Raw In The Office | Gay XXX | Lucas Entertainment
$("#topsearch").typeahead({
source: function ( query, process ) {
throttledRequest( query, process );
,highlighter: function( item ){
var result = resultObjs[ item ];
var itm = ''
, updater: function ( selectedName ) {
$( "#resultId" ).val( resultObjs[ selectedName ].id );
window.location.href= resultObjs[ selectedName ].
,minLength: 1
setTimeout(function(){
$.getJSON("https://www.lucasentertainment.com/wp-content/themes/lucas/search.json?v=1.1.7.000005", function(json) {
Kaden Alexander Fucks Brandon Wilde Raw In The Office
Click to get Flash Player
or try to enable JavaScript and reload the page
Unlocked scenes go to your Library after purchase.
DRM Free & in HD. For personal use offline.
As a bonus, subscribed members have access to FREE unlimited downloads and streaming for all our latest and hottest original scenes and movies!
You need to login or register to purchase Tokens for unlocking individual scenes for streaming or downloading.
Scenes that are unlocked with Tokens can be found in the "My Library" part of your account.
You have 10 FREE views remaining. Get access hundreds of videos & award winning exclusive content.
Release Date: February 10th 2017
Performers: ,
Brandon Wilde has a heated argument with his fellow office worker Kaden Alexander. Brandon can be a know-it-all that refuses to admit when he makes a mistake (he’s a bossy bottom), but Kaden doesn’t care and refuses to back down. He realizes there’s only one thing to do in a situation like this. At the heat of their argument Kaden makes a bold move and grabs hold of Brandon and kisses him. Brandon might be bossy at work, but he’s all about submission in the bedroom. And Kaden shows Brandon just how much of a dominant top he can be with his raw uncut cock.
Scenes Images
More Scenes From
Performers
You need to
to be able to post comments
At some point the socks should come off....
Posted on Nov 06, 2017
write a comment...
Don’t Miss The Action!
Fill out now to receive newsletters, promo sales, and lots more from the Lucas Men!
LIVE CHAT WITH HOT MODELS ON LUCAS CAMS!This story does not exist & Fictionaut
Sorry, this story does not exist anymore.
& Fictionaut扫二维码下载作业帮
3亿+用户的选择
下载作业帮安装包
扫二维码下载作业帮
3亿+用户的选择
The office must be cleaned.什麼意思
作业帮用户
扫二维码下载作业帮
3亿+用户的选择
The office must be cleaned.办公室必须清洁例：The glass also must be cleaned after each scan.每次扫描后,还得清理玻璃板.
为您推荐：
其他类似问题
办公室必须被打扫干净
办公软件需要清理。
office软件残留必须被清楚干净
办公室必须保持清洁
扫描下载二维码Title: The Thief in the Night and Other Stories
Author: Edgar Wallace
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 1305401h.html
Language: English
Date first posted:
Most recent update: Aug 2017
This eBook was produced by Paul Moulder and Roy Glashan.
Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au
The Thief in the Night
and Other Stories
Edgar Wallace
Published by Readers Library Publishing Co., London, 1928
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2017
Readers Library Publishing Co., London, 1928
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Titles in red are not available
First published in Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 24, 1923
TEXT NOT AVAILABLE
THIS story concerns four people: Larry Vanne, who understood
men and li Eli Soburn, who both understood and liked
diamonds, and never traveled without a hundred thousand pounds' worth in a
little leather wallet attached
Mary Perella, who
understood most of the things that a ladies' school could teach, and, in
addition, had that working knowledge which comes to a girl who has been left
penniless and mu and fourthly, Jeremiah Fallowby, who
had a knowledge of the world geographically, and who was suspicious of all
women who might love him for his wealth alone.
Of these four, only one had a definite objective. Larry Vanne, pacing up
and down his hired flat in Jermyn Street, a long cigar between his strong
white teeth, his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waist coat, confided to his
slightly bored wife that the North Atlantic trade had dwindled to
vanishing-point.
"I don't know what's coming over New York, Lou," he said despairingly. "We
hadn't been tied up ten minutes to the river end of Twenty-third Street when
along came McCarthy with a couple of bulls, and it was 'The Captain wants to
see you, Larry.'&"
"They had nothing on you," said Mrs. V "not if I'm to judge from the
presents you brought home!"
"Sure they had nothing on me!" said Larry. "But it shows the tendency of
the age, Lou. Suspicion, suspicion, suspicion! And I did no more than to sit
in a game with that Boston crowd to trim a half-witted cinema boy&my
share was less than a thousand dollars. I haven't worked the North Atlantic
for years, and things have gone from bad to worse, Lou. There wasn't a dame
on board that didn't park her jewelry in the purser's safe."
Lou yawned.
"Any man who works one-handed is asking for trouble," was her dictum.
"That's where you're all wrong, Larry. Now suppose you and me&"
"You and I," said Larry gently. "Let's keep the conversation out of the
steerage."
It was true that Larry had never worked the North Atlantic. He had
confined himself mainly to the Pacific trade, and had made bigger pickings
between Shanghai and Vancouver, B.C., than any man in his line. He had worked
scientifically, allowing certain routes to lie fallow for years, had watched
and noted changes in personnel, so that he could tell you off-hand who was
the captain of the Trianic and just whereabouts in the world you might
find that red-nosed purser who nearly gaoled him in '19.
He mad his patience was remorseless. On one occasion
he took two journeys to Australia and back, and caught his man for ?8000
worth of real money when the ship was in sight of port.
"I'm trying a new trade, anyway, and this time you 11 work for your
living," he said, but gave no further information.
It was his practice to be frank in general and reticent in particular, and
he told his companion nothing of Mr. Soburn and his wallet of diamonds. He
could have told quite a lot. He could have traced Mr. Soburn *s family
history from the day he started peddling buttons in New Y of his
legitimate deals in furs, of his questionable transactions in the world of
low and high finance. He carried these wonderful cut diamonds of his for the
same reason as a girl carries a doll or a boy a clockwork motorcar. They were
his toys and his comforts, and he had frequent satisfaction in displaying
these behind locked doors to his cronies with all the hushed pride that a
Japanese virtuoso would display a carved jade box of the Ming period.
Larry knew his movements, past, present, but, mostly, he
knew Mr. Soburn's chiefest weakness, which was for a pretty face.
Larry's wife was beautiful enough in her hard-cut way, but it was not the
kind of beauty that would appeal to Mr. Soburn.
"What I want," he told her frankly, "is something that hasn't lost the
the sort of big-eyed girl who would faint at the sight of a
sparkler."
Mrs. Larry nodded her head slowly.
"That sounds so much like me that you might be painting my portrait," she
"but I gather you want a different type."
That day she sent in an advertisement to two newspapers. On the third day
came Mary Perella. Mary walked from Bayswater because she had reached the
stage where pennies counted. She had had three jobs in six months. Her three
employers suffered from a common misfortune, which they confessed at an early
stage of her engagement&they were unhappily married. Unhappily married
employers who absent-mindedly paw their secretaries' hands are not so
infrequent a phenomenon as many people would imagine. Mary descended the
secretariat scale from rich city merchants to a musical composer who lived in
a world of writs, and she had broken her last pound sterling and was owing
one week's rent when she set forth to Jermyn Street, never dreaming that the
lady who required a secretary-companion to travel abroad, at a wildly
exorbitant salary, would be likely to choose her from the thousands of
applicants.
