Читать книгу His Prey Was Man - Arthur Gask - Страница 4

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BROOME MASON, solicitor of Theobald's Road, was undoubtedly of an unusual personality. Approaching middle-age, he was a tall, big man with something of the Viking look about him. Fair, with a fresh complexion, he had large and bold blue eyes, his eye-brows were bushy, and he had a wide mouth with lips rather full and on the coarse side. Quite handsome in its way, his face suggested strength. Its expression, however, was hard and ruthless, and he looked, all over, a man who would always place himself first, and have no consideration for anybody else. In speech he was curt and blunt.

One of the best-known among the so-called 'police-court solicitors' in London, year in year out, the greater number of his clients belonged to the criminal classes. That that was the case was evidenced by the fact of so many of them being found guilty of the charges brought against them and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. A few, however, got off, and then it was generally considered Mason had worked the miracle by ways that were not supposed, in general, to be favoured by the legal profession.

He was very great in alibis, and many a breaker of the law was delighted to find that under the solicitor's skilful manipulation, he, the law-breaker, could be proved to have been many miles away from the scene of the crime when it was committed.

But Mason did not confine his activities to the police-courts only. When one of his clients had been sent up for trial to the Old Bailey and there was not sufficient money to brief a King's Counsel, or if for some reason he did not think it wise to employ one, then he defended the accused himself, and defended him very well, too.

He had an excellent way with juries, appealing to them with a great assumption of breezy honesty. He would make known to them so plainly, too, that he stood in no awe of the presiding judge, and, in a crafty way, would invite them to stand in no awe of him, either. Indeed, he would suggest that he, the jury and the prisoner were all together on one side, and the judge and the Crown Prosecutor, as representing the hungry Law, upon the other. According to him, the two parties should always be regarded as the natural enemies of each other.

Then, if the judge's summing up were going against the prisoner, even if Mason did not interrupt, which he never hesitated to do if he thought he could thereby score a point, the expression upon his face was invariably one of such shocked amazement that the jury could not help noticing it and be, to a certain extent, impressed.

One morning he was closeted in his office with a florid-looking woman about five and thirty who was wanting him to get a divorce for her from an, apparently, quite innocent husband.

"It was a mistake I married him," said the woman petulantly. "I've never really liked him, and now my aunt has died and left me her money I want to get away from him." She simpered. "There is another gentleman who will marry me at once, directly I am free."

"Then why not, Madam," suggested Mason coarsely and with no beating about the bush, "give your husband the occasion to divorce you?"

"Because he'd never do it," replied the woman emphatically. "He doesn't believe in divorce and, besides, I want to take a proper position in Society afterwards." She shook her head, "I couldn't do that if I were a guilty party."

Mason appeared to consider. "But I gather from what you tell me you have nothing against your husband and that his married life is quite an exemplary one!"

"Oh, I don't say that! I expect he's like all men, only I can't find him out."

"Then you want me to have him watched?" asked Mason.

"No, that might take years. I want him caught at once. I want to get my divorce this year."

The solicitor spoke very sternly. "Then you mean, Madam, that you want me to frame a case against him? You want me to manufacture evidence?"

The woman looked embarrassed. "I thought, I thought——" she began. "Mrs. Arrowsmith told me——" She hesitated. "She is a great friend of mine and she said how you had managed everything so wonderfully when she came to you for advice."

A long silence followed with Mason eyeing her very intently. At last he said slowly. "Are you aware that what you want would be a very expensive matter, running into, perhaps, £500?"

"Oh, I know that," she exclaimed quickly, "and I'm quite prepared to pay it."

Another silence followed and she fidgeted under the solicitor's hard stare. Then he asked sharply, "Have you your cheque book with you? Well, give me £300 on account. Don't cross the cheque, and make it payable to bearer. Here's a pen."

In some excitement, she made out the cheque as he requested and, after scrutinising it carefully, he left the room. Returning in a minute or so, at his request she rang up her bank manager to notify that the cheque for £300 was being presented and that it was quite in order.

Then a long conversation ensued between solicitor and client, with the former making many notes. He asked her several questions about her husband, twice over, and she thought him most thorough. In reality, however, he was only detaining her until he had received a prearranged signal from one of his clerks that the cheque had been duly honoured.

