7 best short stories by Ernest Bramah E-Book

Ernest Bramah

• Herausgeber: Tacet Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: 7 best short stories
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 347

Beschreibung

Ernest Bramahhumorous works were ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. George Orwell acknowledged that Bramah's book, What Might Have Been, influenced his Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bramah created the characters Kai Lung and Max Carrados. This selection chosen by the critic August Nemocontains the following stories: - The Secret of Headlam Height - The Mystery of the Vanished Petition Crown - The Holloway Flat Tragedy - The Curious Circumstances Of The Two Left Shoes - The Ingenious Mind Of Mr. Rigby Lacksome - The Crime At The House In Culver Street - The Strange Case Of Cyril Bycourt

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

The Author

The Secret of Headlam Height

The Mystery of the Vanished Petition Crown

The Holloway Flat Tragedy

The Curious Circumstances Of The Two Left Shoes

The Ingenious Mind Of Mr. Rigby Lacksome

The Crime At The House In Culver Street

The Strange Case Of Cyril Bycourt

About the Publisher

The Author

Ernest Bramah (20 March 1868 – 27 June 1942), whose name was recorded after his birth as Ernest Brammah Smith, was an English author. He published 21 books and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works were ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. George Orwell acknowledged that Bramah's book, What Might Have Been, influenced his Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bramah created the characters Kai Lung and Max Carrados.

Ernest Brammah Smith dropped out of the Manchester Grammar School at sixteen, having been close to the bottom in each subject. He went into farming, first as a farm pupil and then in his own right. He was supported by his father who had risen in a short time from a factory hand to a wealthy man. The farming enterprise cost his father £100,000 in today's money. But it was while farming that he began to contribute local vignettes to the Birmingham News.

Later he wrote a tongue-in-cheek book about his adventures in farming. It found few buyers and was remaindered and pulped though his father agreed to support him while he made his way in Grub Street as a writer. He eventually obtained a position as secretary to Jerome K. Jerome and rose to become editor of one of Jerome's magazines. After leaving Jerome he edited other journals for a publishing firm that later went bankrupt.

Bramah was a very private man who chose not to make public any details of his personal life. He died at the age of 73 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

The Secret of Headlam Height

PARKINSON, the unquenchable stickler for decorum, paused after receiving the general instructions for the day just long enough to create a sense of hesitation. Mr Carrados, merely concerned with an after-breakfast cigarette, divined the position with his usual unerring instinct.

'Yes, Parkinson,' he remarked encouragingly; 'is there anything going on?'

A clumsily-folded newspaper enabled the punctilious attendant to salve his conscience as he returned slowly to the table. He shook out the printed sheets into a more orderly arrangement by way of covering the irregularity.

'I understand, sir,' he replied in the perfectly controlled respectful voice that accorded with his deliberate actions 'I understand that this morning's foreign intelligence is of a disquieting nature.'

The blind man's hand went unfalteringly to an open copy of The Times lying by him and there a single deft finger touched off the headlines with easy certainty.

'"On the Brink of War." "Threatened German Mobilization",' he read aloud. '"The Duty of Great Britain." Yes, I don't think that "disquieting" over-states the position.'

'No, sir. So I gathered from what I had already heard. That is why I thought it better to speak to you about a trifling incident that has come under my notice, sir.'

'Quite right,' assented Mr Carrados. 'Well?'

'It was at the Museum here, sir—a very instructive establishment in Market Square. I had gone there in order to settle a small matter in dispute between Herbert and myself affecting the distinction between shrimps and prawns. I had always been under the impression that prawns were unusually well-grown shrimps, but I find that I was mistaken. I was directed to the cases of preserved fish by a gentleman with a cut across his cheek. Subsequently I learned from the hall-keeper, to whom I spoke about the weather, that the gentleman was the assistant curator and was called Vangoor, being a native of Holland.'

'Vangoor,' mused Mr Carrados. 'I have never heard the name before.'

'No, sir. When I saw the gentleman last we were at Kiel, and he was then a Lieutenant von Groot. I thought perhaps I had better mention it, sir.'

Carrados's half-smiling expression did not change in its placid tone and he continued to smoke with leisurely enjoyment. His mind turned back to the details of the Kiel visit of a few years previously as one might turn to a well-kept diary.

'The man you mean called on me once with a complimentary message from the Admiralty department there. I was not in the hotel at the time and he left his card with a few words of explanation in perfect English. We never met and I cannot suppose that he has ever seen me.'

'No, sir,' acquiesced Parkinson. 'You sent me the next day to the Dockyard with a reply. That is the only time I have ever seen the gentleman before today.'