"She's made for the part," said Larry, who, unobserved, had made a very
complete scrutiny of the new secretary. * * O no
relations in London..." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Fix her
tomorrow. Get her passage booked and our own at the same time.
"We'll travel on the Frimley passports."
He was very practical now.
"She '11 want some money for clothing&give her twenty-five on
account. You told her that she was my secretary and not yours!"
Mrs. Larry nodded.
"She bore the blow very well," she said. "I suppose you 're sure that
Soburn is traveling on that ship?"
"Sure I'm sure!" he said scornfully. "He's got the royal suite, two
bathrooms&God knows why&and two of his best pals are traveling.
Besides, the next packet is booked up. And, Lou, you can tell that kid to
report on board. I don't want to see her till we get to Southampton. Somehow
I don't make a good impression on girls."
Mary Perella came the next morning and nearly dropped when the gracious
lady confirmed her in the engagement.
"I'm quite sure you will do, my dear," said Mrs. Larry Vanne sweetly, "and
you will find my husband a very generous employer. He is writing a book on
rare jewels, but nobody must know this, because..."
The excuse, flimsy as it was, convinced Mary.
"What about Dennis?" asked Mrs. Larry suddenly, when she saw her husband
after the interview.
Though he was a man who did not usually display his emotion, Larry Vanne
was surprised into a grimace. Detective-Inspector Dennis, of Scotland Yard,
was an atom in the molecule of uneasiness which never quite ceased to perturb
him. And Dennis had met him on his arrival in England, and in his suave, nice
way had said "Don't," He hadn't been quite as terse as that, and had added a
sermon, the text of which was "Watch out," that had left Mr. Vanne distinctly
uncomfortable.
Detective-Inspector Dennis does not really come into the story at all, so
it would be superfluous to describe that very wise man, who read the minds of
jewel thieves and confidence-men with such devastating accuracy.
At ten o 'clock on the Thursday morning Mrs. Larry Vanne booked stateroom
No. 15, the last available accommodation on the London Castle. A quarter of
an hour later, Mr. Jeremiah Fallowby also rang up the Castle office, and was
answered by a junior who was deputising for the booking-clerk, who had just
gone out to lunch.
People often said that Jeremiah Fallowby was good-looking. They qualified
the statement in various ways: some said that he would be really handsome if
he had a li some thought that his features were
irregular,
others were inclined to the belief that it
was his mouth which spoiled him. On one point they were all agreed: he could
be very dull. He seldom went anywhere&you never met him, for example,
dining at the Ambassadors' on the night of the Grand Prix. He certainly went
to Deauville&but ways in the off-season. The month he spent in Venice
was the very month that the Lido was a wilderness. He was in town when
everybody else was out of town, and Ascot usually coincided with the period
that he chose for his stay at Aix.
At the height of the London season he was pretty sure to be somewhere in
the country and when the north-bound trains were overloaded with guns bound
for the moors, Jeremiah would be writing excuses from Madeira.
"Jerry, you're absolutely impossible!" rasped his aunt. "You never meet a
gel worth knowing, and you'll end up by marrying a waitress in a
tea-shop!"
"Which tea-shop?" asked Jerry^ momentarily interested.
"You're coming to us for Christmas," said his aunt. ^ ^ I am not going to
allow you to wander alone. If you go away, I '11 come with you&I warn
"Thank you," said Jeremiah gratefully.
"You would like me to come!" asked the astonished lady.
"No," said Jeremiah truthfully. "I'm thanking you for the warning."
None of his many relatives were really very rude to his face, because he
was worth a quarter of a million sterling. But the uncles and aunts and
cousins who planned to marry him off, and who arranged the most cunningly
devised house- parties, only to receive a letter which began:
"...most terribly sorry, but I shall be in Venice on the 10th..."
had no scruples in speaking of him in the plainest possible manner.
"It is his damned romanticism," fumed Uncle Brebbury, who had five
eligible daughters. "He's got a fairy prince complex... thinks he'll find a
(naughty word) Cinderella. Tea-shop gel! He 11 be bringing home
"Bertie!" murmured his shocked wife. "Please... The gels!"
But "the gels" were in complete sympathy.
Jeremiah wrote a little, read much, thought even more. He was modest
enough to believe that he was entirely without attraction, sophisticated to
the extent of suspecting that most mothers were prepared to sacrifice their
daughters on the altar of his fortune.
One gloomy morning Jeremiah, having sworn to be a member of Mrs. Leslie
Fallowby's Christmas house-party, was contemplating the dismal prospect. The
glory of autumn is at best the and since healthy men do
not love caducity in any expression, Jeremiah had met the early frosts and
the mists which lie in the tawny hollows of Burnham Beeches with an uneasy
yearning for the moorland when spring was coming in, with arum lilies growing
on the seashore and gladiolas budding on verdant slopes. He would rise from
his writing-table and pace restlessly the worn carpet of his study. And
inevitably he would be drawn to the drawer where, with the supreme
indifference which summer brought to him, he had thrown the early sailing
For hours this morning he had sat turning them over. He could go to the
east coast, stop off at Naples or Port Said... He could spend a week in
Nairobi... he knew a man who was trying to grow cotton somewhere in
Kenya&or was it tobacco?
It would be rather fun to end the sea journey at Beira&push off up
country to Salisbury, and work down through Bulawayo and Kimberley to the
There was a delightful boarding-house at Rondebosch, kept by an ex-civil
servant, with great hedges of blue plumbago. Behind, like the backcloth of a
theatrical scene, the ranges of Constantia.
Jeremiah Fallowby made a little face and, walking to the casement window,
stared out over the darkening lawn. Rain was falling steadily. Every tree
dripped dismally. Near at hand was a bed of bedraggled
chrysanthemums&white they had been, and their soiled petals littered
the ground.
He looked at his watch mechanically. Really, he intended looking at the
date block. One o'clock. 27th October... November in four days&fogs and
drizzle and colds in the head.
He sat at his table again and reached for the telephone, gave a London
number, and waited indecisively till the bell rang.
"Is that the Castle Line? Good... have you anything on the London
Castle&deck cabin if possible?"
He waited, the receiver at his ear, his pen drawing uncouthly arabesques
on his blotting-pad.
A voice at the other end of the wire awakened him to realities.
"Good... my name is Fallowby... yes, Jeremiah Fallowby. I'll arrange to
collect the ticket right away."
He rang off, and immediately connected with a London agent in Threadneedle
Street, and gave him instructions. The tickets arrived by the first post in
the morning, and Jeremiah went joyously to the task of packing.
If he had only been content to stay at Burn-ham Beeches he might have been
saved a great deal of inconvenience. Within two hours of the receipt of his
letter he had left his house with instructions that neither letters nor
telegrams should be sent on to him, and had deposited himself in his club in
St. James's Street, so that he did not receive the frantic wire addressed to
him by the Steamship Company, nor yet interview a penitent junior clerk who
had booked a stateroom that was already engaged. In complete ignorance, he
motored to Southampton, had a breakdown on the way, and arrived only just in
time to hurl his baggage on board.
