Gilead Balm, knight errant

Gilead, in agony, stumbled for the boat-house; the father, sobbing and staring, was already waist-deep in the water. “My little child!” he gasped—“my little child!”—there went by them both a great bound and surge, and swift and unerring a soft seal-like head was seen driving across the shining flood. They stood like things of stone, hardly breathing—and then there came a swirl, a reasoned snap; and the little face, wild and choking, was lifted above the surface. Good Pilot! Loyal and lovely friend! He brought her, crying, to the steps, and there having deposited her, shook himself, and crouched, somewhat appealing, as if he had taken a liberty.

* * * * *

The little girl, well-frightened but unharmed, was asleep upstairs; the greater dog lay blinking on the hearthrug; Gilead, by his host’s particular desire, delayed his departure yet a little.

Very few words had passed between them, and the young man was considering with what manner of blessing he could best terminate a visit, whose prolongation, in view of the subdued and obviously self-tormented figure before him, seemed an impertinence, when a ring at the bell sounded through the silent house, and its master was presented with a telegram. Its perusal appeared to act upon him like an instant and amazing stimulant. He rose, his spectacles seemed to glare, his head to bristle. Patently on the verge of an explosion, he stepped across to Gilead with an exaggerated softness, and laid the paper before him. “Oblige me by reading that,” he said. The young man, wondering, obeyed.

Gilead looked up.

“Yes, from her,” said Mr Brown, still with an icy quietude, in answer to the mute enquiry. And then the burst came—only a little rent at the outset, but rapidly roaring to a breach:—

“Now, isn’t that just like a woman—without reason or justice or decency—mere venomous spite, indifferent to the consequences to others so long as it can injure the object of its resentment. Sympathy? Nonsense! Tell me why, in the University boat-race on this river, nine women out of ten will be Cambridge? Out of pity for its persistent ill-success? Not in the least, sir. Simply because they think the colour the more becoming.” (The breach widened) “Consistency? Bosh! with minds the sport of any chance mood? Veering as the compass—changeable as the weather—you may forecast ’em fair in the morning, and be drenched or frozen by ’em in the afternoon?” (The breach split resoundingly) “Principles? Lunacy! Their one indestructible principle is vanity, and in their wild rush for personal notoriety of any sort, all principles and all decencies may go to the devil” (The breach, with a roar, rent from hem to hem). “From this moment I repudiate the cause,” shouted Mr Brown, glaring and dancing; “from this moment I refuse to identify myself with a sex so utterly deficient in the moral sense. Votes for women! Not unless we wish to see our national character for reason and fair-play thrown by the board! Not unless we wish to see our most cherished institutions of order and justice degraded to the uses of irresponsible malice. Incapable of governing, even themselves—a set of chattering harpies lusting for the blood of heroes!”

He ended with a roar. Gilead rose to his feet.

“The maid is waiting for an answer, sir,” he said; and, indeed, the poor girl stood as if petrified.

“Give me the paper!” yelled Mr Brown. He snatched it from the young man’s ready hand, slung out a pencil from his watch-chain, dabbed at the reply form, fuming and sputtering.

“The dog must die, must he?” he panted ironically. “My child must be sacrificed to a swollen-headed harpy’s caprice! A useful lesson; I thank you, madam”—and he dashed off the following message. (Gilead had the assurance to glance at it, as he handed it to the girl): “Offer declined. The dog remains with me. Theophilus.”

A minute later, Gilead, being assured of the departure of the telegraph boy, took his own with much satisfaction, leaving Mr Brown fondly stroking the head of the great dog as he lay upon the rug.

CHAPTER V.
THE QUEST OF THE MARBLE STATUETTE

Gilead, the most disinterested of utilitarians, had no sympathy with that order of State socialism which would deprive all personal effort of its motive and initiative by illegalising private Capital. On the contrary, he perceived in individual wealth the driving-wheels to an immense multitude of lesser parts, which, without that stimulus, would move sluggishly or not at all. Theoretic equality was no doubt a beautiful vision, only, as long as man should go lacking the eight beatitudes, he did not believe it a practical one. Disorder was the order of the human race, and that being so, no monotonous perfection, once attained, would long be suffered in peace. It was the way of the world, which builds on change and destruction, and will always of choice prefer the excitement of a picturesque and dangerous situation to the security of a tame one.

