neighbourhood in the East End; the Frenchman, who was an Englishman in France, took the swag to a strange little place in a strange little street, not far from the bank of the Seine, the place of one Père Mouche, a place that in times of great stress also became the shelter and home of this same Frenchman, who—shall I say?—I believe is outstandingly entitled to the honour of having raised his profession to a degree of art unapproached by any of his confreres in France to-day."
"Sacré nom!" said the Frenchman with a gasp. "There is only one Englishman who knew that, and I thought he was dead. An Englishman beside whom the Frenchman you speak of is not to be compared. You are—"
"I haven't mentioned any names," said the third man smoothly. "Why should you?"
"You are right," said the Frenchman. "Perhaps we have already said too much. There is a fourth here."
"No," said the third man. "I had not forgotten him." He toyed with the rifle on his knee. "But I had thought perhaps you would have recognised the valet's face."
"Strike me pink!" muttered the first man. "So Frenchy's the blighter that did me in, was he!"
"It is the uniform, and the dirt perhaps, and the very poor light," said the Frenchman apologetically.
"But you—pardon, monsieur, I mean the other of the three—I did not see him; and monsieur will perhaps understand that I am deeply interested in the rest of the story."
The third man did not answer. A sort of momentary, weird and breathless silence had settled on the thicket, on all around, on the night, save only for the whining of some oncoming thing through the air. Whine ... whine ... whine. The nerves, tautened, loosened, were jangling things. The third man raised his rifle. And somewhere the whining shell burst. And in the thicket a minor crash; a flash, gone on the instant, eye-blinding.
The first man screamed out:
"Christ! What have you done?"
"I think he was done in anyway," said the third man calmly. "It was as well to make sure."
"Gawd!" whimpered the first man.
"Monsieur," said the Frenchman, "I have always heard that you were incomparable. I salute you! As you said, you had not forgotten. We can speak at ease now. The rest of the story—"
The third man laughed.
"Come to me in London—after the war," he said, "and I will tell it to you. And perhaps there will be—other things to talk about."
"I shall be honoured," said the Frenchman. "We three! I begin to understand now. A house should not be divided against itself. Is it not so? We should go far! It is fate to-night that—"
"Or the devil," said the third man.
"My Gawd!" The first man began to laugh—a cracked, jarring laugh. "After the war, the blinking war—after hell! There ain't no end, there ain't no—"
And then a flare hung again in the heavens, and in the thicket three men sat huddled against the tree trunks, torn, ragged and dishevelled men, but they were not staring into each others' faces now; they were staring, their eyes magnetically attracted, at a spot on the ground where a man, a man murdered, should be lying.
But the man was not there.
The fourth man was gone.
The East End being, as it were, more akin to the technique and the mechanics of the thing, applauded the craftsmanship; the West End, a little grimly on the part of the men, and with a loquacity not wholly free from nervousness on the part of the women, wondered who would be next.
"The cove as is runnin' that show," said the East End, with its tongue delightedly in its cheek, "knows 'is wye abaht. Wish I was 'im!"
"The police are nincompoops!" said the outraged masculine West End. "Absolutely!"
"Yes, of course! It's quite too impossible for words!" said the female of the West End. "One never knows when one's own—do let me give you some tea, dear Lady Wintern..."
From something that had merely been of faint and passing interest, a subject of casual remark, it had grown steadily, insidiously, had become conversationally epidemic. All London talked; the papers talked—virulently. Alone in that great metropolis, New Scotland Yard was silent, due, if the journals were to be believed, to the fact that that world-famous institution was come upon a state of hopeless and atrophied senility.
With foreknowledge obtained in some amazing manner, with ingenuity, with boldness, and invariably with success, a series of crimes, stretching back several years, had been, were being, perpetrated with insistent regularity. These crimes had been confined to the West End of London, save on a few occasions when the perpetrators had gone slightly afield—because certain wealthy West-Enders had for the moment changed their accustomed habitat. The journals at spasmodic intervals printed a summary of the transactions. In jewels, and plate, and cash, the figures had reached an astounding total, not one penny of which had ever been recovered or traced. Secret wall safes, hidden depositories of valuables opened with obliging celerity and disgorged their contents to some apparition which immediately vanished. There was no clue. It simply happened again and again. Traps had been set with patience and considerable artifice. The traps had never been violated. London was accustomed to crimes, just as any great city was; there were hundreds of crimes committed in London; but these were of a genre all their own, these were distinctive, these were not to be confused with other crimes, nor their authors with other criminals.
And so London talked—and waited.
It was raining—a thin drizzle. The night was uninviting without; cosy within the precincts of a certain well-known West End club, the Claremont, to be exact. Two men sat in the lounge, in a little recess by the window. One, a man of perhaps thirty-three, of athletic build, with short-cropped black hair and clean-shaven face, a one-time captain of territorials in the late war, and though once known on the club membership roll as Captain Francis Newcombe was to be found there now as Francis Newcombe, Esquire; the other, a very much older man, with a thin, grey little face and thin, grey hair, would, on recourse to the club roll, have been found to be Sir Harris Greaves, Bart.
The baronet made a gesture with his cigar, indicative of profound disgust.