The cabin was a large-sized one. He was annoyed to discover that there
were two beds, and directed the steward to remove one.
"Traveling alone, sir," said the steward phlegmatically. (Nothing
surprises stewards.) And then, "There was some trouble about your ticket.
Another gent was booked."
He glanced at the initials on the suitcase, took the counterfoil of the
steamship ticket, made a few inquiries about Jeremiah's taste in the
direction of early-morning coffee and baths, and vanished.
To the purser, as he handed in the counterfoil:
"Seventeen's aboard. The other fellow hasn't come."
"That's all right," said the assistant purser, and spiked the paper.
? The ship had cleared Southampton waters and was nosing its way to the
Channel when Jerry, writing letters at the little desk in the cabin (the
usual and untruthful excuses to Mrs. Leslie Fallowby), became aware that
somebody was standing in the open doorway.
He looked up and saw a girl.
"Um... er... do you want anything!" he asked.
Mary Perella came into the stateroom a little boisterously. She had that
excited pinkness which adventure gives to young skins&the day was
there was a blue, cloud-flecked sky above, and the white
cloisters of the Needles on the port quarter.
Ahead a summery land, and the immense possibilities of new lands.
Jeremiah glared up at her from his writing-table.
"Oh, Mr.&?"
He got to his feet slowly.
"Fallowby," he said, and she looked relieved.
"I've been worrying terribly about the name," she said. "You know when
Mrs. Fallowby told me I didn't really catch it, but I hadn't the courage to
Jeremiah frowned.
Mrs. Fallowby? "Which of his innumerable aunts was this? Mrs. Hector
Fallowby, or Mrs. Richard&or was it that terrible little Mrs. Merstham-
Fallowby with the impossible daughters?... He uttered an exclamation, but
swallowed its violent end.
"Not Mrs. Le&" he said.
Even in his agitation he thought she was extraordinarily pretty: she, at
any rate, was no Fallowby. Gray eyes, there was the faintest film
of powder on her face, but young girls did that sort of thing nowadays.
She nodded smilingly. He was, she thought, being a little facetious.
Husbands and wives spoke about one another in such queer ways.
"It will be rather fun spending Christmas Day on board ship," she went on.
"We are going to South Africa, aren't we?"
"Unless the captain changes his mind," said Jeremiah, and they both
Then he became conscious of his remissness.
"Won't you sit down?"
She sat on a sofa under the square window that looks on to the promenade
"I suppose you have a letter from Mrs. Fallowby?"
It wasn't like any of the Fallowbys to give letters of introduction to
pretty girl outsiders.
He saw a look of consternation come to the girl's eyes.
"Isn't she here!" she gasped.
Jeremiah blinked at her.
"Who&Mrs. Fallowby? I hope not!"
Mary Perella went pale.
"But... I suppose it is all right... but... she said she was coming."
Jeremiah frowned. If there was one experience in the world he didn't want,
and which he intended to avoid, it was a tete-a-tete with a female Fallowby.
Mrs. Leslie had evidently kept her promise.
"I suppose she's here, then," he said unhappily.
There was an awkward pause. Into Mary's mind crept a doubt.
"She engaged me as traveling secretary, and she said I was to see you as
soon as I got on board. Fortunately, I remembered the number of your
He could think of no comment more illuminating.
"So you're going to South Africa? Do you know the country?"
She had never been abroad. Her father had served in Africa: he was so
interested a listener that she found herself telling him about the tragedy of
two years before.
"I stayed with an aunt for six months, but it was rather&well,
impossible."
"I never knew an aunt that wasn't," he sympathized. "You seem to have had
a pretty unhappy time, Miss Perella&that is an Italian name, isn't
She thought it had been Maltese two hundred years before, and he seemed to
remember a General Sir Gregory Perella who had done tremendous things in the
Abyssinian War&or was it the Mutiny?
"What do you want me to do! I have a portable typewriter&"
"Nothing," he said hastily. "The best thing you can do is to go along and
find Mrs. Fallowby&no, I don't think I should do that. If I remember
rightly, she is a terribly bad sailor, and won't be on deck for a week. Just
loaf around. If there is anything I can do for you, let me know... got a nice
cabin! Fine! If you see Mrs. Fallowby, tell her I'm... er... awfully busy. In
fact, I thought of writing&"
She nodded wisely.
"A book&I know."
She left him a little dazed.
He saw her that night at dinner, sitting at a little table by herself, and
they exchanged smiles as he passed. There was no sign of Mrs. Leslie
Fallowby, but the ship had a slight roll on, and that would explain her
absence. After dinner he saw the girl leaning over the rail, and went up to
"I haven't seen your&" she began.
"You wouldn't," he interrupted her. "Poor dear, she thinks this is rough
He commandeered a chair for her, and they sat down and talked till nearly
ten o'clock.
"You're going to let me help you with your book!" she said, as they stood
at the head of the companion-way before she went below for the night.
"My book?" He started guiltily. "Oh, of course! Did I say I was writing a
book? Naturally, I will be happy for you to help me, but I haven't got very
He found himself awaiting her arrival on deck the next morning with some
impatience. They were in the dreaded Bay, but the sea was as smooth as a
pond, and, save for the chill in the air, the weather was delightful. Pacing
round and round the deck, they discovered mutual interests&she also
would one day write a book, which was to be a tremendous affair about life
and people. He did not even smile. Jeremiah was rather diffident: possibly he
credited her with as extensive an acquaintance with the subject as he himself
possessed.
"I can't find Mrs. Fallowby's cabin anywhere," she said. "My conscience
has been pricking me. Couldn't I do something for her?"
"She's quite all right," said Jeremiah hastily.
It was time enough to brace himself for an interview with Mrs. Fallowby
when she made her appearance. The letter of excuse he had written was already
torn up. How like that enterprising lady to discover that he was sailing!
And yet he was puzzled a little. Why should Mrs. Fallowby have taken this
voyage without her unprepossessing daughters? He resolved at the earliest
convenient moment to discover from Mary Perella a solution to this private
"We shall be in Funchal Harbor on Christmas Eve, by which time it ought to
be fairly warm," he told her in the course of the afternoon walk. "It will be
rather jolly doing one's Christmas shopping."
"Mrs. Fallowby will be well enough to come ashore by then?" she
suggested.
Jeremiah prayed not, but refrained from giving expression to the hope.
The next night they leaned over the rail together and watched the faint
star of light which stood for Cape Finisterre sink dow
and he told her what a bore life was, and how he hated crowds and people who
were terribly resolved to be gay to order. And she reviewed some of her
landladies, and told him of a restaurant where one could get a wonderful
lunch for 3d., or 6d.; and once he squeezed her arm to attract her attention
to a passing sailing ship, its white sails looking ghostly in the faint light
of the crescent moon, and she did not seem to resent that method. Yet,
curiously enough, when he took her arm again to lead her to the
companion-way, she very gently disengaged herself.
"I hope Mrs. Fallowby will be better in the morning," she said, "and I do
hope you will do some work&I feel a great impostor: I haven't done a
stroke since I've come on to this ship!"