Presently, after a clerk had come in to announce that a Mr. Spooner was waiting to see him, the signal agreed upon, he rose to his feet and intimated to the woman that the interview was now over and that he would be communicating with her when he wanted to see her again.

He moved towards the door to open it for her to pass out, but perceiving she was not following after him, paused interrogatively.

"My receipt, Mr. Mason!" she said timidly. "You have not given me one."

His face showed some faint amusement. "In matters of this nature, Madam," he smiled coldly, "it would not be wise for me to give a receipt, and if you think for a few moments, you will yourself see why."

She got rather red. "Oh, oh, I see what you mean!" she exclaimed. "I understand," and she hurried away, as if at last she was feeling ashamed of herself.

Mr. Mason's next clients were two men, looking rather like motor mechanics. The following week he was defending the brother of one of them, who was being tried for burglary, and they had come to provide this brother, with the solicitor's assistance, with a suitable alibi.

Mason, however, was truculent and over-bearing, and gave them short shrift. "You're no good," he said sharply to the man who was accompanying the brother. "In the witness-box your tale wouldn't hang together for two minutes. You look, too, like a man whom no one would trust. Been in the jug yourself? Ah, I thought so! No, it's no matter whether it was in Manchester or Timbuctoo, the police would nose it out and I'm not going to risk the whole case by relying upon you."

"But 'e's not at 'is best this morning, Mister Mason," spoke up the other in defence of his friend. "'E's just 'ad a spot or two to buck up 'is nerves a'fore coming 'ere."

The solicitor glared. "Do you think I've got no nose?" he asked scornfully. "Why he reeks of beer!" He shook his head emphatically. "No, no, you bring someone who looks less like a burglar himself, or we won't risk it at all." He thumped his fist upon the desk. "Bring someone who's got some intelligence and I'll tell him what to say." He waved his hand. "Now off you go, for I'm busy this morning."

For some minutes Mason occupied himself with his papers, and then a clerk came in to announce that a man who gave his name as Vance wanted to see him. "He won't give his business, sir, but says it is very important."

"Show him in," said Mason, and the gamekeeper was quickly ushered into the room.

"Morning, Mr. Mason," said the latter. "You don't know me, but you got my brother off last year. He was Ted Vance and they said he'd bought a stolen motor-car and——"

"So he had," nodded Mason quickly. "There'd have been a certain and well-merited conviction if I hadn't been defending him!" He motioned him to a chair. "Sit down and tell me what you are and what you want."

Vance sat down heavily. "I'm Colonel Hilary's gamekeeper from Rondle Hall, Rondle village, near North Walsham in Norfolk," he began, "and I'm being threatened. A man says he'll shoot me."

"What for?" asked Mason sharply. "What have you done?"

Vance swallowed a lump in his throat. "Well, it's like this, sir. I happen to know a bit of a secret about the master's missis. She's about half his age and very young, and they were only married last year." He coughed. "But I saw her up North a little over a couple of years ago and she was having a baby on the quiet there."

"As a married woman?" queried Mason frowning.

The gamekeeper sneered. "Yes—but there was no marriage about it. She was a single girl right enough, for never a letter or a visitor came to the nursing home, Sister Rowe's it was, in Sutton Coldfield, where I was the gardener there."

"But what's that to do with anyone going to shoot you?" asked Mason, very puzzled.

The gamekeeper coughed again. "Well, sir, it was like this. The young lady was giving me a little present of a couple or so of notes, every now and then, just because we had known each other at that private hospital, and——"

"You mean you were blackmailing her," interrupted Mason sharply.

"Oh, no, sir," exclaimed Vance warmly. "Nothing like that. She was quite willing to do it and——"

"You pressed her for more," scowled Mason. "You wanted fivers instead of pounds, and then hundreds instead of fivers." He laughed scoffingly. "Why, man, I've listened to that tale scores and scores of times in this very room, except that it's generally been the other party who has been telling it." His face puckered suddenly into a cold, hard frown. "But what have you now come to me for, with the admission that you've been blackmailing this woman?"

Vance was not too pleased with the reception he was getting. The solicitor did not seem very friendly.

"I've come to you for advice," he grunted. "She sent a man to me, yesterday, who threatened to shoot me."