'Have you any reason to think that he may have remembered you again?'

'I formed a contrary opinion, sir. On the other occasion, although it was necessary for us to hold some slight conversation together, Lieutenant von Groot did not seem to be aware of my presence, if I may so define it, sir. I received the impression that the gentleman imagined he was talking to someone taller than I am, sir; and I doubt if he really saw me at all.'

'You are sure of him, though?'

'I was then making a study of detailed observation under your instruction, sir, and I have no misgiving on the point.'

'Very well. It was quite right of you to tell me of this; it may be really important. We are only five miles from a vital naval port, we must remember. Don't say anything to anyone else and I will consider it meanwhile.'

'Thank you, sir,' replied Parkinson, modestly elated.

In the past, whenever the subject of the English Secret Service came up it was patriotically assumed on all hands that nothing much was to be expected from that quarter, and we were bidden to lift our admiring eyes to German and other continental models. As a matter of history, when the test came the despised organization proved itself signally efficient. In a small way there was evidence of this that same July day, for within a couple of hours of sending a curiously-worded telegram to an official whose name never appeared in any official list Mr Carrados received an equally mysterious reply from which, after a process of disintegration, he extracted the following information:

––––––––

Ref. Fff. C/M.107.

Groot, Karl von. Born Friedeberg (Prussia) about 1880. Mother English. Educated Heidelberg and (?) Kiel. Entered navy. Torpedo-lieutenant (staff) 1907. Resigned in doubtful circumstances 1910. Drawn into espionage system under Bluthmel in connexion with resignation. Expelled Holland 1912. Visited Russia 1913. Recognized in Cork, June, 1913. Speaks German, French, Dutch, Russian, English (excellent). Blonde, tall, grey eyes, diagonal sword-cut left cheek. Description ends. Please report anything known further.

––––––––

Carrados read the decoded message twice, and then thoughtfully crushing the thin paper into a loose ball he dropped it upon an ash-tray and applied a match.

'A telegram form, Parkinson.'

With his uncanny prescience the blind man selected a pencil from the rack before him, adjusted the paper to a more convenient angle and, not deviating the fraction of an inch beyond the indicated space, wrote his brief reply:

––––––––

Ref. Fff. C/M.107.

Information received. Regret have nothing further to report. M.C.

––––––––

'We will investigate Mr Vangoor for ourselves a little first,' he remarked, passing across the slip. 'London will have its hands pretty full for the next few days and we are on the spot.'

'Very well, sir,' replied Parkinson with the same trustful equanimity with which he would have received an order to close a window. 'Shall I dispatch this now, sir?'

'Yes—from the head office: head offices are generally too busy to be inquisitive. Read it over first in case of an inquiry....Yes, quite right. Something of a feather if we can circumvent a German spy off our own bats, eh, Parkinson?'

'Yes, sir.'

'At all events we will open the innings without delay.'

'I quite appreciate the necessity of expedition, sir,' replied Parkinson, with his devastating air of profound wisdom.

It is doubtful if anyone had yet plumbed the exact limits of the worthy fellow's real capacity. There were moments when he looked more sagacious than any mortal man has any hope of ever being, and there were times when his comment on affairs seemed to reveal a greater depth of mental vacuity than was humanly credible. Carrados found him wholly satisfactory, and Parkinson on his side had ignored a score of hints of betterment.

'Pack a couple of bags with necessaries,' was the instruction he received on his return from the post office. 'Von Groot may likely enough remember my name, and I can't very well change it while staying at a public hotel. We will keep on our rooms here and go into apartments at the other end of the town for a time. There my name will be Munroe and yours can be—say Paxton. I will tell the office here all that is necessary.'

'Very good, sir,' assented Parkinson. 'I did not think the woodcock toast sent up for your breakfast entirely satisfactory, sir.'

In years to come generations now unborn will doubtless speculate how people lived in those early days of August, 1914. The simple truth, of course, is that to the vast majority external life went on almost precisely as before. It is as exacting for the moving machine to stop as for the quiescent one to start, and 'Business as usual' was one of the earliest clichés coined. The details of the situation that most impressed the citizen of 1914 are not the details to which the inquirer of 2014 will give a second thought. Individually, it was doubtless very intriguing to have to obtain change for a five-pound note by purchasing postal orders to that amount and immediately cashing them singly again....

Mr Carrados found the Castlemouth Museum open as usual when his leisurely footsteps turned that way on the following morning, and, as usual, the day being fine, deserted. Before they had—Parkinson describing as they went—made the circuit of the first room they were approached by a sociable official—the curator it soon appeared—drawn from his den by the welcome sight of two authentic visitors.