He went to bed and dreamed of gray eyes and very soft arms that gave under
The night before the ship came into Funchal Bay, and whilst he was
dressing for dinner, the purser came to see him, and the tone of that officer
was rather short, and his manner strangely hostile.
"In what name did you book this cabin, Mr. Fallowby?"
"In my own name," said Jeremiah in surprise.
The purser looked at him with suspicion.
"The name I have on the list is Frimley&the same initials, J. F.,
'John Frimley.' Are you sure that isn't the name in which the cabin is
"You've seen my ticket&and really, does it matter?" asked Jeremiah,
a little impatiently.
"It does and it doesn't," said the purser. "Who is this young lady you're
with, Mr. Fallowby?"
"I am with no young lady," said Jeremiah, with pardonable asperity. "If
you mean Miss Perella, she is my aunt's secretary. Nobody knows better than
you that my aunt is somewhere on this ship. I suggest that you should
interview Mrs. Leslie Fallowby, who I have no doubt will give you the fullest
information."
"There is no person named Mrs. Leslie Fallowby on the ship," said the
purser, and Jeremiah stared at him. "The young lady," went on the officer, "
states that she is your secretary, and that she is traveling in that
capacity."
"My secretary!" said Jeremiah incredulously.
"She says she is your secretary, engaged by your wife."
Jeremiah sat down with a thump.
"Say that again," he said.
The obliging purser repeated his tremendous tidings.
"Now I don't want any trouble with you, Mr. Fallowby," he said, not
unkindly, "or with your wife. I'm going to show you a copy of the wireless we
have received from London, and you'll understand that the game is up."
"Which game?" asked Jeremiah faintly.
The purser took a sheet of paper from his pocket, evidently a typewritten
copy of a radio that had been received that day. It ran:
"To Captain, London Castle. Believe passenger named John Frimley and his
wife are traveling under assumed name on your ship. They booked Suite No. 17,
but they may be traveling separately to avoid detection. Frimley escaped our
officers sent to arrest him at Waterloo, and has not been traced. He is a
tall, good-looking man, clean-shaven, may wear horn-rimmed
spectacles&"
(At this point Jeremiah quickly removed the reading-glasses he had been
wearing when the purser came into the stateroom.)
"His wife is pretty, looks younger than she is. If any persons answering
this description or occupying Suite 17, hand them to Portuguese Police,
Funchal, to await extradition."
Jeremiah read the document twice.
"Your wife is already under guard in her cabin," said the purser, "and
there'll be a master-of-arms on duty outside your stateroom to see that you
do not attempt to leave until the Portuguese authorities arrive."
Jeremiah gaped at him.
"My wife is what?"
The purser waved a majestic hand and left the cabin before Mr. Jeremiah
Fallowby began the exercise of the colorful vocabulary which he had acquired
in his travels.
It was in the bare and whitewashed office of a Portuguese police office
that he saw again Miss Mary Perella. He expected her to be carried in, a
pallid and wilting wreck, whose nights had been made sleepless by the thought
but it was a very healthy and indignant girl who came
across the uncovered floor towards him.
"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Frimley!" she asked. Reproach was rather
in her eyes than in her voice. "It isn't true that you are a jewel
"My name is Fallowby," protested Jeremiah.
"You told me your wife was on board, and she isn't."
He guessed that this was his real offense.
"I never said my wife was anywhere," said Jeremiah loudly. "I was talking
about my aunt, Mrs, Leslie Fallowby. You told me you were her secretary."
"I did nothing of the kind," she stormed. "I told you I was your
secretary&that your wife had engaged me."
"But I've never had a wife!" he wailed.
"Attention!" The fat man behind the desk boomed the word. "I know English
too well! Now you spik my questions when I ask them!"
"Fire ahead," said Jeremiah recklessly.
He slept that Christmas Eve in a stone cell which was very dark and very
unpleasant in other respects. He had no acquaintance with the Portuguese
language, but he spoke Spanish rather fluently, and he learned that the girl
had been taken to a convent. The British Vice-Consul had been requisitioned,
but that worthy was not in Funchal. So Jeremiah despatched long and vehement
cables to London... and might have saved himself the trouble.
In the early hours of the morning came a wire to the Chief of Police,
announcing the arrest of "Mr. and Mrs. Frimley," whose other name was Vanne,
and an apologetic police dignitary of the first class came personally, and in
uniform, to offer apologies.
It was from him that Jerry learned of Mr. Vanne's little plot (revealed to
the London police by his wife); of the engagement of a secretary who was to
charm from a susceptible millionaire a view of his diamonds and such
information about their safeguarding as she could secure.
Apparently, Miss Mary Perella had been similarly informed: he met her
half-way up the steep slope which led to the convent, and she came running
down with her hands outstretched.
"Welcome, and a merry Christmas, fellow-convict!" she said, with a gaiety
that was immensely infectious.
He took her arm as they walked down the cobbled hill lane together, and
came to a bench that overlooked the bay.
She was beautifully sympathetic&apparently saw nothing in her own
experience but a thrilling adventure.
"I knew, of course, that something must be wrong. I couldn't imagine you
were a burglar, or whatever this Mr. Frimley was." She sighed. "I've lost a
very good job," she said ruefully.
"Let me find you another," said Jeremiah eagerly. "I really am going to
write a book&I have threatened to do it for years, and you can come
along and correct my spelling."
She half shook her head. Yet apparently she accepted the position, for
they went on to the Cape by the next mail steamer, and the English chaplain
who had married them on the morning they sailed came down to see them
Published in The Weekly Tale-Teller, November 19, 1910
AT Carolina, in the Transvaal, was a store kept by a man
named Lioski, who was a Polish Jew. There was an officers' clubhouse, the
steward of which was a Greek sportsman named Poropulos, and this story is
about these two men, and about an officer of Hampton's Scouts who took too
much wine and saw a pair of boots.
I have an intense admiration for George Poropulos, and I revere his
memory. I admi though, for the matter of that, his nerve
was no greater than mine.
Long before the war came, when the negotiations between Great Britain and
the Transvaal Government were in the diplomatic stage, I drifted to Carolina
from the Rand, leaving behind me in the golden city much of ambition, hope,
and all the money I had brought with me from England. I came to South Africa
with a young wife and ?370&within a few shillings&because the
doctors told me the only chance I had was in such a hot, dry climate as the
highlands of Africa afforded. For my own part, there was a greater attraction
in the possibility of turning those few hundreds of mine into thousands, for
Johannesburg was in the delirium of a boom.
I left Johannesburg nearly penniless. I could not, at the moment, explain
the reason of my failure, for the boom continued, and I had the advantage of
the expert advice of Arthur Lioski, who was staying at the same boarding
house as myself.
There were malicious people who warned me against Lioski. His own
compatriots, sharp men of business, told me to 'ware Lioski, but I ignored
the advice because I was very confident in my own judgment, and Lioski was a
plausible, handsome man, a little flashy in appearance, but decidedly a
beautiful animal.
He was in Johannesburg on a holiday, he said. He had stores in various
parts of the country where he sold everything from broomsticks to farm
wagons, and he bore the evidence of his prosperity.