Now, while exhibiting in himself as complete a justification of capital as the world could afford, Gilead had by no means any qualms about spending his money exactly as he pleased. He was a young man of cultivated and artistic tastes, and these tastes he did not hesitate to indulge liberally. He had taken a set of rooms in the Albany, and was much interested in their equipment. On a certain occasion he spent three whole days hunting Japanese colour prints with an art expert, whom he much employed, without once going near the Agency. But on the fourth he recovered the thread of his duties.

Herbert Nestle, having as usual placed a copy of the Daily Post before his principal, stood by to await his comments. One soon followed, à propos the following advertisement, which Gilead read out aloud:—

“I think,” said Gilead, “I shall make this my personal affair.”

He looked across at Miss Halifax, who, conscious of the implied challenge, answered evenly, but with a slight flush on her beautiful cheek:—

“Losses at bridge, probably, or motor fever. Granting that, it sounds plausible, Mr Balm.”

She was by this time an experienced and perspicacious Gileadite.

“Why, I think so too,” said her employer.

“The little bait,” she ventured, “is the only questionable part.”

“Bait? What bait?”

“She might have omitted the young, you see,” said the amanuensis. “People may construe it into an invitation to a personal interview.”

“Well, what harm, then?”

Miss Halifax turned one instant to him and, looking down again without speaking, resumed her work. He sat with his eyes fixed on her. Her sympathy and sweet reasonableness were generally so dependable that this sudden confession of the feminine sting in her a little surprised him. He did not like to think of it as wilful. His admiration for her was very great, and sometimes disturbing to himself. She had taken latterly to a black dress, as most becoming her official position, and the contrast it made with her creamy neck, and flower-like face, and lovely hair was sometimes dazzling. He found it often difficult to dissociate the beauty of her soul and body, or to estimate from which she drew her greater attractiveness.

He went out almost immediately, and without another word, and the moment he was well away the young lady turned on the secretary.

“Why did you let him see that advertisement at all?”

“It is its third appearance in three days,” answered Nestle, “and I judged it no good to keep from him what he had probably already noticed. What is it you fear?”

He took a calendar containing a scrap of mirror from the mantelpiece, and put it down before her face. She pushed his hand away, with a peevish shrug of her shoulders, and he laughed and went off about his business.

In the meanwhile Gilead had taken his way to the business offices of the Daily Post, where he made an enquiry at the desk appropriated to the reference number advertisements. “I desire,” said he, “to be put into communication with this,” and he signified to the clerk the appeal already quoted.

The man accepted it with a profound deference. Gilead was well known at the bureau, and the privileges accorded to incalculable wealth, with a known tendency to giving, were always his without the asking. The editor himself would have rejoiced, if personally approached, to put his entire resources at his disposal; but the young plutocrat, with a very proper pride of fitness, would allow no claims of his own to ride at any time superior to the ordinary claims of courtesy or good-breeding.

Somewhat to his surprise, the clerk, having rapidly scanned the item, leaned forward to invite his ear to the opening in the brass wire netting which divided him from the public.

“There’s the advertiser herself, Mr Balm,” he whispered, “standing by the swing door.”

He signified the entrance into the street. This atrium to the great establishment was extensive, and glossy with mahogany and brass. Counters ran down either side of it, and its doors were as imposing as a bank’s. By one of these stood a slight young woman, awaiting apparently the termination of a sudden shower which was deluging the streets. She made a quite insignificant figure among the many that thronged the hall.

“One word,” said Gilead. “She has been to enquire about answers, I suppose? Were there any?”

“Not one, Mr Balm.”

Gilead nodded, and turned away. A slight smile was on his lips. ‘The bait,’ he was thinking, ‘does not appear to have been a very killing one.’

At that moment the young lady moved, pushed at the swing-doors, and disappeared into the open. Gilead, following, started in pursuit, and very quickly overtook her.

She went before him down Fleet Street, into the Strand, and, at Wellington Street, turned to cross the bridge. She walked fast, and he had enough to do to keep pace with her. It was still raining, and it struck him as curious that, although she was quite daintily attired, she never seemed to think of opening the umbrella she carried in her hand. The fact gave him a qualm, and in some way prepared him for the scene to follow. About the middle of the bridge he was delayed by a momentary pressure in the foot traffic, and, darting round and beyond the obstruction, suddenly saw his quarry in the grasp of a policeman.

The next instant he formed one of the group, sympathetic and protective.

“She was going over, Constable?” he whispered. “Is that so?”

The man recognized him at once. He was known to half the force.

“I see it in her eye, Mr Balm,” he said. “She’d have gone the next moment.”

He held the girl by the elbow, and Gilead saw her face for the first time. It was youth stricken into instant age, white, stunned, breathless. She made no effort to speak or escape—indeed she could not. The strung nerves had snapped at a touch, and she was paralyzed.

