The Feathered Serpent E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The symbol of The Feathered Serpent, that South American god of several names, brings terror to a group of Londoners.

Leseprobe

THE FEATHERED SERPENT

Edgar Wallace

© 2020 Librorium Editions

First Published in 1927

Contents

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Chapter 15 | Chapter 16

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18

Chapter 19 | Chapter 20

Chapter 21 | Chapter 22

Chapter 23

_________________

Chapter 1

WHAT annoyed Peter Dewin most, as it would have annoyed any properly constituted reporter, was what he called the mystery-novel element in the Lane case.

A real good crime story may gain in value from a touch of the bizarre, but all good newspaper men stop and shiver at the mention of murder gangs and secret societies, because such things do not belong to honest reporting, but are the inventions of writers of best or worst sellers.

Did not McCarthy of the Star drop the Reid kidnapping case like a hot brick the moment he learnt of the Blue Circle painted on Lawrence Reid's door? And of course he was right, for the Reid baby was 'kidnapped' by his wife's maid, who had a weakness for sensation.

In Peter Dewin, the first mention of the Feathered Serpent got a laugh. When he heard of it again, he sneered. Such things, he said, belonged to the theatre, and, rightly speaking, it was in a theatre that the extraordinary story of the 'Feathered Serpent' starts...

THE APPLAUSE from the big audience was a deafening blast of sound that roared up to the Moorish roof of the Orpheum and came down again to the packed house like the reverberations of thunder.

Ella Creed came tripping back from the wings, a dainty figure in white and diamanté, flashed a smile at her admirers, kissed both hands ecstatically and went off with a little curtsy, only to be recalled again.

She shot one glance at the watchful conductor whose baton went up and fell as the orchestra crashed once more into the opening bars of 'What I like, I like,' that most banal of airs. Ella took centre stage, the chorus came jigging into view for the encore, and for three minutes Ella's shapely limbs were moving with the dazzling rapidity her eccentric dance demanded. She made her exit in a storm of hand-clapping and squawks of joy from the cheaper parts of the house.

She stood for some time, panting, by the stage manager's little desk.

'I want that third girl from the end fired—she's overworking and trying to take it all from me. And what's the idea of putting a blonde in the front row, Sager? If I've told you once, I've told you twenty times, I want brunettes behind me—'

'I'm very sorry, Miss Creed'—the stage manager had a wife and three children and was humble—'I'll see that the girl gets her notice to-day—'

'Fire her—never mind about notice,' snapped Ella. 'Give her a month's money and clear her out.'

She was very pretty in a small, pinched way; not quite as ethereal as she appeared from the front of the house: the lips were straight under the red cupid bow which a lipstick had drawn.

Ordinary actresses would have waited for the finale, but Ella had a supper engagement and would not line up with the rest of the principals when the curtain rang down—and she was no ordinary actress. She was indeed the proprietor of the theatre in which she acted, the tyrant of a little kingdom which did homage to her nightly and at those matinees where she condescended to appear.

She walked through the chorus and they made way for her. A favoured few greeted her with sycophantic smiles, and were rewarded with bare recognition.

Her dressing-room with its silk-panelled walls and shaded lights was a place of luxury. Two women dressers unfastened her flimsy garment; she slipped into a silken kimono and fell back into a chair, submitting to the process of having her make-up removed. Her face was shining with cold cream when there came a knock at the door.

'See who it is,' Ella said impatiently. 'I can't see anybody.'

The woman came back from the little lobby outside the door. 'Mr. Crewe,' she said in a hushed voice.

Ella frowned.

'All right— bring him in. And when my face is finished you can go, both of you.'

Mr. Crewe came in with a little smile. He was a tall, thin man with a hard, wrinkled face; his locks were scanty, and would have been grey if nature had had its way. He was in evening dress, and in the bosom of his white shirt three diamonds glittered.

'Wait till I'm finished,' she begged. 'You can smoke, Billy— give Mr. Crewe a cigarette, one of you. Now hurry up.'