He took us to the theater, or rather he took Lillian, for I was too seedy
to go out much. I did not grudge Lillian the pleasure. Life was very dull for
a young girl whose middle-aged husband had a spot on his lung, and Lioski was
so kind and gentlemanly, so far as Lil was concerned, that the only feeling I
had in the matter was one of gratitude.
He was tall and dark, broad-shouldered, with a set to his figure and a
swing of carriage that excited my admiration. He was possessed of enormous
physical strength, and I have seen him take two quarreling Kaffirs&men
of no ordinary muscularity&and knock their heads together.
He had an easy, ready laugh, a fund of stories, some a little coarse, I
thought, and a florid gallantry which must have been attractive to women. Lil
always brightened up wonderfully after an evening with him.
His knowledge of mines and mining propositions was bewildering. I left all
my investments in his hands, and it proves something of my trust in him, that
when, day by day, he came to me for money, to "carry over"
stock&whatever that means&I paid without hesitation. Not only did
I lose every penny I possessed, but I found myself in debt to him to the
extent of a hundred pounds.
Poor Lil! I broke the news to her of my ruin, a
reproached, stormed, and wept in turn, but quieted down when I told her that
in the kindness of his heart, Lioski had offered me a berth at his Carolina
store. I was to get a ?16 a month, half of which was to be paid in stores at
wholesale prices and the other half in cash. I was to live rent free in a
little house near the store. I was delighted with the offer. It was an
immediate rise, though I foresaw that the conditions of life would be much
harder than the life to which I had been accustomed in England. We traveled
down the Delagoa line to Middleburg, and found a Cape cart waiting to carry
us across the twenty miles of rolling veldt. The first six months in Carolina
were the happiest I have ever spent. The work in the store was not
particularly arduous. I found that it had the reputation of being one of the
best-equipped stores in the Eastern Transvaal, and certainly we did a huge
business for so small a place. It was not on the town we depended, but upon
the surrounding country. Lioski did not come back with us, but after we had
been installed for a week he came and took his residence in the store.
All went well for six months. He taught Lil to ride and drive, and every
morning they went cantering over the veldt together. Me he treated more like
a brother than an employee, and I found myself hotly resenting the
uncharitable things that were said about him, for Carolina, like other small
African towns, was a hotbed of gossip.
Lil was happy for that six months, and then I began to detect a change in
her attitude toward me. She was snappy, easily offended, insisted upon having
her own room&to which I agreed, for, although my chest was better, I
still had an annoying cough at night which might have been a trial to anybody
within hearing.
It was about this time that I met Poropulos. He came into the store on a
hot day in January, a little man of forty-five or thereabouts. He was
unusually pale, and had a straggling, weedy beard. His hair was long, his
clothes were old and stained, and so much of his shirt as was revealed at his
throat was sadly in need of laundering.
Yet he was cheerful and debonair&and singularly flippant. He
stalked in the store, looked around critically, nodded to me, and smiled.
Then he brought his sjambok down on the counter with a smack.
"Where's Shylock?" he asked easily.
I am afraid that I was irritated.
"Do you mean Mr. Lioski?"
"Shylock, I said," he repeated. "Shylockstein, the Lothario of Carolina."
He smacked the counter again, still smiling.
I was saved the trouble of replying, for at that moment Lioski entered. He
stopped dead and frowned when he saw the Greek.
"What do you want, you little beast," he asked harshly.
For answer, the man leaned up against the counter, ran his fingers through
his straggling beard, and cocked his head.
"I want justice," he said unctuously&"the restoration of money
stolen. I want to send a wreath to your funeral: I want to write your
biography&?"
"Clear out," shouted Lioski. His face was purple with anger, and he
brought his huge fist down upon the counter with a crash that shook the
wooden building.
He might have been uttering the most pleasant of compliments, for all the
notice the Greek took.
Crash! went Lioski's fist on the counter.
Smash! came Poropulos's sjambok, and there was something mocking
and derisive in his action that made Lioski mad.
With one spring he was over the counter, a stride and he had his hand on
the Greek's collar&and then he stepped back quickly with every drop of
blood gone from his face, for the Greek's knife had flashed under his eyes. I
thought Lioski was stabbed, but it was fear that made him white.
The Greek rested the point of the knife on the counter and twiddled it
round absentmindedly, laying his palm on the hilt and spinning it with great
"Nearly did it that time, my friend," he said, with a note of regret,
"nearly did it that time&I shall be hanged for you yet."
Lioski was white and shaking.
"Come in here," he said in a low voice, and the little Greek followed him
to the back parlor. They were togeth sometimes I could
hear Mr. Lioski's voice raised angrily, sometimes Poropulos's little laugh.
When they came out again the Greek was smiling still and smoking one of my
employer's cigars.
"My last word to you," said Lioski huskily, "is this&keep your mouth
closed and keep away from me."
"And my last word to you," said Poropulos, jauntily puffing at the cigar,
"is this&turn honest, and enjoy a sensation."
He stepped forth from the store with the air of one who had gained a moral
I never discovered what hold the Greek had over my master. I gatherered
that at some time or another, Poropulos had lost money, and that he held
Lioski responsible.
In some mysterious way Poropulos and I became friends. He was an
adventurer of a type. He bought and sold indifferent mining propositions,
took up contracts, and, I believe, was not above engaging in the Illicit Gold
Buying business. His attitude to Lillian was one of complete adoration. When
he was with her his eyes never left her face.
It was about this time that my great sorrow came to me. Lioski went away
to Durban&to buy stock, he said&and a few days afterwards
Lillian, who had become more and more exigent, demanded to be allowed to go
to Cape Town for a change.
I shall remember that scene.
I was at breakfast in the store when she came in. She was white, I
thought, but her pallor suited her, with her beautiful black hair and great
dark eyes.
She came to the point without any preliminary. "I want to go away," she
I looked up in surprise.
"Go away, dear? Where?"
She was nervous. I could see that from the restless movement of her
"I want to go to&to Cape Town&I know a girl there &I'm
sick of this place&I hate it!"
She stamped her foot, and I thought that she was going to break into a fit
of weeping. Her lips trembled, and for a time she could not control her
"I am going to be ill if you don't let me go," she said at last. "I can
"But the money, dear," I said, for it was distressing to me that I could
not help her toward the holiday she wanted.
"I can find the money," she said, in an unsteady voice. "I have got a few
pounds saved&the allowance you gave me for my clothes&I didn't
spend it all&let me go, Charles&please, please!"
I drove her to the station, and took her ticket for Pretoria. I would have
taken her to the capital, but I had the store to attend to.
"By the way, what will your address be?" I asked just as the train was
moving off.
She was leaning over the gate of the car platform, looking at me
strangely.
"I will wire it&I have it in my bag," she called out, and I watched
the tail of the train round the curve, with an aching heart. There was
what it was I could not understand. Perhaps I was a fool. I
think I was.
I think I have said that I had made friends with Poropulos. Perhaps it
would be more truthful to say that he made friends with me, for he had to
break down my feeling of distrust and disapproval. Then, again, I was not
certain how Mr. Lioski would regard such a friendship, but, to my surprise,
he took very little notice of it or, for the matter of that, of me.
Poropulos came into the store the night my wife left. B
there was war in the air, rumors of ultimatums had been persistent, and the
Dutch farmers had avoided the store.