“I’ll make myself responsible for her,” said Gilead. “Quick, we mustn’t let a crowd gather.”

The constable, prompt man, bent down to the half blind, half deaf young face.

“You’re took bad, Missy,” he said; “you aren’t yourself. Now you just go with this gentleman, who’ll do you more good than all the doctors in the world.”

He held her, spoke to her, shouldered away an over-officious bystander or so, and stopped an empty four-wheeler, all with that comprehensiveness of resource which characterizes the London policeman. In another minute Gilead was rolling away, in charge of his poor little capture.

He did not address her for some time, not until, cowered into her corner, she suddenly gave a moan, and put her hands before her face. And then he spoke, in the voice that was like his name:—

“You mustn’t be frightened; you mustn’t mistrust me. I had come to answer your advertisement, to offer you help, when you were pointed out to me and I followed you. Now the help is very near—as near as the end of your trouble, I am sure.”

She appeared to listen; but no power was yet hers to answer.

“I know,” said Gilead, “I know. Some misery; someone’s wickedness—we have many such cases, and I know. I am going to take you where you will find rest, and sympathy, and strong wills to back you. You must just believe me, and not speak a word.”

He had his intention formed, and drove straight to the luxurious little flat, situated in the neighbourhood of Victoria Street, which his princely liberality had enabled Miss Halifax to take and furnish. He desired to retort upon that young lady with the fruits of her own scepticism, and to make her good-humouredly answer for it by succumbing to the bait which she had erstwhile depreciated. Arrived there, he delivered his charge, now partly recovered, but dazed and inclined to tears, to the lift-porter, with orders that he was to convey her to Miss Halifax’s rooms, and there keep her under unobtrusive observation until his return; having done which, he returned to his office, and confided the whole business to his fair amanuensis.

“Now,” said he, “I know nothing personally about the attractiveness of the bait; but I am very sure that no appeal is necessary to you to swallow it with a perfect grace. I have asked no questions, and penetrated no secrets. Why should I, when, in the loving sympathy and understanding of one of her own sex, she could seek the confidence which it would have been only an unjustified impertinence in me to offer.”

She looked at him, with her eyes shining.

“I think, Mr Balm,” she said softly, “that the Quest of the Holy Grail is still inspiring some Knightly spirits in the world”—a cryptic utterance which he could not quite interpret.

They lost no time in returning to the flat. She addressed her lovely face to him on the threshold.

“I believe,” she said, smiling, “that you have never once yet condescended to visit the beautiful home which I owe to your kindness.”

“I merely found the setting for a thing of value,” he said, with perfect sincerity. “I can only say that it seemed to me, when I first went over it, something less than an adequate acknowledgement of your great services to the office.”

She sighed, a very little sigh, and they entered the lift together. He never had a doubt of the solace he was bringing to the poor little life above with its broken wings; and, indeed, the instant the child saw Vera enter, she rose, and standing breathless a little, with her face like a white wet flower, threw herself suddenly into the warm generous arms, and abandoned herself and her cause to that lovely refuge.

Gilead turned away, and, while he stood thus, he heard the first words of understanding uttered, and of reassurance, and of mastering control. Then a door shut, and he was alone in the room.

He was quite satisfied, and prepared to await developments as long as necessary. The appointments of the room pleased him extremely. He had hardly expected such taste, remembering the Norwood villa; but that, he reflected, had not represented Miss Halifax’s independent views. Here all was simple and harmonious, straight lines and flat tones, with rich sombre gleams of brass and pottery for their sole emphasis. The only photograph (blest deficiency) that was visible, stood on a Sheraton bureau in a dusky corner by the window. Venturing to inspect it, Gilead discovered to his concern that it was one of Herbert Nestle.

He shrank away, as if he had unwittingly surprised a secret. An odd pang shot through his breast. He turned and stood for a long while staring at nothing out of the window. And then he came about, with a grave smile, and a resolve in his heart.

“Why should I wonder,” he thought. “And still more, why should I grudge it? It would be, after all, an ideal union of interests. And there is no reason why it should separate us. On the contrary, it might very well cement our partnership. I will certainly use my best unobtrusive efforts to promote the match.”

When Miss Halifax returned to him, which she did only after a pretty long interval, he received her with a manner of courteous distinction, which, as eschewing all claim to familiarity, evidently surprised and disturbed her. She looked about her for a reason; and, being astonishingly quick-witted, instantly divined the right one. She bit her lip, and went a trifle pale; but immediately controlled herself and proceeded to the matter in hand.