'There are a certain number of specimens that we have to store away for want of space,' he remarked hopefully. 'If there is any particular subject that you are interested in I should be very pleased—'

This suited Mr Carrados's purpose well enough, but before committing himself he not unnaturally preferred to know what the curator's particular subject was. An enthusiast is always vulnerable through his enthusiasm and no man becomes curator of an obscure museum in order to amass a fortune.

'I understand,' he replied tentatively, 'that you are rather strong here in—' An impatient gesture with the expressive fingers conveyed the speaker's loss. 'Dear me—'

'Palaeontology?' suggested the curator. 'My predecessor was a great collector and our series of local fossils is unsurpassed. If you—'

'Ah,' replied Mr Carrados; 'very instructive no doubt.' His alert ear recognized the absence of the enthusiast's note. 'But somehow there always seems to me about fossils a—'

'Yes, yes,' supplied the curator readily; 'I know. No human touch. I feel just the same myself about them. Now flints! There's romance, if you like.'

'That is the real thing, isn't it?' exclaimed Mr Carrados with unqualified conviction. 'There's more interest to my mind in a neolithic scraper than in a whole show-case-full of ammonites and belemnites.'

The curator's eyes sparkled; it was not often that he came across another.

'Brings you face to face with the primeval, doesn't it?' he said. 'I once picked up a spearhead, beautifully finished except the very last chippings of the point. Not broken off, you understand—just incomplete. Why? Well, one might risk a dozen likely guesses. But there it was, just as it had dropped from the fingers of my prehistoric forefather ten thousand years before—no other hand had touched it between his and mine.'

'I should very much like to see what you have here,' remarked the affable visitor. 'Or, rather, in my case, for I am practically blind, I should ask to be allowed to handle.' There were occasions when Mr Carrados found it prudent to qualify his affliction, for more than once astonished strangers had finally concluded that he must be wholly shamming. In his character as an American tourist of leisure—a Mr Daniel Munroe of Connecticut, as he duly introduced himself—the last thing he desired was that ex-Lieutenant von Groot or any of that gentleman's associates should suspect him of playing a part.

For the next half-hour Mr Lidmarsh—his name marked the progress of their acquaintanceship—threw open cabinets and show-cases in his hospitable desire to entertain the passing stranger. Carrados knew quite enough of flint implements—as indeed he seemed to know enough of any subject beneath the sun—to be able to talk on level terms with an expert, and he was quite equal to meeting a reference to Evans or to Nadaillac with another.

'I'm afraid that's all,' said the official at length, '—all that's worth showing you, at any rate. We are so handicapped for means, you see—the old story with this sort of institution. Practically everything we have has been given us at one time or another—it has to be, for there is simply no fund to apply to purchasing.'

'Surprising,' declared Carrados. 'One would have thought—'

'We arrange lectures in the winter and try to arouse interest in that way, but the response is small—distressingly small. A great pity. Theatres, cinemas, dancing halls, all crowded—anything for excitement. If we get nine adults we call it a good meeting—free, of course, and Mrs Lidmarsh has tried providing coffee. Now in Holland, my assistant tells me—'

It was the first mention of the absent Karl, for Carrados was too patient and wily a tracker to risk the obliquest reference to his man until he knew the ground he stood on. He listened to a commonplace on the unsophisticated pleasures of the Dutch.

'But surely you have more help for a place like this than a single assistant, Mr Lidmarsh? Why, in the States—'

'It has to be done; it's as much as our endowment and the ha'penny rate will run to,' replied the curator, accepting his visitor's surprise in the sense—as, indeed, it was intended—of a delicate compliment to his own industry. 'Vangoor, myself, and Byles, the caretaker, carry everything upon our shoulders. I count myself very fortunate in having a helper who makes light of work as Mr Vangoor does. Englishmen, unfortunately, seem mostly concerned in seeing that they don't put in half an hour more than they're paid for, Mr Munroe. At least that's my experience. Then he just happens to be keen on the subjects that I'm most interested in.'

'That's always nice,' admitted Mr Carrados, unblushingly.

'Well, it all helps to give an added interest, doesn't it? Not that any department of the work here is neglected or cold-shouldered, I hope—no, I am sure it isn't. For instance, neither of us really cares for natural history, but we recognize that others will think differently, so natural history in all its branches receives due attention. As a seaside town, of course, we give prominence to marine zoology, and our local fishermen and sailors are encouraged to bring in any curious or unusual specimen that they may light upon.'

'Do they much?' inquired the visitor.