A week passed, and I began to worry, for I had not heard from Lil. I had
had a letter from Lioski, telling me that in view of the unsettled condition
of the country he was extending his stay in Durban for a fortnight. The
letter gave me the fullest instructions as to what I was to do in case war
broke out, but, unfortunately, I had no opportunity of putting them into
The very day I received the letter, a Boer commando rode into Carolina,
and at the head of it rode the Landrost Peter du Huis, a pleasant man, whom I
knew slightly. He came straight to the store, dismounted, and entered.
"Good morning, Mr. Gray," he said. "I fear that I come on unpleasant
business."
"What is that?" I asked.
"I have come to commandeer your stock in the name of the Republic," he
said, "and to give you the tip to clear out."
It does not sound possible, but it is nevertheless a fact that in two
hours I had left Carolina, leaving Lioski's store in the hands of the Boers,
and bringing with me receipts signed by the Landrost for the goods he had
commandeered. In four hours I was in a cattle truck with a dozen other
refugees on my way to Pretoria&for I had elected to go to Durban to
inform Lioski at first hand of what had happened.
Of the journey down to the coast it is not necessary to speak. We were
sixty hours en route; we were without food, and had little to drink.
At Ladysmith I managed to get a loaf of at Maritzburg I
got my first decent meal. But I arrived in Durban, tired, dispirited, and
hungry. Lioski was staying at the Royal, and as soon as I got to the station
I hailed a ricksha to take me there.
There had been no chance of telegraphing. The wires were blocked with
government messages. We had passed laden troop trains moving up to the
frontier, and had cheered the quiet men in khaki who were going, all of them,
to years of hardship and privation, many of them to death.
The vestibule of the Royal was crowded, but I made my way to the
"Lioski?" said the clerk. "Mr. and Mrs. Lioski, No. 84&you'll find
your way to their sitting room."
I went slowly up the stairs, realizing in a flash the calamity.
I did not blame L it was a hard life I had brought her to. I had been
selfish, as sick men are selfish, inconsiderate.
They stood speechless, as I opened the door and entered. I closed the door
behind me. Still they stood, Lil as pale as death, with terror and shame in
her eyes, Lioski in a black rage.
"Well?" It was he who broke the silence.
He was defiant, shameless, and as I went on to talk about what had
happened at the store, making no reference to what I had seen, his lips
curled contemptuously.
But Lil, womanlike, rushed in with explanations. She had meant to go to
Cape Town&the train service had been bad&she had decided to go to
Durban&Mr. Lioski had been kind enough to book her a
I let her go on. When she had finished I handed my receipts to Lioski.
"That ends our acquaintance, I think."
"As you like," he replied with a shrug.
I turned to Lillian.
"Come, my dear," I said, but she made no move, and I saw Lioski smile
I lost all control over myself and leaped at him, but his big fist caught
me before I could reach him, and I went down, half stunned. I was no match
for him. I knew that, and if the blow did nothing else, it sobered me. I
picked myself up. I was sick with misery and hate.
"Come, Lil," I said again.
She was looking at me, and I thought I saw a look of disgust in her face.
I did not realize that I was bleeding, and that I must have been a most
unpleasant figure. I only knew that she loathed me at that moment, and I
turned on my heel and left them, my own wife and the big man who had broken
One forgets things in war time. I joined the Imperial Light Horse and went
to the front. The doctor passed me as sound, so I suppose that all that is
claimed for the climate of Africa is true.
We went into Ladysmith, and I survived the siege. I was promoted for
bringing an officer out of action under fire. I earned a reputation for
daring, which I did not deserve, because always I was courting swift death,
and taking risks to that end.
Before Buller's force had pushed a way through the stubborn lines to our
relief, I had received my commission. More wonderful to me, I found myself a
perfectly healthy man, as hard as nails, as callous as the most- experienced
soldier. Only, somewhere down in my heart, a little worm
sleeping or waking, fighting or resting, I thought of Lillian, and wondered,
wondered, wondered.
Ladysmith was relieved. We marched on toward Pretoria. I was transferred
to Hampton's Horse with the rank of major, and for eighteen months I moved up
and down the Eastern Transvaal chasing a will-othe-wisp of a commandant, who
was embarrassing the blockhouse lines.
Then one day I came upon Poropulos.
We were encamped outside Standerton when he rode in on a sorry- looking
Burnto pony. He had been in the country during the war, he said, buying and
selling horses. He did not mention Lioski's name to me, and so studiously did
he avoid referring to the man, that I saw at once that he knew.
It was brought home to me by his manner that he had a liking for me that I
had never guessed. In what way I had earned his regard I cannot say, but it
was evident he entertained a real affection for me.
We parted after an hour's chat&he was going back to Carolina. He had
a scheme for opening an officers' club in that town, where there was always a
large garrison, and to which the wandering columns came from time to time to
be re-equipped.
As for me, I continued the weary chase of the flying commando. Trek, trek,
trek, in fierce heat, in torrential downpour, over smooth veldt and broken
hills, skirmishing, sniping, and now and then a sharp engagement, with a
dozen casualties on either side.
Four months passed, and the column was ordered into Carolina for a refit.
I went without qualms, though I knew she was there, and Lioski was there.
We got into Carolina in a thunderstorm, and the men were glad to reach a
place that bore some semblance of civilization. My brother officers, after
our long and profitless trek, were overjoyed at the prospect of a decent
dinner&for Poropulos's club was already famous among the columns.
My horse picked up a stone and went dead lame, so I stayed behind to
doctor him, and rode to Carolina two hours after the rest of the column had
It was raining heavily as I came over a fold of the hill that showed the
straggling township. There was no human being in sight save a woman who stood
by the roadside, waiting, and I knew instinctively, long before I reached
her, that it was Lillian. I cantered toward her. Her face was turned in my
direction, and she stood motionless as I drew rein and swung myself to the
She was changed, not as I expected, for sorrow and suffering had
etherealized her. Her big eyes burned in a face that was paler than ever, her
lips, once so red and full, were almost white.
"I have been waiting for you," she said.
"Have you, dear? You are wet."
She shook her head impatiently. I slipped off my mackintosh and put it
about her.
"He has turned me out," she said.
She did not cry. I think she had not recovered from the shock. Something
stirred from the thin c a feeble cry was muffled by the
"I have got a little girl," she said, "but she is dying." She began to cry
silently, the tears running down her wet face in streams.
I took her into Carolina, and found a Dutchwoman who put her and the baby
to bed, and gave her some coffee.
I went up to the officers' club just after sunset and met Poropulos coming
He was in a terrible rage, and was muttering to himself in some tongue I
could not understand.
"Oh, here you are!"&he almost spat the words in his anger
&"that dog Lioski&?"
He was about to say something, but checked himself. I think it was about
Lillian that he intended to speak at first, but he changed the subject to
another grievance. "I was brought before the magistrate and fined ?100 for
selling field-force tobacco. My club will be ruined &Lioski informed
the police&by&?"
He was incoherent in his passion. I gather that he had been engaged in
some shady business, and that Lioski had detected him. He almost danced
before me in the rain.