“I have heard the whole story,” she said. “It has made my blood boil, Mr Balm. The poor little thing! Heaven certainly sent her her protecting angel to retort upon a villain.”

“No,” said Gilead, perfectly unconsciously, “the retort is my business. Tell me as much of the story as is necessary to my taking action in the matter.”

“There is nothing to conceal,” answered Miss Halifax, “save—” she flushed a little—“one’s natural disgust in handling a reptile. His victim—or his intended victim, thank goodness—has been candid to me with the candour of a child. I have completely won her confidence and trust. She is asleep now, quite worn out. I shall keep her with me, Mr Balm, until you have decided upon the course you will pursue with her.”

Gilead bowed, with his eyes kindling.

“Of course,” he said; “I knew. If I ever found myself mistaken in you, Miss Halifax, I think I should close the Agency, and abjure my whole faith in human nature.”

She looked down, wreathing her fingers in her lap. For some moments she seemed unable to proceed.

“The child,” she said at length, with a resolute effort at self-command, “is no more than eighteen. Her name is Clarissa Snowe. She is an orphan these two years, during which time she had kept, until latterly, a little post of nursery-governess in a small family at Clapham. Some two or three months ago, however, her health broke down, and she had to cease work for a while. On her recovery she failed, utterly failed, to secure a fresh situation. She is very pretty, as no doubt you noticed?” (She paused; Gilead shook his head. “I was thinking of her misery, poor soul,” he murmured)—“and employers,” continued Miss Halifax, “especially of domestic labour, do not favour attractiveness of that sort. Clarissa had her little lodging in Battersea, and there she cherished a few heirlooms which had descended to her from her father, who in his turn had inherited them from his. With these, owing to her unhappy situation, and the debts she had incurred during her illness, she was obliged to part one by one—and, no doubt, at absurdly small figures—until there remained to her of them all only a single marble statuette of a child with a bird. She had kept this to the last, as her father, she knew, had always referred to it as a thing of value. But now, urged by desperation, she resolved to sell it. Somebody recommended to her Globesteins, the great art dealers in Chalk Street, Piccadilly, and thither she bore the statuette in a cab.”

Gilead nodded. “I have had some considerable dealings with Mr Globestein,” he said. “He is one of the first experts in London.”

“And one of the greatest cheats and villains,” cried Miss Halifax indignantly. “I hope, Mr Balm, you had someone to advise you?”

Gilead smiled.

“It is very possible you are right,” he said. “But, as there is no morality in art, you can hardly expect it in its dealers. Did Miss Snowe inform you of the name of the sculptor of this statuette?”

“Yes; it was Pigalle, or something of that sort.”

“Pigalle? Indeed. And Mr Globestein bought it of her—?”

“For ten pounds.”

Gilead winced—in his lips, and frowned and nodded.

“O!” cried Miss Halifax. “If it was, as I suppose, a wicked fraud, that was only the beginning of his villainy. Mr Globestein—who is, it seems, unmarried—after asking the poor thing a few penetrating questions, suggested that she should become governess-companion to his motherless children. She consented, of course, happy beyond measure over her good fortune, and removed her small belongings to his private house. There were no children there; and she was put off from day to day with plausible accounts of their present absence and soon return. The rest I may hurry over. Once secured in his home, this man persuaded her to take occasionally a hand at cards with himself and some of his friends. She lost, of course; he advanced her money; at length things reached the point at which he had been aiming, and he had her completely in his power. It was ruin for her either way; he threatened—”

Gilead put up a gentle hand.

“Spare yourself the pain. She was good, she was desperate—I understand—and as a final resource she decided to implore the help of strangers through the public press. The barrenness of the result, the inhuman silence, drove her in the end to her last chance of escape through self-destruction. I hold the child a heroine. Great God, the stony indifference of the world to her appeal!—no wonder it killed her heart. This man is a particular scoundrel. He shall bleed, Miss Halifax, he shall bleed, I promise you.”

She did not know, actually, if he implied a moral or a physical blood-letting, and she did not care. He was to her like a God whose decrees were never to be questioned. If he had killed, and said “This is just,” she would have believed him. She rose, as he did, and looked at him with her bosom heaving; and, without another word spoken by either, he left her.

A few minutes later he telephoned from his private office for his art adviser to come and see him at once.

“Dexter,” he said, when that gentleman was closeted with him, “what is the market value of a statuette by Pigalle?”

“Marble, Mr Balm?”

“Yes.”