"And quite right, too," nodded the solicitor. "You deserved it." He was amused. "Who was the man she sent, her husband?"

"My oath, no!" replied Vance hotly. "He was twenty years younger than her husband and may have been another lover. He was a dandy fop with grey gloves, and a malacca cane with a silver knob on it. He said he was a gun-man and that shooting people was his trade."

"A gun-man!" exclaimed Mason. He burst out laughing. "And you believed it?"

"So would anyone have done," snarled the gamekeeper. "Why, he whipped out a pistol and began shooting all round my kitchen to show me what he could hit! He broke the saucepan handle, and then scattered a box of matches on the mantelshelf! He showed me his scars, too, on the back of his hand and upon his arms. He said he had got others all over his body, from fights he had been in, in Chicago. He gave me until to-night to leave my situation and clear off, or he'd come back and shoot me."

Mason elevated his eyebrows, as if in great surprise. "And you come to me for advice," he declaimed loudly, "when you've been given the very best, already. Leave the neighbourhood. That's the only thing for you to do now. You've shot your bolt and, myself, I think you're lucky to be able to escape without a prosecution or, at least, a horse-whipping."

Vance's face was the picture of dejection. "But I thought, I thought——" he began, and then he hesitated and stopped speaking.

"You thought what?" snapped the solicitor. "Be quick, and then I won't charge you for this interview because of what your brother paid me. Come on, what did you think? Out with it!"

"I thought," said the gamekeeper boldly, "that the information might be worth a bit of money to you and that you'd be prepared to give me my share."

Mason drew in a deep breath. He seemed aghast at the man's words. "Good God!" he exclaimed fiercely, "and you think because I'm willing to help poor devils like your brother, who've thoughtlessly got themselves into a mess, that I'll take on a filthy piece of blackmailing like you suggest." He rose to his feet and his voice was almost hissing in his anger. "Get out, you scoundrel, before I lay my hands upon you," and his appearance was so menacing that the gamekeeper was glad to get quickly out of the room and the building.

Mason re-seated himself at the desk with a cunning smile upon his face. "The fool," he exclaimed, "first blurting out all his information and then expecting me to pay for it!" He stretched for a slip of paper from one of the pigeon-holes in his desk. "Now let me see," he went on. "Knowledge is always useful, and what did he say?" He wrote carefully, "Wife of a Colonel Hilary, Rondle Hall, near North Walsham—Sister Rowe's Hospital in Sutton Coldfield—baby, between two and three years ago." He dated the memorandum and locked it in a drawer in his desk.

In the meanwhile, the gamekeeper, in fury and black despondency, was walking up the street. Turning into the first public house he came to, he sat drinking whisky until it was time for him to catch the afternoon train back home. His head was strong and the many drinks in the public house seemed to have had no effect upon him, but the further drinks he treated himself to when in the train, from a bottle he had brought with him, left him in a slightly fuddled condition when he got to his station and started to walk back to the cottage.

Reaching the Hilary woods, he found his gun where he had left it but, feeling tired, sat down to have a short rest. He dropped off at once to sleep, however, and it was pitch dark when he awoke.

He cursed angrily at finding he had slept so long and, with no further delay, started off at a quick pace to get home. Presently he came to a narrow footpath which for half a mile or so led through the deepest part of the Hilary woods to a little clearing in which his cottage stood. Just before it reached the clearing, however, it turned almost at right angles.

Suddenly, when he was almost at this turning, the thought leapt into his mind that perhaps the place was being watched. That gunman might have gone to the cottage to see if he was still there, and if so, to carry out his threat of shooting him with his dreadful silent pistol.

The man would, of course, have found the cottage locked up, but, flashing a torch through the windows, he would have seen clothes and things lying about and so have guessed he, Vance, had not gone for good! Then he would be waiting for his coming, hiding somewhere near!

Sweat came out in little beads upon the gamekeeper's forehead as he arrived at this conclusion and, like lightning, he darted behind the trunk of a big oak tree and flattened himself against it. Knowing exactly in which direction to look, by the light of the hazy moon he could pick out the front of his cottage, through the foliage of the trees.

He stood watching, but after a short while reached down and laid his gun gently upon the ground, his hands shaking so violently that he was afraid he would drop it.