Mr. Crewe, seated on the arm of a big chair, watched the business of changing the make-up of the stage for the make-up of the street without any visible interest or curiosity. Presently Ella rose and disappeared behind the silk curtain which covered a recess. He heard sharp words of reproof and warning: Ella was not in her best temper to-night, he reflected. Not that her moods caused him the slightest perturbation. Very few things disturbed the serenity of this successful stock-jobber; but one of those few things had happened that morning.

Presently Ella emerged. She was wearing a flame-coloured evening gown; about her throat was a rope of pearls, and across her breast a big bar of emeralds that would have been worth a small fortune had the stones been all they seemed.

'Got everything on except the kitchen stove,' said Mr. Crewe pleasantly, when the dressers had made a hurried retreat. 'You're a fool to go out with all that stuff on you—'

'Props,' interrupted the girl nonchalantly. 'You don't suppose I'd run around with twenty thousand pounds' worth of property, do you, Billy? What do you want?'

The last brusquely. He ignored the question.

'Who is the innocent victim?' he asked, and she smiled.

'He's a young fellow from the Midlands; his father has ten mills or something. They are so rich that they don't know what to do with their money. What did you want to see me about, Billy?— this fellow will be here in a minute.'

Mr. Leicester Crewe took from his pocket a note-case. Out of this he drew a card. It was the size of a lady's visiting card and bore no name. Stamped on the centre and in red ink was a curious design— the figure of a feathered serpent. Beneath were the words:

'Lest You Forget.'

'What's this— a puzzle?' she asked, frowning. 'What is it—a snake with feathers...?'

Mr. Crewe nodded.

'The first one came by post a week ago— this one came this morning. I found it on my dressing-table when I got up.'

She stared at him.

'Well, what is it— an advertisement?' she asked curiously.

Leicester Crewe shook his head.

'"Lest you forget",' he read the line again. 'I've got an idea this is a sort of warning— you didn't send it for a joke!'

'Me!' she scoffed. 'What sort of a fool am I? Think I've got nothing better to do than play monkey tricks? And what do you mean by "warning"?'

Crewe scratched his chin thoughtfully.

'I don't know...it kind of gave me a start—'

Ella laughed shrilly.

'Is that what you came round for? Well, Billy, you can hop! I've got to meet this boy—'

Ella stopped talking abruptly. She had opened her little gold bag and was searching for a handkerchief, and he saw her face change. When her fingers came from the bag they were holding an oblong strip of cardboard—an exact replica of that which he held in his hand.

'What's the idea?'

She was scowling at him suspiciously.

Crewe snatched the card from her. There was the sign of the Feathered Serpent, and no word other than the inscription beneath.

'It wasn't in there when I came into the theatre,' she said angrily, and rang the bell.

One of the dressers came.

'Who put this in my bag?' demanded Ella. 'Come on— I want to know who's the joker. Either one or both of you are going to get the sack to-night.'

The dresser protested her innocence, and the second woman, called to explain, could offer no solution.

'I can't fire them because they're useful,' said Ella when they had been dismissed; 'and anyway, it's nothing to lose my head about. I suppose it's an ad. for a film, and we'll see the placards plastered all over London next week. Billy, my boy's waiting.' With a flourishing farewell she was gone.

She had supper at the Café de Rheims, a dancing floor surrounded by expensive menus and London's latest rendezvous. The dull young wool merchant who had escorted her would have seen her home at two o'clock in the morning, but Ella had a perverted sense of propriety and declined his escort. She rented a small and beautiful house in St. John's Wood, 904, Acacia Road, and, like most of its fellows, it was approached by way of a door set in a high garden wall. Beyond, a flagged and glass-covered pathway led to the front door proper.

She said good night to the chauffeur, passed through and closed the outer door. One glance up at her lighted window told her that her maid was waiting for her, and she took two steps towards the door...

'If you scream, I'll choke you!'

The words were hissed in her ear, and she stood paralysed with fear and horror. Out of the dark bushes that fringed the path a black figure had emerged, tall, broad-shouldered, menacing.'