“If indisputable, and his best work, anything from one to two thousand guineas and upwards. An example, not so long ago, fetched three thousand guineas at public auction.”

“Globestein has lately secured one for ten pounds. I want you to bear that in mind.”

“I will not forget it, Mr Balm. It is quite likely. The man is a clever rogue.”

“Very well. Now come with me to his place.”

They found Mr Globestein in. He came hurrying, all smiles, to greet his most distinguished patron. His rooms were luxurious caves of treasure-trove, to the gathering of which he had sacrificed whatever conscience he had once possessed. He was a tall, black-moustached man, neither ill-looking nor ostentatious in dress, but, if anything, somewhat over glossy in appearance. He gave one the impression of having rubbed shoulders with gentlefolks to the extent of acquiring all their superficial polish, and nothing more. His nose was fleshy, his lips were a little gross; there was a suggestion in his smile, assured but a trifle sickly, of a challenge to justice to prove a case against him.

“Mr Globestein,” said Gilead, “I have been told that you have a statuette by Pigalle for sale. Is that so? Tell me plainly. I desire no huckstering.”

He, the prince of courtesy, could be unmerciful to baseness. He treated this famous expert with a haughty intolerance which should have closed all dealings on the spot.

“It is perfectly true, Mr Balm,” said the dealer smoothly; “there is no reason why I should deny it.”

“You know best, sir,” answered Gilead. “You will let us see it, if you please.”

Mr Globestein conducted them into a further room, enriched like the other, and led them to a pedestal, on which stood a little marble figure of a girl, with a bird settled on her uplifted hand. They all stood silent by it for a while.

“Well, Dexter?” said Gilead presently.

“Unimpeachable,” answered the adviser; “and a first example.”

Mr Globestein laughed.

“You do me proud, Mr Dexter, sir,” he said, with a shadow of mockery in his voice. “I was really afraid you were going to impugn my judgment.”

The adviser came erect with a smile.

“Surely, Mr Globestein,” he said, “you should be the last to recommend the buying of a pig in a poke.”

“Enough, sir,” said Gilead. “Tell me, if you please, what is the price you ask for this?”

The dealer shrugged his shoulders slightly, and extended his hands.

“Pigalles,” he said, “are scarce and costly, Mr Balm. They rarely, very rarely occur. I could not, in justice to myself, ask a penny less than three thousand guineas.”

“It is too much.”

Mr Globestein sighed, shrugged again, and said nothing.

“It is too much, I say.”

“I will not deny, Mr Balm,” said the expert, “that your patronage and good opinion are of the first importance to me. I will make a concession to them, unprofitable enough to me, but I will trust to you to make it up in other directions. You shall have the statuette for three thousand guineas less the shillings, the exact price I gave for it.”

“You will let me have the statuette for the exact price you gave for it?”

“That is so, Mr Balm.”

“Dexter,” said Gilead; “you mark that?”

The adviser answered in the affirmative, wondering what was to come.

Gilead went to a desk, produced a cheque-book, wrote out a cheque, and handed it to the dealer. Mr Globestein accepted the draft obsequiously, glanced at the amount smilingly, started imperceptibly, and paled obviously.

“This is a pleasantry, Mr Balm,” he said, in a jocular voice that quaked somewhat. “Your cheque is for ten pounds only.”

“The exact price, sir, you gave for the statuette.”

He rose, frowning, in the sternness of his anger, and the dealer, in the very effort at a protest, cowered and shrunk silent before him.

“Perhaps, sir,” said Gilead, “it may have occurred to you by now that the nature of the task I have set myself brings me acquainted with the secrets of many underhand dealings. This morning was fortunate in revealing to me the destined victim of a piece of quite unexampled cupidity and baseness—your own. It need not concern you to know how, but it may to learn that a certain young lady has found the friends and protectors of whom she stood most sorely in need. You may refuse to permit me to remove this statuette, which is most surely mine on your own undertaking. In that case I shall take particular care to acquaint the world of the nature of your dealings, with what effect to yourself, coming from such a source, you may judge. If, on the other hand, you are wise, you shall still possess the opportunity to reacquire, by private treaty if you wish, and at the figure at which you implied it was worth your while to obtain it, the object in question. You shall have, Mr Globestein, the statuette back at the price of three thousand guineas; or you can cancel all obligations by accepting this cheque for ten pounds here and now. Which is it to be?”

Mr Globestein, speechless, and white to the lips, could only wave his hand renunciatory towards the pedestal.

“Dexter,” said Gilead, “have this carried down, and oblige me by calling a cab.”

He re-turned, with perfectly recovered serenity, upon the dealer.