Minute after minute went by, and then it came to him gradually that what he was taking for part of a tree, about five yards in front of him, had been moving ever so slightly every now and then. He caught his breath in terror as, with hard straining of his eyes, he could at last pick out the head and shoulders of a man.

But the terror passed quickly and a feeling of exultation took its place. It was the gun-man! He was looking the other way and had got his back to him! In a few strides he, Vance, could get his hands upon him and—by God—he would break his neck!

Creeping forward with the stealthiness of a beast of prey, he hurled himself upon the unsuspecting man. Then——

But now—to realise what strange tricks Fate can play, and to understand all that followed, we must go back to nearly a fortnight before, when a Mr. Jones, for so he called himself, arrived at the little fishing village of Porton upon the Norfolk coast, to grow a beard.

Mr. Jones felt very sorry for himself, taking the view that he was a very unfortunate man. For years and years he had suffered from recurring sore throats. They came on, apparently for no reason, without any warning, and, often, at most inconvenient times. They caused him considerable pain and, worse still, the inflammation as often as not extended down the larynx and he completely lost his voice. Nothing seemed to be able to ward them off, and at last a great London specialist advised the only thing for him to do was to grow a beard to protect his throat against the cold. But Mr. Jones had been clean-shaven for his forty-seven years and was very much against the idea, only consenting at last after the fierce insistence of his family and friends.

So, to get over those first dreadful weeks of coarse and disfiguring stubble, Mr. Jones took himself down to Porton, letting no one but his family know where he was going and devoutly hoping he would come across no one with whom he was acquainted.

And certainly Porton was well-placed for anyone to hide himself away. It consisted of only half-a-dozen small cottages, a score and more of fishing huts, and one little tiny shop. It had no public house and was eight miles distant from the nearest railway station, and out of the way of all good motoring roads.

After some persuasion Mr. Jones had induced the owner of one of the cottages to let him rent it and for his wife to come in daily and cook for him. Then, for a few days the quietness and solitude of the hamlet appealed to him but by the end of the first week he was thoroughly bored, so much so that, although he hated all kinds of dirty work, he lent a hand to his landlord, Andy Tuckham, to tar over the bottom of the latter's boat.

It was an awkward business for Mr. Jones and he got his hands well messed up and spoilt his shirt and a pair of old flannel trousers. He was glad when dinner-time gave him the excuse to leave off.

His midday meal over, he went for a walk, sauntering slowly along the sands, looking, with his soiled clothes and unshaven face, as he well knew, as disreputable-looking an individual as anyone could wish.

But the sands were lonely, although it was a hot mid-June, and he did not meet a soul until he had left the little fishing hamlet a good two miles behind. Then, turning a corner of some cliffs, he came upon a young fellow in ragged trousers and a torn shirt, who was collecting whelks among the rocks. The latter looked up as he drew level and hailed him with a friendly grin, calling out in broadest Cockney, "'Ullo, ole cock, bloomin' fine day, ain't it? 'Ow are yer poppin' this mornin'?"

For the moment Mr. Jones was astounded at being accosted so familiarly by so disreputable-looking a young man, and was opening his mouth to administer a well-merited reproof, when he remembered in time his own appearance and his face broke, too, with a merry smile. Then a wave of humour surged through him, and remembering his varsity days when he was a shining light of an amateur dramatic society, he replied in the purest Whitechapel, "'Ot and strong, Matey, and could do with a gargle o' beer."

The young fellow laughed happily. "So could us 'ere, ole cock, but we're two hundred miles from a pub." He plumped himself on to the sand. "Sit darn and 'ave a bit of a yarn, will yer?"

So the two seated themselves side by side and were soon exchanging confidences. The young fellow's name was 'Erbert Brent, known to his friends as Bert; he lived in Milk Street, off the Mile End Road, and worked at the London Docks. He was down in Norfolk upon his fortnight's annual holiday, and was staying at a village about five miles away. He was lonely and had been looking for a pal.

By this time Mr. Jones was enjoying himself immensely, and giving his imagination full rein, said his name was Sam Catesby, he came from 'Ackney, and he was a porter in a pitch, tar and grease warehouse. He, too, was on a holiday and, like Bert, was staying in a village about five miles away from the coast, but it happened to be in the opposite direction to that of his new-found acquaintance.