"Shylock dies tonight," he said, and waved his enemy out of the world with
one sweep of his hand. "He dies tonight&I am weary of him&for
eighteen&nineteen years I have known him, and he's dirt right
through&?"
He went out without another word. I stood on the slope of the hill
watching him.
I dined at the club, and went straight back to the house where I had left
my wife. She was sleeping&but the baby was dead. Poor little mortal! I
owed it no grudge, but I was glad when they told me.
All the next day I sat by her bed listening to Lillian's mutterings, for
she was very ill. I suffered all the tortures of a damned soul sitting there,
for she spoke of Lioski&"Arthur" she called him&prayed to him for
mercy&told him she loved him&
I was late for dinner at the club. There was a noisy crowd there. Young
Harvey of my own regiment had had too much to drink, and I avoided his
My hand shook as I poured out a glass of wine, and somebody remarked on
I did not see Poropulos until the dinner was halfway through. Curiously
enough, I looked at the clock as he came in, and the hands pointed to half
past eight.
The Greek was steward of the club, and was serving the wine. He was calm,
impassive, remarkably serene, I thought. He exchanged jokes with the officers
who were grumbling that they had had to wait for the fulfillment of their
"It was ten to eight when I ordered this," grumbled one man.
Then, suddenly, Harvey, who had been regarding Poropulos with drunken
gravity, pointed downward.
"He's changed his boots," he said, and chuckled. Poropulos smiled amiably
and went on serving. "He's changed his boots!" repeated Harvey, concentrating
his mind upon trivialities as only a drunken man can. The men laughed. "Oh,
dry up, Harvey!" said somebody.
"He's changed&?"
He got no further. Through the door came a military policeman, splashed
from head to foot with mud.
"District Commandant here, sir?" he demanded. "There's been a man
murdered."
"Soldier?" asked a dozen voices.
"No, sir&storekeeper, name of Lioski&shot dead half an hour
I do not propose to tell in detail all that happened following that. Two
smart C.I.D. men came down from Johannesburg, made a few inquiries, and
arrested Poropulos. He was expecting the arrest, and half an hour before the
officers came he asked me to go to him.
I spent a quarter of an hour with him, and what we said is no man's
business but ours. He told me something that startled me&he loved
Lillian, too. I had never guessed it, but I did not doubt him. But it was
finally for Lillian's sake that he made me swear an oath so dreadful that I
cannot bring myself to write it down&an oath so unwholesome, and so
against the grain of a man, that life after it could only be a matter of
sickness and shame.
Then the police came and took him away.
Lioski had been shot dead in the store by some person who had walked in
when the store was empty, at a time when there was nobody in the street. This
person had shot the Jew dead and walked out again. The police theory was that
Poropulos had gone straight from the club, in the very middle of dinner, had
committed the murder, and returned to continue his serving, and the crowning
evidence was the discovery that he had changed his boots between 7.30 and
8.30. The mud-stained boots were found in a cellar, and the chain of evidence
was completed by the statement of a trooper who had seen the Greek walking
from the direction of the store, at 8.10, with a revolver in his hand.
Poropulos was cheerful to the last&cheerful through the trial,
through the days of waiting in the fort at Johannesburg.
"I confess nothing," he said to the Greek priest. "I hated Lioski, and I
am glad that he is dead, that is all. It is true that I went down to kill
him, but it was too late."
When they pinioned him he turned to me.
"I have left my money to you," he said. "There is about four thousand
pounds. You will look after her."
"That is the only reason I am alive."
"Did you murder Arthur Lioski?" said the priest again.
"No," said Poropulos, and smiled as he went to his death. And what he said
was true, as I know. I shot Lioski.
FINDINGS are keepings. That was a favorite saying of Laurie
Whittaker&a slogan of Stinie Whittaker (who had other names), her
Laurie and a youthful messenger of the Eastern Telegraph Company arrived
simultaneously on the doorstep of 704 Coram Street, Bloomsbury, and their
arrival was coincident with the absence, in the little courtyard at the back
of the house, of the one domestic servant on duty in that boarding-house. So
that, while the electric bell tinkled in the kitchen, the overworked domestic
was hanging up dishcloths in the backyard.
"I'm afraid there's nobody in," said Laurie, flashing a bright smile at
the youth, and then saw the cablegram in his hand. "It's for Captain John
Harrowby, isn't it?" she asked. "I'll give it to him."
And the boy, who was new to his job, delivered the envelope and accepted
her signature in his book, without a very close regard to the regulations of
the Cable Company.
Laurie slipped the envelope in her bag and pressed the bell again. This
time the servant heard the signal and came, wiping her hands on her apron, to
open the door.
"No, miss, Captain Harrowby's out," she said, recognizing the visitor, and
giving her the deference and respect which were due to one who lived in the
grandest house in Bedford Square. "He's gone up to the city. Will you step in
and wait, miss?"
If Laurie felt annoyed, she did not advertise the fact. She gave her
sweetest smile to the servant, nodded pleasantly to the pretty girl who came
up the steps as she went down, and, re-entering her limousine, was driven
"Who is the lady, Matilda?" asked the newcomer.
"Her?" said the girl-of-all-work. "That's Miss Whittaker&a friend of
Mr. Harrowby's. Surely he's told you about her, Miss Bancroft?"
Elsie Bancroft laughed.
"Mr. Harrowby and I are not on such terms that he discusses his friends
with me, Matilda," she said, and mounted to her tiny room on the top floor,
to turn over again more vital and pressing problems than Captain Harrowby's
friendship.
She was a stenographer in a lawyer's office, and if her stipend was not
generous it was fair, and might have been sufficient if she were not the
mother of a family&in a figurative sense. There was a small brother at
school in Broadstairs, and a smaller sister at a preparatory school at
Ramsgate, and the money which had been left by their father barely covered
the fees of one.
Two letters were propped on her mantelpiece, and she recognized their
character with a quaking heart. She stood for a long time surveying them with
big, grave eyes before, with a sigh, she took them down and listlessly tore
them open. She skimmed the contents with a little grimace, and, lifting her
typewriter from the floor, put it on to the table, unlocked a drawer, and,
taking out a wad of paper written in a crabbed handwriting, began to type.
She had got away from the office early to finish the spare-time work which
often helped to pay the rent.
She had been typing a quarter of an hour when there was a gentle tap at
the door, and, in answer to her invitation, a man came a few inches into the
room&a slim, brown-faced man of thirty, good-looking, with that
far-away expression in his eyes which comes to men who have passed their
lives in wide spaces.
"How are you getting on?" he asked, almost apologetically.
"I've done about ten pages since last night," she said. "I'm rather slow,
but&" She made a little grimace.
"My handwriting is dreadful, isn't it?" he said, almost humbly.
"It is rather," she answered, and they both laughed. "I wish I could do it
faster," she said. "It is as interesting as a novel."
He scratched his chin.
"I suppose it is, in a way," he said cautiously, and then, with sudden
embarrassment, "But it's perfectly true."
"Of course it's true," she scoffed. "Nobody could read this report and
think it wasn't true! What are you going to do with the manuscript when you
have finished it?"
He looked round the room aimlessly, before his eyes returned to the pretty
face that showed above the machine.