'I am afraid not. Lack of public spirit and the suspicion that something is being got out of them for nothing, I suppose. Why, I have even found Vangoor rewarding them out of his own slender pocket to encourage them to come.'

'Fine,' was Mr Carrados's simple comment.

'Yes—when you consider that the poor fellow is none too well paid at the best and that he sends a little every week to his old people away in Holland—all that he can save, in fact—and he lives in a tiny, out-of-the-way old cottage quite by himself so as to do it as cheaply as possible.'

'Vangoor,' considered the blind man thoughtfully; 'Vangoor—there was a fellow of that name I used to meet at times up to six months ago. Now I wonder—'

'In America, you mean?'

'Yes. We have a good sprinkling of Dutch of the old stock, you know. Now what was my man's front name—'

'Then it couldn't have been this one, for he has been here just a year now. I wish he was about so that I could introduce him to you, but he won't be back yet.'

'Well, as to that, I've been thinking,' remarked Mr Carrados. 'I've had a real interesting time here, and in return I'd like to show you a few good things in the flint line that I've picked up on my tour. Could you come around to dinner tomorrow—Sunday?'

'That's very kind indeed.' Mr Lidmarsh was a little surprised at the attention, but not unflattered. 'Sure it won't be—'

'Not a shred,' declared the new acquaintance. 'Bring Vangoor along as well, of course.'

'I'll certainly give him your invitation,' promised the curator; 'but what his arrangements are, naturally I cannot say.'

'Seven o'clock tomorrow then,' confirmed Mr Carrados, referring to the fingers of his own rather noticeable watch as he spoke.'"Abbotsford", in your Prospect Avenue here, is the place. So long.'

At the slightest of gestures Parkinson broke off his profound meditation among Egyptian mummy-cloth and took his master in charge. Together they passed down the flight of stairs and reached the entrance hall again.

'Let them know at the house that I expect two guests to dinner tomorrow,' said Mr Carrados as they crossed the hall. 'Mr Lidmarsh will be coming, and very likely Mr Vangoor as well.'

'I don't think you'll find the last-named gentleman will favour you, Mr Carrados,' said a discreetly lowered and slightly husky voice quite close to them. 'Not much I don't.'

Parkinson started at the untimely recognition, but Carrados merely stopped.

'Ah, William,' he said, without turning, 'and pray why not?'

Mr William Byles, caretaker, doorkeeper, and general factotum of the Castlemouth Museum, disclosed himself from behind an antique coffer smiling broadly.

'So you knew me, sir, after all?' he remarked, with easy familiarity. 'I thought to surprise you, but it's the other way about, it seems.'

'Your voice has much the same rich quality as when you looked after my cellar, a dozen years ago, William,' replied Mr Carrados. 'Making due allowance for a slight—erosion. One expects that with the strong sea air.'

'I wondered what you was up to, sir, when I hear you pitch it to the governor you were Mr Munroe from America. Made me laugh. Now that you're inviting Mr Dutch Vangoor to dinner I can give a straightish guess. You needn't trouble, sir. I'm keeping an observant eye on that identical piece of goods myself.'

'Come to the door and point out the way somewhere,' directed Mr Carrados, moving on from the dangerous vicinity of the stairs. 'What do you know about Vangoor?'

'Not as much yet as I'd like to,' admitted Mr Byles, 'but I can put two and two together, Mr Carrados, as well as most.'

'Yes,' mused the blind man reminiscently, 'I always had an idea that you were good at that, William. So you don't exactly love him?'

''Ate isn't the word for it,' replied the caretaker frankly. 'Too much of the bleeding Crown Prince about Jan Van for my vocabulary. Ready to lick his superior's boots three times a day if requisite, but he's done the double dirty on me more than once. And I don't forget it neither.'

'But why do you think he won't come tomorrow?'

'Well, if it's going to be war in a day or two, as most people say, depend on it, sir, Jan Van knows already and it stands to reason that he's busy now. And so shall I be busy, and when he least expects it too.'

'Then I can safely leave him in your hands, William,' said Mr Carrados pleasantly. 'By the way, how do you like it here?' and he indicated the somnolent institution they were leaving.

'Like?' repeated Mr Byles, swallowing with difficulty. 'Like it! Me that's been butler in superior West End families the best part of my life to finish up as "general" in what's nothing more or less than a sort of mouldy peep-show? Oh, Mr Carrados!'

The blind man laughed and a substantial coin found its billet in the caretaker's never-reluctant palm.

'Not "Mr Carrados" here, William, remember. Please preserve my alias or you'll be doing Mr Vangoor a kindness. And whatever you are at, don't let him guess you're on his track.'