“Mr Globestein,” he said, “you must permit me to congratulate you on the acumen which still does not fail you in a deal. You need not fear that I shall abandon you in your need of a prosperous customer. In your line you are invaluable, and no one would dream of accusing you of attempting to palm off upon inexperience a sham Pigalle. But in morality you are no expert, and it would do you no harm to take a lesson or so from much humbler individuals. Now, it may interest you to know that I shall very probably—always granting you the first refusal—retain this statuette for my own, while investing in the name of its former possessor a sum equal to your highest valuation. For the rest, it is quite likely that I shall be visiting you on business in the course of a few days. What a pity it is that you do not interest yourself in Japanese prints. I am investing quite a sum in Koriusais, and Haronobus, and Yeishis and the rest. I wish you a very good morning, Mr Globestein.”

“Good morning, Mr Balm, good morning, sir,” said the dealer—“and thank you.”

CHAPTER VI.
THE QUEST OF THE ROSE-RING

I.

Herbert Nestle, the astute, the resourceful, stood questioningly behind his principal as the latter ran through the above advertisement submitted to his consideration.

Gilead looked up, with a slightly puzzled expression.

“Certainly an odd requirement, Nestle,” he said. “But what do you see in it?”

“Nothing, indeed, sir,” answered the secretary, “but its oddity. It is a somewhat strange thing that the identical advertisement is repeated in another part of the paper, under the usual ‘Wants’ heading. The demand for parrakeet skins, especially for one description of parrakeet skins, should be urgent.”

“Are they the vogue?”

“Miss Halifax tells me not signally—not more than any other attractive plumage.”

“Nor rare and costly?”

“No, I think not. But of course I know little about such things.”

“Well, Nestle?”

“One might imagine, sir, that it was not parrakeet skins in general, but one parrakeet skin in particular that the advertiser had in view. The rose-ringed, you see, is the only one described in detail.”

“Perhaps it is the most marketable?”

“Yes, sir, perhaps.”

“You do not think that that is the reason?”

“No, frankly, sir, I do not—not a sufficient one to account for the distinction.”

“What is, then?”

“Ah! that, sir, I cannot guess. An inquiry might yield a very ordinary solution, or it might yield a surprising, or even a dramatic one. Things have been quiet of late. I thought no more than that here was a possible opportunity for you.”

“Well, I am obliged to you, Nestle. I will think it over.”

Gilead cogitated the matter, in fact, until he quite kindled to its possibilities. It looked trivial enough on the surface, to be sure; but by now he had had a sufficient experience of the tragedies often hidden under the blandest masks of commonplace. At the end of an hour he separated, folded, and put in his pocket the front page of the Daily Post, and, leaving the office, took a taxicab for the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, where he enquired for a certain assistant Keeper in the ornithological department, who happened to be a personal friend of his.

“Dereham,” he said abruptly, after an exchange of greetings, “please to tell me about the family of parrakeets, their names and their points.”

Mr Dereham laughed. He was accustomed, like many another of Gilead’s intimates, to regard the young plutocrat as the most courteous, admirable and lovable of cranks.

“O, certainly!” he said, and reeled off a string of names. “There are the Blue Mountain, the Crimson-fronted, the Jerryang, the Ground Parrot, the Dulang, the Coolich, the familiar Budgerigar, the King’s parrot, head, neck and body scarlet, tail shot black and green, the New Holland, with a yellow crest and grey-brown body, the Alexandrine, the rose-ringed, green, with a red collar and black stock, the—”

“Stop. That’s the one I want.”

“O, indeed?”

“Is it rare?”

“Not in the least.”

“I mean any reason for attaching an especial value to it, or to choice specimens of it?”

“None whatever. It’s a quite common species.”

“Where does it come from?”

“O! India and the Malay Archipelago and thereabouts.”

“Could I, do you think, procure a specimen of it—unstuffed; its skin, I mean?”

“Dozens, I have no doubt. Any taxidermist could do your business.”

“Thanks immensely, Dereham; I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“Don’t mention it. What’s in the wind now?”

Gilead laughed, shook hands, and bolted.

A couple of days later he walked into Lower Marsh Street, with a brown-paper parcel under his arm.