Bert, as he asked Sam to call him, was twenty-one and full of the joy of life. Singing comic songs was his hobby, and one day he intended to get on the music halls. His friends thought he was 'a corker singer'. He himself made up the words and tunes of all his songs, and he found he could always compose best when on the sea-shore. That was why he came every day to these lonely sands. He had just started a new song and it was going fine.

"Now, you juss listen, Sam," he said earnestly, "and I reckern you'll think me no dud," and springing to his feet, he began to sing with fearful grimaces and much action of his arms and legs.

"Orl 'ot, orl 'ot, I'm Pertater Joe.

I sells the bloomin' spuds so quick,

Yer can't see 'ow they go.

Orl 'ot, orl 'ot, I'm Pertater Joe.

I'm the bloke wot's got the spuds,

Fer those 'oo've got the dough."

To Mr. Jones's astonishment, the voice was melodious and pleasant, the tune catchy and the accompanying acting dramatic, and fascinating to watch.

Bert sang the verse three times and then called upon Mr. Jones to join in.

"That's only the chorus, Sam," he said, "and the words is quite easy to pick up. No, stand up and move yer feet and arms like me. I want to see as well as 'ear 'ow the bloomin' song goes."

So in two minutes Mr. Jones found himself dancing up and down, looking, he was sure, like a lunatic, and proclaiming to the world, generally, and to the sands, the sea and the sky in particular that he was known to all men by the ridiculous appellation of Potato Joe, and that he was prepared to dispose promptly of his roasted wares to every good citizen who was possessed of the ready money to purchase them.

Then, realising what he was doing, for a moment he went hot in shame and disgust to think that a refined and educated man of his mature age should be carrying on as he was. These feelings, however, were only very momentary, for the whole business struck him as so excruciatingly funny that it was as much as he could do to keep himself from rolling over in his laughter.

They sang the verse quite a dozen times until Mr. Jones was as familiar with the words and tune as if they were both his own composition.

"That'll do, old cock," panted Bert at last. "It went with a bally swing and my mates'll think me ole Caruso when I sings it to 'em."

Towards tea-time, the two friends, for they were now on the most confidential terms, parted with reluctance, arranging, however, to meet the next afternoon at the same spot.

Mr. Jones returned to his cottage very pleased with himself and in a healthy glow of excitement. His boredom had all vanished and, already, he was planning more flights of imagination with the unsuspecting Herbert Brent of the great Mile End Road, London, East.

The meeting next day duly took place, followed by further meetings on the next three succeeding days. Indeed, it had now become a regular thing for Mr. Jones to tar over his hands a bit and assume his oldest and most soiled garments every afternoon to proceed to the lonely rendezvous round the corner of the jutting cliffs.

He learnt a lot more about the young fellow's life, and that fifth afternoon, a Saturday, with Bert's holiday now quickly drawing to a close, the latter was inclined to be rather downcast.

"An' the day arter to-morrow, Sam," he said to his sympathetic listener, "orf I goes back to the ole 'ole, and the only excitement I'll get will be dodging a bit of bacca through the Dock gates under the dirty nose of the perleeceman on the look-out. Oh, but it's a bit of a thrill, I can tell yer, while it lasts! The bloke gives yer the 'ard look, yer heart goes all jumpy like, and then it's all over and safe yer are with a bit of baccy wot's never paid dooty."

"But 'ain't it very dangerous, Mate?" asked Mr. Jones.

"O' course it is," replied Bert with his eyes dilated very wide, "and that's where the fun comes in. I loves danger." He laughed softly. "I got a nice bit o' roast bird when I gets back for tea this evening, and I got that through running a bit of danger, which was good sport." He looked very mysterious. "Las' night, I copped a fat cock pheasant in some woods I know of about seven miles from 'ere and I'm no judge o' gime if he don't eat well."

"'Ow did you get 'im?" asked Mr. Jones, somewhat awed, and at the same time somewhat thrilled to be in the company of so bold a breaker of the law.