Mr Byles's only reply was to place a knowing forefinger against an undeniably tell-tale nose and to close one eye significantly—a form of communication that was presumably lost on the one for whom it was intended though it shocked Parkinson not a little. But the tone and spirit of the whole incident had been a source of pain to that excellent servitor all through.

Another member of Mr Carrados's household—though in point of miles a distant one—was also adversely affected by his employer's visit to the Castlemouth Museum. Less than an hour after Mr Byles's parting gesture a telegram addressed 'Secretary' was delivered at 'The Turrets' and threw Annesley Greatorex, who was contemplating a bright week-end, into a mild revolt.

'My hat, Auntie! just listen to this,' exclaimed Mr Greatorex, addressing the lady whose benevolent rule as Mr Carrados's housekeeper had led to the mercurial youth conferring this degree of honorary relationship upon her. 'Here you have M.C.'s latest:

––––––––

Borrow few dozen flint implements any period but interesting and dispatch fully insured post or rail to reach me first tomorrow. Try Vicars, Bousset, Leicester (Oxford Street), Graham, etc. Wire advice; then stand by.

––––––––

Stand by! That means ta-ta to mirth and melody by moonlit streams, until our lord returns, forsooth.'

'And not a bad thing either, Mr Greatorex,' declared the lady, without pausing in her work. 'If there's going to be a war any minute and that German family in Canterbury Road who've got an airship hidden away in their coachhouse fly out and start dropping bombs about, you're much better here safe in bed than gallivanting up and down the open river.'

'Then what about Mr Carrados right on the coast and near a naval harbour?'

'I'm no' troubling about Mr Carrados,' replied the housekeeper decisively. 'If the Germans come they'll come by night. So long as it's in the dark Mr Carrados won't be the first one to need the ambulance, ma lad.'

Carrados duly received his few dozen flints and smiled as he handled them and removed the labels. Promptly on the stroke of seven the curator arrived, but he came alone; whatever the true cause might be, William Byles was right.

'I'm sorry about Vangoor,' apologized Mr Lidmarsh as they greeted. 'He quite intended to come and then at the last found that he had an appointment. I'm sorry, because I should like you to have met him, and he isn't having the pleasantest of times just now.'

'Oh! How is that?'

'Foolish prejudice, of course. People are excited and regard every neutral as an enemy in esse or in posse. And the irony of it is that Vangoor hears positively that Holland will be in on our side within a month.'

They fell to talking of the war-cloud, as everybody did that day. It was known from the special issues that Germany had formally declared war on Russia, and had launched an ultimatum against France; that here and there fighting had actually begun. The extent of our own implication was not yet disclosed, but few doubted that the die was irrevocably cast.

'Will it make any difference to you up at the Museum?' inquired the host. Enlisting had suddenly become a current topic.

'I don't see how it can,' replied Mr Lidmarsh, with regret expressed very largely in his tone. 'At my age—I've turned thirty-nine, though you mightn't think it—I'm afraid there would be no earthly chance of being accepted even if the war lasted a year.'

'A year,' repeated the blind man thoughtfully.

'Well, of course, that's an absurdly outside limit. Mrs Lidmarsh comes of a military family, and she has it privately from an aunt, whose daughter is engaged to the nephew of a staff officer, that the Russian commander-in-chief has sent a map of Germany to Lord Kitchener with the words "Christmas Day" written across Berlin. Naturally everyone at the War Office can guess what that means!'

Carrados nodded politically. Every second person whom he had met that day had a string leading direct to Whitehall.

'Vangoor would go like a shot if they'd raise a Foreign Legion. But of course—Then there's only old Byles—So I'm afraid that we shall have to carry on as usual. And, after all, I don't know that it isn't the most patriotic thing to do. People will want distraction more than ever—not hectic gaiety: no one would dream of that, but simple, rational amusement. Soldiers on leave will need entertainment and somewhere to pass their time. A museum—'

Mr Carrados got out his flints and the curator brightened up, but something was plainly on his mind. He hemmed and hawed his intention to confide half a dozen times before the plunge was taken.

There's one thing I should like to tell you about, Mr Munroe, although in a sense I'm—well, I won't say bound to secrecy, but confidentially placed.'

'Of course anything that you might say—' encouraged his auditor, discreetly occupied with the cigars.

'Yes, yes; I'm sure of that. And you have been so extremely kind and—er—reciprocal and would, I know, be deeply interested in the find that—well, I feel that if you went away without my saying anything and you afterwards—perhaps when you are back in America—read of what we had been doing, you would think that in the circumstances I had not been quite—eh? Certainly, I know that I should in your place.'