She could not see the face half covered with a black handkerchief, but, staring past him, she saw a second shape, and her knees gave beneath her.

She opened her mouth to scream, but a big hand closed on her face.

'...d'ye hear? I'll throttle you if you make a noise!'

Then everything went dark. Ella Creed, who had simulated faintness so often, had genuinely fainted for the first time in her life.

When she came to her senses, she found herself propped against her own front door. The men had disappeared, and with them her emerald bar and pearls. It would have been a commonplace holdup but for the card which she found hanging about her neck, attached by a piece of string. And the card bore the symbol of the Feathered Serpent.

Chapter 2

'FORTUNATELY, Miss Ella Creed was not wearing her jewels, but a very clever imitation of them, so the miscreants gained nothing by the outrage. The police have in hand the card with its crude drawing of a Feathered Serpent, and developments are hourly expected.'

'That's the story,' said the news editor, with the complacency which is particularly characteristic of news editors when they send their subordinates to impossible tasks. 'The feathered snake makes the robbery peculiarly interesting, and brings it into the realms of the sensational novelist.'

'Then why don't you hire a sensational novelist to go out and get the story?' demanded Peter, wrinkling his nose.

He was a tall, untidy young man, with a slight stoop. When his hair was brushed, and he adopted, complainingly, the dress suit, the wearing of which is vital to certain kinds of work, he was singularly good-looking. Nobody had told him so: he would have brained them if they had. They said of him on the Post-Courier that he loved crime for crime's sake, and that his idea of heaven was to wear plus-fours seven days a week, and spend eternity investigating picturesque murders.

'This is story-book stuff and doesn't belong to the pages of a respectable newspaper,' he said indignantly. 'Feathered serpent be— blowed! I'll bet you this Creed woman has worked up the stunt for publicity purposes. Ella Creed would jump out of a balloon to get free publicity.'

'Has she ever jumped out of a balloon?' asked the unimaginative news editor, momentarily interested.

'No,' said Peter loudly. 'She may have said she has, but Ella has done nothing more heroic than to eat oysters on the first of September. Honestly, Parsons, can't you give this to the theatrical correspondent? He could spread himself—'

Mr. Parsons pointed awfully to the door, and Peter, who was an experienced journalist and knew just how far a news editor can be baited with safety, slouched back to the reporters' room and moaned his misery to his sympathetic fellows.

On one point he was satisfied: no serpent, feathered or bare, would make him break his engagement. He could only hope that the same ruthless determination was present in the heart of the other party to the contract. Whatever misgivings he had upon this matter were, however, without cause.

When convention and instinct pull different ways, and the subject of the opposing influences is twenty-one and capable, convention is the loser. By most standards, tea-room acquaintances between perfect strangers are attended with certain risks, and 'May I pass you the sugar?' is a wholly inadequate substitute for a formal introduction.

And yet, mused Daphne Olroyd, making a leisurely progress towards the cosy lounge of the Astoria Hotel in the grey of a November afternoon, formal introductions carry with them no guarantee of behaviour. And she was quite sure of Mr. Peter Dewin: much more sure than she was of Leicester Crewe or that red-faced and leering friend of his.

Whether she was cheapened or not by her acceptance of Peter Dewin's attention did not trouble her. She had her own code of values, and the imponderable sense of understanding which told her that the tall young man with the untidy hair thought no less of her because, almost unhesitatingly, she accepted his invitation to tea in a public place.

Peter Dewin was standing square in the middle of the palm court, looking anxiously at the revolving door, when she came in.

'I've got a table as far from the infernal band as I could get— do you like hotel orchestras or do you prefer music?'

He led the way to a corner table, firing over his shoulder comments on things and people that would have embarrassed her if she had not been amused.

'Everybody comes here on Saturday afternoon... no charge for admission... that man over there with the horrible waistcoat is a card-sharp—only just got back from New York.