It was a dreary depressing morning, brown grease under foot and brown fog in the air. The street from its appearance might have been sinking into the ooze and slime of the old Lambeth marshes from which it took its name. The basement windows of its houses were blinded with mud; a steady precipitate of soot descended upon it from impenetrable glooms. The moist squalor of the scene, the low unclassified shops, the shambling traffic and half stealthy half sinister aspect of a majority of the populace, wrought sombrely upon the young man’s spirits. It was in such places, he reflected, that the breed of human carrion-flies was hatched, swarming, to poison civilization, out of these bodies contaminate and decomposing carcases of houses. A sense of foreboding was already on him as he paused in front of a seemingly unoccupied shop and read, written on the head-board over its closed door and empty window: 14a J. Jenniver Clear-starcher 14a.

Of all trades the least appropriate, one might have thought, to the district. Gilead, hesitating a moment, looked about him. It came to him suddenly how empty the street was of policemen. He had not remembered, to be sure, its contiguity to the New Cut. He was standing in the close vicinity of penny gaffs and penny dreadfuls, of the indigenous coster and the cosmopolitan flat-catcher, of brokers’ shops, Sunday trading, chronic drunkenness, buffetted faces and vice in its most sodden aspect. But, if the realization gave him a thrill, it left his nerves unshocked. He was always imperturbable in his unselfconscious sanctity of motive. He felt his strength to be “as the strength of ten” because his heart was pure—though he did not, like Sir Galahad, applaud the fact in the first person.

Now suddenly, as he stood indetermined, and wondering if, after all, this quest was proper to his custom, the door of the shop opened, and there appeared in the aperture the figure of a young woman, speaking back, as she emerged, to someone within:—

“Yes, same place as the other, Doddington Grove. I say, I must hurry. So-long, Georgy!”

She ran out—a slight anæmic girl, a sempstress by her pallor, soberly dressed, but elaborate as to her head and low as to her neck—and, with a wondering stare at Gilead, sped on her way towards the tram terminus hard by. Regarding her retreat an instant, Gilead turned to see the figure of a man standing conning him from the shop-door.

He was a pert, wiry, truculent-looking young fellow, the very type of combative cockneyism. His nose was retroussé, his cheeks pink; an incipient red-gold moustache on his lip had been coaxed into two little upstanding stings or spikes; his cloth cap, tilted back from his forehead, revealed a rudimentary ‘cow-lick’, elaborated from a somewhat cropped head of the same Apollonian hue. He stood whistling softly, with his hands thrust loosely into his trouser pockets. Gilead stepped towards him.

“Jenniver?” he said. “Is that the name?”

“You may lay on it, my lord,” answered the young man, coolly blocking the way.

“O!” said Gilead; and produced his newspaper extract. “I came about an advertisement.”

The stranger nodded, eyeing the brown-paper parcel.

“Yus?” he said.

“I have a skin or two here of the sort you mention.”

“O! have you?” said the young man. He appeared to consider a moment. “Well, no harm in looking at ’em,” he said. “Come in.”

He led the way into a little dirty dismal shop with shelves and a counter, and all as empty as the window. A door at the back seemed to give upon remote and silent regions. There was not a sign of traffic, of any description whatever, in the whole place.

The stranger accepted the parcel, opened it, and revealed half a dozen parrakeet skins of sorts. He turned them over, examining each minutely, and looked up.

“You’ve forgotten about the ‘old’,” he said.

“Old!” echoed Gilead.

“Now, look here,” said the young man, in a sudden access of violence; “what the hell’s your little game?”

Gilead, taken completely by surprise, lacked words to answer.

“You’re a toff,” went on the stranger. “These skins ain’t old, but fresh-bought, with the importers’ labels still on ’em. What the devil do you mean by trying to pass them off on me as old?”

“I really didn’t realize that age was a sine qua non,” said the customer.

“Sine what?” said the young man. “O! didn’t you, now? You’re a pusson of observation, you are. Now, what do you mean?”

“Frankly,” said Gilead, who had recovered his self-possession, “I don’t quite know. My object was to find out what you did.”

“O! was it?” said the dealer, with a violently derisive emphasis. “Jest so.”

“There’s a skin there,” said Gilead, “which answers exactly to the description of the one you most require.”

“So I see,” said the dealer.

“Only it’s not old?”

“Only it’s not old.”

“Well, I suppose there’s a virtue in antiquity.”

“Don’t you know there is, being a toff?”

“I confess,” said Gilead, “that mangy plumes excite no emotion in me.”

“You’d understand their use, maybe, if you was curator to a perishing museum,” answered the dealer.

Gilead opened his eyes.

“Is that the explanation?” he said. “I humbly beg your pardon, Mr Jenniver. My curiosity is rebuked. Come, I apologize. But the advertisement really seemed to me such an odd one that I couldn’t resist following it up.”