'A find,' commented Mr Carrados, with no very great hope in that direction—'a find is always exciting, isn't it?'

'Well, perhaps I spoke prematurely in the fullest sense—though something we undoubtedly shall find—Did you ever hear of the golden coffin of Epiovanus?'

'I'm afraid,' admitted the other, 'that I never even heard of Epiovanus himself. Stay though—doesn't Roger of Wimborne mention something of the sort in his Chronicle?'

'The tradition of an early British chief or king being buried in a gold coffin seems to have been curiously persistent, and that would go to give it a certain degree of credibility. Personally, I take it cum grano, I am quite prepared for a gold-mounted coffin or a coffin containing certain priceless gold adornments or treasure of gold coin. I question if the richest tribe could at that time disclose sufficient gold to fashion a solid case of the size required.'

'There was fairly extensive gold coinage at that period, and then the metal practically disappears from the mints for the next thousand years,' suggested Carrados.

'It having gone into the manufacture of royal coffins? I should like to think so, for we believe that we are in fact on the track of something of the kind.'

'You are?' exclaimed the sympathetic listener. 'That would be great—real unique, I suppose. But I don't quite take it home, you know.' Actually he was only bridging conversation out of politeness to a guest. All the treasure of the Indies was of less interest than Vangoor's moves just then.

'Perhaps it sounds too good to be true, but Vangoor is thoroughly convinced, and he is exceptionally well up on the subject and has a veritable craze for digging.'

'Go on,' said Carrados mechnically. For one concentrated moment he even forget his American citizenship in the blinding inspiration that cleft without warning, shapeless but at the same time essentially complete, into his mind. 'I'm tremendously intrigued.'

'Nothing is known of Epiovanus beyond the existence of a unique copper coin reading EPIOV. REX. But among the country-people back in the valleys here—the peasants and labourers in whose names you can trace a Saxon ancestry—you will often get a shamefaced admission that they have "heard tell" from their grandfathers of a golden coffin containing the bones of a great chief. But where? That was the difficulty, Mr Munroe. But, to cut short a long story—nearly two thousand years long, in fact—I may say that we have at last linked up the golden coffin legend with Epiovanus, Epiovanus with this part of the land, and now, finally, Vangoor has established that the solitary mound on Headlam Height is undoubtedly an early British sepulchural barrow of very unusual size and importance.'

'Headlam Height?'

'It is a small, rugged promontory a mile or two along the coast here. The barrow is almost on the edge of the land, for the cliff has been falling away for ages—indeed, in another fifty years or less the tumulus would have gone over and whatever it contains been dumped into the sea.'

'And you have opened it?'

'We have made a start. There was considerable difficulty in fixing up a reasonable arrangement at first. You would think it a simple and harmless enough undertaking, but there was the lord of the manor to be approached, the landlord to be got round, and the farmer—well, he had to be bought over, and I am sorry to say that Vangoor in his scientific zeal has in the end promised him the greater part of his own share.'

'Of the golden coffin?' remarked Mr Carrados. 'A very weighty argument.'

'Well, of course, we should hope to retain the best things for the Museum, but there would have to be some pecuniary adjustment. If it turns out at all as we anticipate, the find would create a stir beyond anything of the kind before—at least, it would have done if it hadn't been for this wretched war.'

'It opens dazzling possibilities,' admitted the blind man. 'Have you found anything yet?'

'Nothing important but plenty of encouraging trifles—burnt bones and other remains of a funeral feast, fragments of pottery, and so on. We have only been at work a fortnight, and partly from motives of economy, but more because of the extreme care that must be taken, Vangoor has done nearly all the work himself.'

'Driving a tunnel from the shore side?' suggested Mr Carrados.

'Why, yes,' admitted the curator, looking rather surprised, 'but surely you haven't heard it spoken of?'

'Not at all,' Carrados hastened to assure him. 'Merely an interested guess.'

'I hoped it wasn't getting about generally or we shall have all sorts of prying busybodies up there. As it is, we have railed off the part and placarded it "Dangerous"—which it really is. But it struck me as curious you saying that, because at first we thought of making a sectional cutting right down. Then it was only after trials that Vangoor found the seaward side the safest to tunnel in.'

When Carrados decided that there was nothing more of value to be learned—a few aimless remarks elicited this—the conversation imperceptibly slid off to other and less personal themes. The wary investigator had no wish to stir the suggestion that he was curious about Vangoor, and, indeed, the impression that Mr Lidmarsh took away with him was that his host's real hobby in life was the promulgation of phonetic reform.