He had a trick of emphasising little points with elaborate gestures; she seemed to be walking behind a human semaphore. 'Here we are— take the low chair— sorry.'

There was nothing furtive about Mr. Peter Dewin. Everybody in the palm court was aware of his presence, even though they might guess wildly at his identity. The waiter knew him, the floor manager knew him, the hall porter knew him. Nobody else mattered.

Daphne learnt of his profession now for the first time, and was interested. Newspaper folk had a mystery for her.

'What do you report?' she asked.

'Crime mostly— murders and things,' he said vaguely, as he fitted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles to his nose and solemnly surveyed the company. 'When crime is slack— royal weddings, important funerals. I've even sunk to the depths of covering a debate in the House of Commons. Dash these glasses, I can't see anything!'

'Why do you wear them?' she demanded, astonished.

'I don't,' he said calmly as he took them off. 'They belong to a fellow at the office. I collected 'em from an optician.'

He looked round at his companion and surveyed her critically. She did not grow uncomfortable under his scrutiny: she had a sense of humour.

'Well?' She awaited an outspoken verdict.

'You're awfully pretty— I suppose lovely is a better word,' he said unemotionally. 'I knew that when I first met you, of course. I never dreamt that you'd turn up to-day. Was I fresh in the tea-shop? People think I'm fresh when I'm only interested.'

'No, I didn't think you were fresh,' she smiled faintly. 'I thought you were— unusual!'

'I am,' he interrupted promptly. 'I never make love to girls; you lose a lot of fun if you make love to girls just because they're girls. You understand that? You miss their humanity and character— you throw away the apple for the sake of the core. That sounds silly, but it isn't. I'm never wholly absurd.'

The waiter came and deposited divers pots and cups. 'You're Crewe's secretary, aren't you?'

She was staggered by the question.

'I saw you once— I came up to interview him about something. I didn't remember that till this morning. One piece of sugar, please.' He stirred his tea and frowned.

'The older novelists explained why beautiful young ladies occupied humble positions by a bank failure or a gambling father. There have been no bank failures lately.'

'And my poor father didn't gamble,' she smiled. 'I am of the middle class and in my proper sphere.'

He was pleased at this.

'Good. I hate people who've come down in the world. Do you know that woman over there?— she's looking at you.'

Daphne turned her head.

'Mrs. Paula Staines,' she said. 'She's a sort of cousin to Mr. Crewe.'

Peter surveyed the well-dressed lady; she was too far away for him to see her face distinctly.

'Do you like that ménage? he asked abruptly.

'Mr. Crewe's?' She hesitated. 'No— not very much. I am trying to get another position, though I don't imagine that I shall be successful.'

He looked at her sharply.

'Funny, is he? Crewe, I mean. He hasn't the best of reputations. I think that you'd be well out of it. Crewe made his money queerly. It came with a rush, and nobody knows how the money-slide started.'

She laughed.

'Are you very much interested in him, or is this only an extract from—'

'My encyclopaedic brain,' he finished the sentence. 'No; I'm interested in him. I'm a crime reporter with a fantastic mind. I have seven theories about Crewe and none of 'em fits. Eat your darned bun!'

Daphne obeyed meekly.

'I've got to go along and give a thousand pounds' worth of free publicity to a lady who has lost ten pounds' worth of jewellery—'

'Not Miss Ella Creed?' asked Daphne in surprise. 'The girl who was attacked in her garden?'

'Do you know her?' he asked.

I've seen her. She sometimes comes to the house. Only Mr. Crewe was rather concerned about the robbery. He had had one of those Feathered Serpent cards the day Miss Creed was robbed. And he was rather worried about it.'

Peter looked at the girl thoughtfully.

'I don't believe there is anything in it,' he said at last. 'The idea has been pinched from—' He named a novelist whom she knew in a dim way as a writer of bizarre stories. 'Thieves are incapable of doing this sort of thing in real life. That "last warning" stuff is bunk, and I refuse to be thrilled. Where are you going?' he asked her abruptly.

She laughed aloud at the question.

