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OLD BROADBRIM'S STRANGE BARGAIN.

The 12th of April, 189—, as Old Broadbrim, the famous Quaker detective, will ever remember, fell on a Thursday.

Just after the noon hour on that day he received a letter asking him to come to one of the most elegant private residences on Fifth Avenue.

He was sure no crime had been committed, and he was puzzled to guess just what the invitation meant.

The owner of the mansion was Custer Kipp, one of the richest and best-known dwellers on the avenue, a man who counted his wealth almost by the tens of millions, so it was said at least, and the detective had seen him often on the street and in his elegant turnout in the parks.

Old Broadbrim answered the letter in person, as was his wont.

He reached the door of the mansion, and his ring was answered immediately, as if he was expected, and a servant conducted him into the library.

In an armchair at the mahogany desk sat the millionaire.

Custer Kipp was a man of sixty-three, a tall, slim, but handsome, person, and withal a person who was approachable to a fault.

He was a widower at the time, and his only child was a son named Foster.

This young man was not in at the time of the detective's call, and the only other person in the house who belonged to the household was the nabob's ward, Miss Nora Doon, a young lady just quitting her teens and the pet of the mansion.

Custer Kipp smiled drearily when the figure of the Quaker crossed the threshold, and invited him to a seat near the desk.

"I am glad you came," said he. "I sent word to my friend, the inspector, to send me one of his best men, and I am rejoiced that he saw fit to send you, of whom I have heard."

Old Broadbrim bowed and waited.

"My case is a peculiar one, and, perhaps, a little out of the line of your business. Do you ever play the part of Cerberus, Mr. Broadbrim?"

"Not very often."

"I thought not," smiled the millionaire. "I have no crime for you to unravel, but if things are permitted to drift as they are going just now, you will have a first-class mystery on your hands ere long."

"You do not want me to wait, I see," said Old Broadbrim.

"That is it exactly. I don't care to wait to be foully murdered."

"I would think not. It isn't a very pleasant prospect, but perhaps it is not as bad as you suppose."

"It is very bad. I am in the shadow of death, but I don't care to go into details just now. I want you to guard my person for one year, and if at the end of that time I am still in the land of the living, why, your work ceases."

"It's a strange commission," replied the detective.

"I thought you would call it such. I am to be guarded against an enemy insidious and merciless. I am on the 'black list.'"

"On the black list, eh?"

"Exactly," and the rich man turned a shade paler. "I will give you twenty-five thousand dollars if you guard me for one year. You will not be required to make your home under my roof—I could not ask that—but you will be asked to take care of my foe if he should prove too aggressive."

"But, sir, to be able to do that I shall have to know something about this enemy."

"Just so. You don't know him now—have never seen him, perhaps, although you may have passed him fifty times on the street within the last six months since he landed in this city."

"Oh, he's a foreigner, is he?"

"I can't say that he is, though he has passed some years under a foreign sky. This man is not alone in his dark work; he has a confederate, a person whose beauty years ago nearly proved my ruin."

Old Broadbrim did not speak.

Already the traditional woman had entered the case.

"For one year, Mr. Broadbrim," continued Custer Kipp, coming back to the original proposition. "Is it a bargain?"

The detective sat silent and rigid for a few seconds.

Never before had a proposition of that sort been made to him.

It would take him from cases that might spring up to demand his attention.

After all, the man before him might have no enemy at all, and the time spent in watching him might prove lost time, though twenty-five thousand dollars would be his at the end of the year.

"If you accept, remember that for one year you belong to me, will be subject to my commands, will have to go whither I send you, and you will not be permitted to follow your calling beyond them."

"It binds one rather close," said Old Broadbrim.

"I want a man who will belong to me. He must devote his whole time to keeping the hand of death away from me, and——"

Custer Kipp leaned forward and opened the desk.

Running his hand into it, he pulled out a package and untied it before the detective's eyes.

"This is a picture of the man as he looked twenty years ago," he said, throwing a photograph on the desk. "He has changed some, of course, but he is the same cool-headed demon he was then."

"And the other—the woman?"

The nabob started.

"I have no picture of her save the one I carry in my memory. I haven't seen her since a fatal night at Monaco."