But what had before been merely a general precautionary suspicion on the blind man's part had now fined down to a very definite conviction, and from whichever side he approached the problem the road led to Headlam Height His first impulse was to investigate that secluded spot at once, but a moment's reflection suggested that the chance of encountering Vangoor there was too substantial to be risked at that stage of the quest. Mr Byles's rather burlesque intervention now began to wear another and a more important face. Was it possible that the disgruntled caretaker knew anything definite of what was going on at Headlam Height?

'This is your affair, Parkinson, and you ought to know all that I do,' said Mr Carrados five minutes later, as he retold Lidmarsh's disclosure. 'On the one hand we have a harmless Dutch scientist, wholly taken up with investigating a lonely burial mound; on the other a dangerous German spy, constructing to some hostile end a retreat that directly overlooks the Channel while it is itself cunningly hidden from every point of land. What do you think about it?'

'I apprehend that we ought to be prepared for the latter eventuality, sir,' replied Parkinson sagely.

'I quite agree with you,' assented his master, with all the air of receiving a valuable suggestion. 'We will stroll round by the Market Square, as any casual visitors might before turning in. If we encounter Mr Byles it may lead to something further. If not, another time will do.'

They made their leisurely perambulation, but nothing came of it. Not only did they fail to encounter Mr Byles but the small curtained upper windows that inevitably suggested his modest suite of rooms displayed no light. The two outstanding hypotheses had to be dismissed, for William had never been an early sleeper in the past, while the public-houses had now been closed some time. Plainly there was nothing left but to retrace their steps.

'Tomorrow morning we will come again,' arranged Mr Carrados. 'Fortunately the Museum will be open as usual, so that William cannot very well elude us. Afterwards ... I expect it will be Headlam Height.'

'Tomorrow' was the last day of peace—Monday, the 3rd of August, and thereby a bank holiday. 'Five Nations at War', 'Invasion of France', and 'British Naval Reserves Mobilized', ran the burden of the morning papers. It was no longer a question of peace trembling in the balance: it was merely the detail of when it would kick the beam.

But 'Business as usual' was now held to be the thing; and Castlemouth's business being largely that of providing amusement for its visitors, there was very little indication of stress or crisis on its joyous sands or along its glittering front that day. At the railway station perhaps the outward trains were crowded and the inward ones were light, while in every chatting group a single word prevailed, but so far Castlemouth was resolved to take war peacefully.

'I believe, sir,' reported Parkinson, as they crossed the Market Square—'I believe that the place is closed.'

'The Museum, you mean?'

'Yes, sir. The outer doors are certainly shut.'

'Curious. I made a point of asking about today. Mr Lidmarsh was explicit.'

'There is Mr Lidmarsh, sir. He has just come up. He is fastening a paper to the door.'

Carrados's heart gave a thud, but his pace did not alter, and the curator, looking up, judged the meeting accidental.

'Oh, Mr Munroe,' he exclaimed, 'this is a shocking business. Have you heard?'

'Not a solitary word,' replied the blind man. 'What is it?'

'Poor Byles. He was found dead on the shore this morning.'

'Where?' dropped from Mr Carrados's lips. A good deal might depend on that.

'Just below Headlam Height, I understand. "De mortuis", and all that, you know, but the man certainly had himself largely to blame, I fear. He wasn't supposed to know anything about our work up there, but he had evidently got wind of something. He was a curious, secretive old fellow, and, as I read it, he went up there in the dark last night, and, prying about, he either slid on the slippery grass or did not see the edge. And late at night Byles was sometimes just a little—you understand? However, we have closed the Museum today as a mark of respect. But of course if you want to go in—'

'Thank you,' replied Mr Carrados, 'but I guess not. I was thinking.... Where have they put him?'

'In the mortuary close by. He's fearfully knocked about. He had a couple of rooms up there'—indicating the windows Parkinson had observed the night before—'but he has no wife or people; and in any case the mortuary is the proper place. There'll have to be an inquest, of course; I've sent Vangoor to make inquiries now.'

'I was thinking'—he had undoubtedly been thinking, but he had not yet had time to review every possibility—'this Byles did me a service as we left the Museum on Saturday—saved me perhaps from what might have been a nasty fall—and a few friendly words passed afterwards. And now.... Dear me; how sad! ... Well, I'm not up in the customs of your sarcophagi, but if a trifling bouquet—Why, I've a notion that I'd like to.'

This impressed Mr Lidmarsh with the sentimentality of masculine America—an attribute he had frequently heard it credited with.

'Why, of course,' he replied, 'there could be no difficulty about that if you wish it. But did you mean—right now?' The last two words were in the nature of a spontaneous tribute to the visitor's nationality.