'On an even greater adventure,' she answered. 'I'm going after a new job—and I haven't a ghost of a chance of getting it!'

He left her before the busy doorway of the hotel, and took a leisurely route to the Orpheum. At so early an hour he did not imagine that the leading lady would have arrived at the theatre, and he looked forward to a dreary wait; it was a pleasant shock to learn that she was in her dressing-room and would see him.

Miss Ella Creed had evidently just come in, for she was in her street clothes, and her fur wrap still hung about her shoulders. It was the first time Peter had met her, though her companion was well enough known to him.

Joe Farmer was a familiar figure in London. A coarse, stocky man, with a red, bloated face and an ineffable air of prosperity, he was famous principally as a promoter of boxing contests and the proprietor of a chain of public-houses that ran at intervals from Tidal Basin to Kew. He ran one or two horses that were trained in Berkshire; and if his reputation was not of the most savoury kind, he enjoyed a certain frowsy approval which passed for popularity. His big, fat hands glittered like a jeweller's window; he had a weakness for brilliant stones, and a large diamond sparkled in a cravat which would not have escaped attention even had it been unadorned.

He gave Peter a friendly grin and held out one of his big, moist hands.

'This is the very feller you ought to see,' he said. He had a deep, husky voice, and seemed to be suffering from an incurable attack of laryngitis. 'This is the boy! Sit down, Peter, old son. Let me introduce yer, Ella. Mr. Peter Derwent—'

'Dewin, my poor Bacchus,' said Peter wearily. 'D-e-w-i-n.' Joe Farmer chuckled huskily.

'He's "Peter" to me. Are you coming to see my fight at the Big Hall?'

'Never mind about fights,' snapped Ella viciously. And then to Peter: 'Are you a reporter? I suppose you've come about that disgusting attack that was made on me last night. I must say I was never so frightened in my life.'

She spoke rapidly, and her speech was as unpunctuated as a legal document.

'It's a very good thing for me I hadn't got my real jewellery on. Naturally a lady can't afford to go round wearing ten or twenty thousand pounds' worth of pearls, as you can quite understand, Mr. What's-your-name—'

'Have you the card?' interrupted Peter.

She opened her bag and took out a rather grimy-looking piece of pasteboard, attached to which was a string.

'That's what they found round my neck when I come to,' she said. 'What I'd like you to put in the paper is this: I never lost my presence of mind. If I hadn't been stunned—'

'Did they hit you?' asked Peter.

She hesitated. The desire for publicity was tempered by the knowledge that she had already made a very exact and truthful statement to the police.

'Stunned in a manner of speaking,' she said. 'To be perfectly honest, I fainted.'

'You wouldn't recognise any of the men again?'

She shook her head.

'No, it was quite dark. Usually my chauffeur waits till I've gone inside the house. But like a fool—very indiscreetly— I told him he could go, and that's what happened!'

Peter examined the card with the Feathered Serpent.

'Do you think anybody is playing a joke on you?' he asked. She brindled at this.

'Joke?' she asked shrilly. 'Do you imagine my friends would play that kind of a joke? No, these men were after the jewels, and I wish I could have seen their faces when they found they'd got "props"!'

She explained unnecessarily that 'props' was a theatrical term indicating imitation jewellery in this case.

Peter heard for the first time the story of the card which had been found in her bag the previous night, and had confirmation— not that he required such— of Daphne Olroyd's story.

'The curious thing is,' said Miss Creed in her breathless, staccato way, 'that my friend, Mr. Leicester Crewe, the well-known stock-broker, also had a card, and—'

'So did I,' Joe Farmer broke in, his face one long grin. 'Say, what do you think of that! Pulling that old stuff on this baby!'

Joe, in his dealings with American boxers, had acquired what he fondly believed to be an East-side vocabulary.

'And listen, Peter— I think I've got a big story for you, one of the biggest—'

'Oh, shut up!' said Miss Ella, sharply if inelegantly. 'We don't want to go into that, Joe.'