He laid the picture down and looked squarely at the detective.

"No more now. Will you accept?"

It was a novel and romantic engagement and appealed strongly to the detective's curiosity.

He thought rapidly for ten seconds, after which he looked into Custer Kipp's eyes and said:

"I accept."

"A thousand thanks! I feel younger already—I feel that I will yet escape this vendetta, that I have years of useful life ahead and that I will die in my house when my time comes. But one word. Not a whisper of this bargain beyond the walls of my house. Not a word to my children, for I call Nora my child the same as Foster. It must be our secret, Mr. Broadbrim."

"It shall be ours."

"That's right. Now, sir, if you will come back to-morrow I will give you the commission in detail. I will study up all the points you should know, and then you will see into your task and will know just what you will be expected to do."

Old Broadbrim, a man of brevity, picked up his hat.

"I will be here," he said. "Thee can trust me," using, as he did at times, the Quaker formula.

In another moment he had turned his back on the millionaire and was walking toward the hall.

At the door he glanced over his shoulder and saw the figure of Custer Kipp bent over the desk, and the face was buried in the arms.

Old Broadbrim closed the door and went away.

Down in his office, in the room in which he had thought out more than one tangle of crime, he threw himself into his armchair and took up a cigar.

"What have I done?" he asked himself. "Is the man mad? What is this invisible fear which almost paralyzes him? Why does he send for me to watch him for a year when he could fly to the ends of the world, for he has money to take him anywhere, and thus escape the enemy? But I'll do my part."

The day deepened, and the shadows of night fell over the city.

Old Broadbrim came forth, and walked a few squares after which he turned suddenly and rapped at a door belonging to a small house in a quiet district.

The portal was opened by a man not very young, but wiry and keen-eyed.

"Come in. I've been waiting for you," said this person. "I have a case for you—one which the police have not yet discovered. It will produce rich results."

The detective's countenance seemed to drop.

Here it was already.

He began to see how foolish he had been to make a bargain with Custer Kipp.

"What is it, Clippers?" he asked.

"It's just the sort o' case you've been looking for," was the reply. "On the next street is a dead man—a man whose life must have gone out violently yesterday or last night. You don't know him, but I do. Jason Marrow has been a study and a puzzle to me for three years. We have met occasionally, but never got on familiar terms. Now he's dead and is there yet, in his little room, with marks of violence on his throat and the agony in his glassy eyes. Won't you come with me? I have been holding the matter for you."

Old Broadbrim said he would at once take a look at the mystery, and Clippers, his friend, offered to conduct him to the scene of the tragedy.

The two entered a little house near the mouth of an alley, and Clippers led the way to a room to the left of the hall.

"He's a mystery—got papers of importance hid in the house, but we'll find them in course of time," he chattered. "It's going to be a deep case, just to your liking, Mr. Broadbrim, but you'll untangle it, for you never fail."

At this moment the pair entered the room and the hand of Clippers pointed to a couch against the wall.

Old Broadbrim stepped nimbly forward and bent over the bed.

A rigid figure lay upon it, and the first glance told him that death had been busy there.

"Who is he?" asked the detective.

"It's Jason Marrow. You didn't know him. Precious few people did. The papers which he has hidden will tell us more and we'll find them. It's your case, Mr. Broadbrim."

"I can't take it, Clippers."

The other fell back with a cry of amazement.

"You can't take it?" he gasped. "In the name of Heaven, are you mad, Mr. Broadbrim?"

"I hope not."

"But it's just the sort o' case you like. There's mystery in it. Killed by some one as yet unknown. Strangled by a hand unseen and dead in his little den."

"Yes, I know, Clippers, but it's not for me."

"Why not?"

"I'm engaged."

"On something better? On a deeper mystery than the death of Jason Marrow?"

"I don't know. I only know that I can't take this matter into my hands."

"Well, I'm stumped!" cried Clippers.

"And I'm sorry," answered the great detective. "I'll tell the police. I'll see that Hargraves or Irwin get the job. That's all I can do. For one year I belong to—to another master."

There was no reply to this; Clippers showed that he was "stumped."