'Sure. You see, I might have moved on tomorrow or the day after. There seems to be a flower store open that we passed just back—'

Even as he purchased the sheaf of lilies to lay on William Byles's shroud, Carrados was not altogether free from an illusion of sharing a rather exquisite joke with that mordant individual. How would William have regarded the touching act on the part of his old employer? By whatever means it reached his insight the blind man's mind immediately envisioned the flashlight of a tight-closed humid eye and a nose and finger placed in close conjunction. But, in truth, Carrados had felt the necessity of investigating further, and no other excuse occurred to him at once. He could hardly affect that he wished to see the doorkeeper once more.... The sudden intuition that Parkinson was tentatively regarding a wreath of white moss-roses hastened their departure.

'One curious feature is the time this must have happened,' remarked Mr Lidmarsh as they walked on. 'He was found by the merest chance early this morning—almost as soon as it was light, in fact—and his clothing was not wet. That shows that he could not have fallen down before midnight at any rate. Now, whatever possessed the man to be there at that hour when nothing could be seen? He had the whole of Sunday on his hands if he wished to look about.'

'Singular, isn't it?' assented Carrados. 'No one saw him up there, I take it?'

'Oh, no—at least we have heard of no one. Who would be likely to be there? Even Vangoor doesn't dig on Sunday—he wouldn't think it right.'

The mortuary proved to be quite near—a corner of the market hall in fact. Mr Lidmarsh procured the key from the police station, with no more formality than a neighbourly greeting on either side, and Carrados was free to perform his thoughtful office.

The body lay, outlined beneath a single covering, on one of the two stone benches that the place contained. On the other were arranged the dead man's clothes, with the few trumpery belongings that his pockets had yielded set out beside them.

'They told me that his watch, purse, and keys were taken for safety to the station,' remarked their guide, as Carrados's understanding hands moved lightly to and fro. 'The rest is of no consequence.'

'String, pipe, tobacco-box, matches, small folding measure, odd cuff-link, silver mariner's compass, handkerchief,' checked off the leisurely fingers. 'How stereotyped we he-things are: my own pockets would show almost the same collection—in a liberal sense, of course.'

'It is rather odd about the book,' volunteered the curator, pointing to a worn volume of pocket size. It was lying a little apart, and apparently the gesture was for Carrados's eyes to follow—and strangely enough they did seem to follow, for he picked up the book unfalteringly. 'It was still tightly held in Byles's hand when he was found. Now, why should the man be holding a book in his hand—one that would obviously go into his pocket—on a dark night? If there was any mystery about the case I suppose this ought to be one of the clues that those wonderful detectives we read about, but never meet in real life, would unravel the secret by.'

Mr Carrados laughed appreciatively as he turned the pages of the book.

'Stories from the Studios of Paris,' he read aloud. 'At all events this throws some light on the literary calibre of our departed friend.... The only thing that would seem to be missing from the average pocket is a pen-knife.'

'Pen-knife?' repeated Mr Lidmarsh looking about. 'To be sure he had a knife generally; I've seen it often enough. Well, I don't suppose it matters—a shilling at the outside.'

Everything had been seen—everything except the chief 'exhibit' lying beneath the merciful coverlet. The curator understood that his new friend relied chiefly on a highly-trained sense of touch—he had marvelled more than once during this short intercourse at what it told—but he was hardly prepared to see Mr Carrados raise the sheet and begin to pass his hand over the—his own eyes perforce went elsewhere—over the dreadful thing which the day before had been William Byles's face.

'I think,' said the blind man, turning away suddenly, 'that this is rather too much—' His left hand came into contact with his attendant's sleeve and Parkinson felt himself detained by a robust grasp. 'Is there anywhere, Mr Lidmarsh, where ... a glass of water?'

'Yes, yes.' Almost with a feeling of self-reproach that he had allowed the mishap Mr Lidmarsh was off to the nearest house. He ought to have warned....

'The book, Parkinson,' said Carrados in his usual easy tone, and before Parkinson (who would carry his own blend of simplicity and shrewdness to the grave) quite knew what was happening, Stories from the Studios of Paris had disappeared into his master's coat pocket.

'I don't think that there is anything more to detain us here,' remarked the strategist dispassionately. 'We may as well await our friend outside.' He closed the door, locked it, and took out the key in readiness. When Mr Lidmarsh returned with the water he found Carrados seated on a market truck.

'I am glad you came away from the ghastly place,' he declared. 'I ought to have thought of that.' Still accusing himself of some remission, he insisted on accompanying the two half-way through the town and hoped that they might meet again.