So violent was she that evidently she thought it was necessary to offer an explanation.

'Mr. Farmer thinks it's a certain person who's always had a grudge against him and me, but the person is dead, so it can't possibly be him.'

The glance she gave to the red-faced man was full of meaning. 'The least said, soonest mended.'

'He may be dead and he may be alive,' said Joe carefully. 'But I've got my own ideas and I'm going to work on 'em— get that! Nobody can put one over on me without a come-back. I'm that kind of guy— I can be led, but I can't be pushed, see? If people treat me right I'll treat them right—'

'Will you shut up?' This time Miss Ella Creed was really angry, and the promoter of fights relapsed obediently into silence.

There was not much new that Peter could learn, and he went back to his office a little puzzled, and to no small degree annoyed. He met the news editor in the vestibule of the office, on his way home.

'There is something in this card stuff,' insisted Parsons. 'And, Peter, I've been thinking since you left. The Feathered Serpent has a peculiar meaning. I went into the library and looked him up in the encyclopaedia. He's one of the gods of the old Aztec people. Why don't you go along and see Beale?'

'Who is Beale?' asked Peter, and the news editor groaned. For this was Peter Dewin's weakness, that he was totally unacquainted with any save picturesque criminals, past and present.

'Mr. Gregory Beale is an archaeologist,' said the news editor patiently. 'He is also a millionaire. He has just returned from searching for the buried cities of the Mayas; in fact, he got in this evening. I sent a man down to Waterloo to get a story from him, but the darned fool missed him. You'll find his name in the phone directory, and he may give you a good line to the Feathered Serpent.'

He passed out of the building with a cheery good night, and Peter was half-way up the first flight of stairs when the news editor returned and called him back.

'While you're talking to him you might ask him whether slumland has improved since he went away. He used to be a whale for social reform.'

'If he only came back to-day—' began Peter.

'That's all to the good,' replied Mr. Parsons. 'Invite yourself to accompany him on a trip through the East End. You might get a good column out of it.'

Peter continued his ascent, thoroughly unhappy.

Chapter 3

LONDON did not hang out its flags on the return to civilisation of Mr. Gregory Beale, though it had in its past done greater honour to lesser men.

He had been a 'story' to newspapers in the days when his chief hobby was the study of the poor and his joy was to dwell in the slums of dockland, a wild-looking Haroun al-Raschid who distributed immense sums to struggling families. None knew this untidily bearded man with the flaming red tie as Gregory Beale, a millionaire twice over. He had a dozen names, changed his address from week to week. Now he would be lodging in Limehouse, now in Poplar. Victoria Docks had known him and East Ham. Then philanthropy bored him— or perhaps he was disillusioned. He went back to his study of the older American civilisations. One day, that section of London which was interested in his movements learnt that he had gone to the Brazils, leading an expedition into the primeval forests. Even this small segment of society did no more than yawn and say that a man with his money should have married twenty years ago. And they forgot him; for he was a man without past connections and a Fabian Socialist. Red neckties, shaggy whiskers and fiery convictions are very wearying to ladies and gentlemen who find their happiness in the belief that the world revolves once in twenty-four hours as a direct consequence of stable government.

Six years after his lawyer took charge of his affairs, the boat express glided slowly into Waterloo station. The line of porters which fringed the platform broke into inconsiderable sections, finally dissolved and was engulfed in the crowd that first surged forward and then, like a colony of ants disturbed in their labours, came into confused and frantic movement.

There were no friends to meet Mr. Gregory Beale, or enthuse upon his lean fitness and the nut-brown shade of his thin face, or smile a response to the good-humour in his bright blue eyes. None to remark upon the obvious fact that he was greyer than he had been when he left London six years before.

John, the middle-aged footman who came shouldering through the crowd to take his employer's suitcase, was too well trained a servant to offer comment upon this evidence of Mr. Beale's strenuous exertions in the cause of science, even if he had any but a dim idea of what Mr. Beale looked like when he went away.

'You're John Collitt?' said Mr. Beale pleasantly.