"Easy as pat, Sam," replied Bert gleefully. "A pennorth o' sulphur from the chemist and a bit of brown paper is all you wants. I rolls 'em up together to make a nice fat torch and I peeps up into the branches of the trees until I finds a Johnny-Longtail all asleep. Then I sets my torch well alight and blows it out when it's a-smouldering. Then I gives the birdy-birdy up aloft the works. I waves the torch just under where 'e's got 'is perch. 'E whiffs the smoke, whiffs 'ard and whiffs till 'e's all dizzy like and comes down wallop on to the ground."

"Then you're a poacher, Bert," said Mr. Jones reprovingly.

"Been one for years," nodded Bert, "whenever I've got the chance." He went on. "But las' night I didn't go only for that birdy. I 'ad another job on and you just listen to this. I ain't perfect yet and I'm goin' again to-night for another lesson." He shut his eyes and, pursing up his lips, proceeded to whistle a few soft and trilling notes. They were sad and melancholy, they rose and fell and rose again, and then very softly died away. He repeated them several times.

"Know wot that is, Sam?" he asked.

"No, but it sounds orl right," replied Mr. Jones. "Wot is it?"

Bert grinned merrily. "The nightingale a-crooning to 'is missis while she's a-'atching the bloomin' heggs."

"Oh, I've never 'eard a nightingale!" exclaimed Mr. Jones. "I'd like to 'ear one."

"Then you shall, ole cock," nodded Bert confidently. "I know in which direction some of 'em 'ave got their nests and we'll foller the tootling until we get right underneath where the row's going on. You come along with me, to-night. No, I won't do no poachin'. I won't get you inter trouble. Now, can you borrer a bike, as it's about seven or eight miles from here?"

Mr. Jones thought of the rusty-looking machine upon which his landlord did his shopping in the nearest town, and which he himself had occasionally borrowed, and nodded in affirmation.

"Orl right then," went on Bert, "you meet me to-night at ten o'clock at Ferrers Cross on the North Walsham Road and we'll toddle along directly it gets well dark. It's no good our going before."

So it happened that towards eleven o'clock Mr. Jones and his companion, having hidden their bicycles in a gravel-pit before they entered the wood, had taken up their positions upon Colonel Hilary's property, unknowingly, very close to his gamekeeper's cottage. Mr. Jones was leaning against a tree, with Bert squatting on the ground a few paces from him. They were to remain in intense stillness, because the little Cockney had located a nightingale's nest in the branches of the tree just above them.

Five minutes sped by, ten minutes, and then Mr. Jones changed his position ever so little to make himself more comfortable against the tree trunk. He had just settled back again, when he heard a slight sound behind him and, as he turned his head to make out what the sound had been, he was gripped fiercely by the neck and a hoarse voice exclaimed, "Got you, you devil! There'll be no using that gun of yours now!"

It had happened in the flash of a second, and, next, Mr. Jones found himself thrown violently to the ground, a heavy man was kneeling on his chest and big rough hands were groping to get a good grip of his throat.

"Help, help!" he called out fearfully, and help was immediately forthcoming.

The little Cockney was as game as a bantam cock and Vance, for of course it was he who was Mr. Jones's assailant, received a blow behind the ear and two hard ones on the face which made him instantly relax his hold on the man he had been hoping to throttle. Then the gamekeeper found himself being lugged fiercely backwards, at the same time receiving another vicious blow, which knocked him prone to the ground.

"Quick, quick, Sam," panted Bert, helping Mr. Jones to his feet, "run for yer life," and, gripping his companion by the arm to steady him, he started feverishly to lug him away.

But they had not gone half a dozen paces before Bert tripped over some object on the ground and Mr. Jones fell over on the top of him. Instantly there came a loud and terrifying explosion almost exactly underneath where they had fallen, and for the moment Mr. Jones thought his ear-drums must have been broken. Also he received a hard blow upon his shin.

Then, what exactly followed in the succeeding few minutes Mr. Jones never knew, but in after days it was with not a little shame he remembered he owed all his safety to his undersized and insignificant-looking Cockney friend who never for one moment lost his head.

Mr. Jones was quite aware he himself would almost certainly have capitulated weakly. He would have never dared to attempt any escape, but in all probability would have started upon a policy of appeasement with the gamekeeper, for of course that was only what his angry assaulter could possibly be. Then he might have offered a bribe of a couple of half-crowns, and he would have been quite prepared to give his name and address.