"I don't know," he said vaguely. "It might go into a magazine. I've
written it out for my own satisfaction, and because it makes what seems a
stupid folly look intelligent and excusable. Besides which, I am hoping to
sell the property, and this account may induce some foolish person to buy a
parcel of swamp and jungle&though I'd feel as though I were swindling a
She had pushed the typewritten sheets towards him, and he picked up the
first and read:
"A Report on the Alluvial Goldfields of Quimbo,"
and, reading it, he sighed.
"Yes, the gold is there all right," he said mournfully, "though I've never
been able to find it. I've got a concession of a hundred square
miles&it's worth less than a hundred shillings. There isn't a railway
and even if there was
gold there, I don't know that I should be able to get it away. Anyway, no
gold has been found. I have a partner still pottering away out there: I shall
probably have his death on my conscience sooner or later."
"Are you going back to Africa?" she asked curiously.
He shook his head.
"I don't think so." He hesitated. "My&my friends think I should
settle down in England. I've made a little money by trading. Possibly I'll
buy a farm and raise ducks."
She laughed softly.
"You won't be able to write a story about that," she said, and then,
remembering, "Did the maid tell you that Miss Whittaker had called?"
She saw his start, and the color deepen in the tanned face.
"Oh, did she?" he asked awkwardly. "Really? No, the girl told me nothing."
And in another minute he was running down the stairs. She did not know
whether to be angry or amused at this sudden termination of their talk.
Captain Harrowby had been an inmate of the boarding-house for three weeks,
and she had gladly accepted the offer, that came through her landlady, to
type what she thought was the story he had written. The "story" proved to be
no more, at first glance, than a prosaic report upon an African property of
his, which, he told her, he was trying to sell.
Who was Miss Whittaker? She frowned as she asked herself the question,
though she had no reason for personal interest in the smiling girl she had
met at the door. She decided that she did not like this smart young lady,
with her shingled hair and her ready smile. She knew that Captain Harrowby
spent a great deal of his time at the Whittakers' house, but she had no idea
that there was anything remarkable in that, until the next day, when she was
taking her lunch at the office, she asked old Kilby, who knew the secret
history of London better than most process- servers.
"Whittaker?" the old man chuckled. "Oh, I know Stinie Whittaker all right!
He runs a gambling hell in Bloomsbury somewhere. He was convicted about ten
years ago for the same offense. I served a couple of writs on him years and
years ago. He's more prosperous now."
"But surely Miss Whittaker doesn't know?" said the shocked girl.
"She's&she's the friend of a&a friend of mine."
Old Kilby laughed uproariously.
"Laurie? Why, Laurie's brought more men to the old man's table than
anybody else! Know? Sure she does! Why, she spends all summer going voyages
in order to pick up likely birds for Stinie to kill!"
The news filled the girl with uneasiness, though she found it difficult to
explain her interest in the lonely man who occupied the room beneath her.
Should she warn him? At the mere suggestion she was in a panic. She had quite
enough trouble of her own, she told herself (and here she spoke only the
truth). And was it likely that a man of his experience would be caught by
card-sharps? For six days she turned the matter over in her mind and came to
a decision.
On the evening she reached this, John Harrowby dressed himself with great
care, took a roll of notes from his locked cash-box, and, after contemplating
them thoughtfully, thrust them into his pocket. His situation was a serious
more serious than he would admit to himself. Laurie had cautioned him
against playing for high stakes, but she had not cautioned him against Bobby
Salter, the well-dressed young man-about-town, whom he had met first in the
Bedford Square drawing-room. Bobby had told him stories of fortunes made and
lost at cards, and even initiated him into a "system" which he himself had
tested, and had been at his elbow whenever he sat at the table, to urge him
to a course of play which had invariably proved disastrous.
John Harrowby was without guile. He no more thought of suspecting the
immaculate Bobby than he thought of suspecting Laurie herself. But tonight he
would play without the assistance of his mentor, he thought, and drew a deep
breath as he patted his pocket and felt the bulge of the notes.
He threw a light coat over his arm, and, turning off the light, stepped
out on to the landing, to stare in amazement at a girl who was waiting
patiently, her back to the banisters, as she had been waiting for ten
"I wanted to see you before you went, Captain Harrowby," said Elsie, with
a quickly beating heart.
"Anything wrong with the manuscript?" he asked in surprise.
She shook her head.
"No, it isn't that, only&only I'm wondering whether&"
Words failed her for a second.
He was palpably amazed at her agitation, and could find no reason for
"Oh, Lord," he said, remembering suddenly. "I haven't paid you!"
"No, no, no, it isn't that." She pushed his hand from his pocket. "Of
course it isn't that, Captain Harrowby! It's something&well... I know
you'll think I'm horribly impertinent, but do you think you ought to play
cards for money?" she asked breathlessly.
He stared at her open-mouthed.
"I don't quite know what you mean," he said slowly.
"Haven't you lost... a lot of money at Mr. Whittaker's house?" She had to
force the words out.
The look in his face changed. From amazement, she saw his eyes narrow, and
then, to her unspeakable relief, he smiled.
"I have lost quite a sum," he said gently. "But I don't think
"You don't think that's any business of mine? And neither is it," she
said, speaking rapidly. "But I wanted to tell you that Mr. Whittaker ... is a
well-known&"
Here she had to stop. She could not say the man wa
she knew no more than old Kilby had hinted.
"I mean, he has always had... play at his house," she faltered. "And
you're new to this country, and you don't know people as&as we know
This time he laughed.
"You're talking as though you were in the detective service, Miss
Bancroft," he said, and then suddenly laid his hand on her shoulder. "I quite
understand that you are trying to do me a good turn. In my heart of hearts I
believe you're right. But, unfortunately, I have lost too much to stop
now&how you knew that I'd lost anything, I can't guess."
She nodded, and, without another word, turned abruptly away and ran up the
stairs to her own room, angry with herself, angry with him, but, more than
anything else, astounded at her own action.
No less puzzled and troubled was John Harrowby as he walked into Bedford
Elsie but somehow she could not keep her mind fixed
upon her task, and, after spoiling three sheets of paper, gave up the attempt
and, sitting back in her chair, let her mind rove at will.
At half-past nine the maid brought her up a cup of tea.
"That Miss Whittaker's just gone, miss," she announced.
Elsie frowned.
"Miss Whittaker? Has she been here?"
"Yes, she come about a quarter of an hour ago and went up to Captain
Harrowby's room. That's what puzzles me."
Elsie stared at her, open-mouthed.
"Why on earth did she go there?" she demanded.
Matilda shook her head.
"Blest if I can tell, miss. She didn't know that I was watching
her&she sent me down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for her, which
was only a dodge of hers, and if I hadn't come back to ask her whether she
took sugar, I wouldn't 'a' known she'd been out of the droring- room. I see
her coming out of Captain Harrowby's room as I was standing in the hall. You
can just see the door through the banisters."
Elsie rose, and went downstairs. Harrowby's door was ajar. She switched on
the light. What she expected to find, she did not know. There was no sign of
disorder. Possibly, she thought, and she found herself sneering, it was a
visit of devotion by a love- but there was a cupboard door
ajar, and half in and half out the cupboard, a japanned