'Yes, sir— hope you had a good voyage, sir?'

'Very.'

He stood, a dapper figure of a man, whilst the highly polished door of a highly polished limousine was opened for him.

'No, my baggage is being handled by the agency. Home, please.'

He sank back into the springy depths of the seat and watched with eager, almost boyish, interest the common sights that he would have passed unnoticed six (or was it a hundred?) years before. Just little cameos revealed in the uncertain light of street lamps and softened into nocturnal shades by the gathering fog. A man pushing a barrow of rosy apples, a line of brilliantly lighted street cars stretching down the Westminster Bridge Road, the voices of the newsboys yelling their extras, the big illuminated clock towering above the Houses of Parliament and the green of the Park.

Mr. Beale drew a long breath and something sweet and painful gripped at his heart. Home! London was the grey mother and wife that welcomed him— its very indifference to his presence, the immensity which absorbed him as sand would absorb a drop of water, were precious and friendly insults.

The car ran swiftly through the darkness of the Park and into the Brompton Road, turned left and stopped before a large, handsome house that stood on a corner of a wide street. Instantly an oblong of yellow light showed in the gloom as the house door opened and a stout and bald butler came nimbly down the steps.

'Welcome home, Mr. Beale.'

Bassey's voice sounded husky. Was it emotion or age or a cold, Gregory Beale wondered.

'Thank you, Bassey.'

The butler preceded him up the steps; there was something of ceremony in his officiousness. Standing aside to let his master pass.

'There's a young lady in the library, sir. I didn't quite know what to say to her. She says she's come in answer to an advertisement, but I told her that you had only just arrived in England and you couldn't have advertised—'

Gregory Beale shook his head smilingly.

'It is possible to insert an advertisement even on the Amazon,' he said. 'Yes, I did advertise for a secretary. Ask the young lady to come in.'

Daphne Olroyd followed the butler into the long study, and met the scrutiny of as kindly a pair of blue eyes as she had ever seen in a man.

'Will you sit down, Miss— er—?'

'Olroyd,' she said, giving smile for smile. 'I am afraid I have called at an inconvenient time. I didn't know that you had just returned from America.'

'You are with the majority,' he answered, twinkling. 'In this great town I am not sufficiently important to have my comings and goings chronicled. You had a wire telling you to call? Good! That was from Mr. Nunn, my lawyer— he has dealt with the correspondence. Apparently the salary I offered was sufficiently generous to ensure a very considerable response.'

Was it imagination on her part, or did she detect a hint of disappointment in his manner and voice? Her heart sank at the thought. She had seen the advertisement by the oddest chance: some unknown friend had cut it out and sent it to her, and she had applied without any great hope that she would be successful in obtaining a post which carried a salary of seven hundred and fifty pounds a year. And then the thrilling telegram had come.

'I think I fulfil most of your requirements,' she said, quick to anticipate any objection he might offer. 'My speed is good; my French, I believe, is excellent—'

'Yes, yes!' He raised his hand reassuringly. 'Yes— er— I'm sure. Where are you working now?'

She told him. Evidently the name of Leicester Crewe conveyed nothing. He asked her why she wanted to change employers, and she hesitated.

'The salary is a big inducement, of course— but I want a change.' He nodded, and was silent for a long time.

'Very good,' he said at last, and then to her joy: 'You can have the position: when can you start?'

She went out of the house with a step as light as her heart. As she turned to walk quickly through the gloomy street to the main road, a man who had been watching her from the moment she left the Astoria Hotel, crossed the road noiselessly and followed on her trail. His rubber-soled shoes made no sound; she was unaware that she was being followed until, turning a corner, she looked back and saw the dim shape looming through the fog.

Her first instinct was to run, her second to turn and wait for him to pass. But he had stopped too! One moment he was in sight, the next he had vanished in the fog, and she saw the reason.

A little ahead and walking towards her was a caped and helmeted policeman— and the servants of the Feathered Serpent avoided contact with the police.

Chapter 4