Most fortunately, however, as it was to turn out later, he was allowed to do none of these things. He was hustled, and pushed, and dragged with great violence away from the scene of the struggle, all the time being urged to run quickly.

"'Urry, 'urry," panted Bert, "that blasted gun will 'ave waked everybody up and the bloke himself may be up and after us any moment. 'Is face was 'ard as a board, and I didn't 'urt 'im much. O' course 'e was the bloomin' gamekeeper!"

They separated hurriedly when they had picked up their bicycles, as Bert insisted that after what had just happened it would not be wise for two cyclists to be seen together upon the road at that time of night. Bert announced, also, that he should be returning to London the first thing in the morning, as he would feel safer there.

So it was a rather frightened and rather sad Mr. Jones who crept into his cottage three-quarters of an hour later, thankful that no one in the hamlet had seen him enter. He was sad that he would be seeing Bert no more, and a little bit frightened lest it should come out what had happened that night and his participation in it made public. He was the more uneasy there because he found he had come home without his handkerchief and a gold pencil, both of which articles had his initials upon them. He had also lost the bicycle pump, although he had been at some trouble to wedge it tightly in its clip before he had set out.

Of course the actual trespassing was not a serious matter and could be easily explained satisfactorily, for listening to a nightingale was a very harmless proceeding. The ensuing fight, however, was a most unpleasant complication, and it would be a shocking scandal if it came out that a man in his position and of his age had been engaged in a rough and tumble brawl in a wood in the dead of night, with a young fellow of disreputable habits as his companion.

He slept badly, and the next morning, it was a Sunday, was not at all surprised that he felt chilly and out of sorts. The weather had turned cold, with rain and a bitter wind from the East. So he remained indoors all that day and the two succeeding days as well, waited upon by his taciturn landlady whose disposition was to never speak a word unless first spoken to.

As it happened, the woman's husband was not feeling well either, and kept indoors for three days, too, so that Mr. Jones saw no daily newspaper until the Wednesday. Then, as he received an interesting novel from his wife by the same post, the paper did not much interest him and he read only the more important news upon the leader page.

He remained in the fishing hamlet for another month, and had been back home for a further week when his wife remarked casually to him one night at dinner, when they happened to be dining alone: "Oh, when you were down at Porton did you hear anything particular about that murder? I've always been meaning to ask you, but have kept on forgetting. The man must have been killed only a few miles from where you were staying."

"What murder, dear?" asked Mr. Jones innocently. "I don't remember hearing anything about one."

"Good gracious," exclaimed his wife, "I should have thought everyone down there would have been full of it. I mean the murder of that gamekeeper."

At the word gamekeeper a frown came into Mr. Jones's face. He had told no one of that midnight adventure in the wood, being too ashamed of everything. "Whose gamekeeper?" he asked.

"Colonel Hilary's of Rondle Hall," was the reply. "He was killed by some poacher in the Hilary woods near North Walsham, on a Saturday night, about a month ago. There had been a fight and then he had been shot with his own gun."

Mr. Jones went cold in fright and horror and his heart almost stopped beating. His wife would certainly have noticed his condition had not the butler come in at that moment to announce she was wanted at once upon the telephone.

For a few moments Mr. Jones felt as if he were going to faint, but he pulled himself together with a supreme effort and gulped hurriedly at a full glass of burgundy which was providentially standing by his plate.

What an awful calamity! Of course the man had been killed by the discharge of that gun which had gone off when they had stepped upon it! And it had never entered into their minds that the gamekeeper would have been injured! They had never given it a thought! He, Mr. Jones, certainly hadn't, and he was sure his companion hadn't either or he would have spoken about it as they were running away! Why, hadn't Bert all the time been urging him on to hurry or the gamekeeper would be coming after them?

Outwardly, at least, Mr. Jones was quite composed when his wife returned to the room. "And about the shooting of that gamekeeper, dear," he asked slowly, "did they catch the man who did it?"

His wife shook her head. "No, and they never even got the very slightest clue." She smiled. "One of those dreadful unsolved mysteries, dear," and her conscience-stricken husband hoped devoutly that it would continue to remain so.