“Well,” said the young man, with some appearance of relief, “you let your friends know my object, and we’ll say no more about it. I dussay as there’s plenty of fine ladies of your acquaintance what would like to get a price for their cast-offs.”

“It’s likely enough,” said Gilead. “I’m sorry to have seemed so obtrusive. Good morning, Mr Jenniver.”

The young man did not answer, and the customer left the shop. He walked rapidly at first, urged by a certain sense of humiliation; but in a little his steps had slackened, and he was proceeding on his way sunk deep in reverie.

The fact was that the dealer’s explanation, accepted as so plausible in its first utterance, was, as he reconsidered it, failing more and more to satisfy him. Perishing museums, forsooth! Was it in reason to arrest decay by patching it with decay? Besides surely secondhand stuff of the sort was easily procurable without having recourse to expensive advertisements. The elucidation appeared to him on reflection to have been rather inspired, and on the instant, by his own comments. And then the empty shop, the sinister neighbourhood, the aggressiveness and obvious suspicion of the dealer that he was being got at? No, he was convinced that he had actually touched the hem of some mystery, harmless possibly, but so far without a shadow of a clue to its meaning. And yet, the more puzzling it appeared, the more was he stimulated to persist in an endeavour to unravel it. He confided his non-success to Nestle when he reached the office.

The secretary listened very attentively to the end.

“In a matter of this sort, sir,” he said, “any word linking an outer with an inner association is of value. The young woman, you say, mentioned Doddington Grove. Well, my advice is, transfer your investigations to Doddington Grove.”

“It seems ridiculous, Nestle. What possible base have I to my inquiries?”

“A morbid craving for old parrakeet skins, sir,” said the secretary.

Gilead laughed.

“I am half afraid,” he said, “that the cause of the Quest has given me a morbid craving for mares’ nests. Where is Doddington Grove?”

It was not likely that there would be a second of that name, and in fact, referring to the map of London, they traced the street they sought to the locality of Kennington Park. Gilead made his way thither that very afternoon.

He found the Grove to occupy one side of a dully respectable little congeries of squares and places covering a considerable estate to the north of the Park. There was nothing more remarkable about it than about any other semi-suburban avenue of bricks and mortar. The houses were the substantial middle-class houses of an orthodox neighbourhood, detached for the most part, and cased in stucco. A parrot in a brass cage standing in a window was the nearest approach to a clue vouchsafed him. Clearly the place itself was utterly barren of suggestion; and indeed what else could he have expected?

Pausing at length, and gazing about him, the young gentleman lapsed into a good-humoured smile and turned to retreat. “No,” he cogitated. “I haven’t the faculty, I’m afraid. I can’t produce a rabbit, or even a parrakeet, from an empty hat.”

So he decided, and walked away—and there in a moment before his eyes lay the end of the very clue he sought to follow. Fate, no doubt, had been captivated as always by the sweetness and modesty of his disposition.

For many days succeeding that excursion Mr Balm, during his somewhat rare visits to the Agency, appeared deeply preoccupied and rather unapproachable. Even the privileged amanuensis would venture no attempt to penetrate his reserve, though the heart in her fair breast suffered some pangs thereby, which, in a baser nature, might have been attributed to jealousy. She would have been indeed quite satisfied to leave him to himself, were she assured that that was the sole company he affected; but men, she knew, were often, when appearing most alone, most particularly vis-à-vis with visionary comrades, and the image of some rival to her own and the secretary’s interests occupying that silent and inscrutable mind would occasionally rise to perturb her.

How her apprehensions were relieved will appear in the sequel, where we are to pass at a leap from the meagre opening to the prolific close of that same little affair of the bird-skins.

II.

Mr Ingram, Chief Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, was sitting in his office at Scotland Yard one chill afternoon, when a respected visitor, Mr Gilead Balm, sent in his name with a request for an immediate interview on a matter of urgency. The gentleman was at once shown in.

Gilead, courteous and quiet as ever, failed nevertheless to conceal from the astute officer some evidences of suppressed excitement in his demeanour. There was a suggestion in his face of a subdued self-satisfaction, of a conscious victoriousness, as it were, which both impressed and tickled the Superintendent.

“Well, Mr Balm,” he said, “you’ve pulled it off single-handed this time, and no mistake.”

Gilead, taking the chair offered him, with an expression in which astonishment and a certain twinkling sobriety fought for mastery, asked “Pulled what off?”

“I haven’t a notion,” said the Superintendent.

Gilead stared a moment and then laughed.

“What! Is my manner such an index?” he said. “Well, I confess I am just a little elated—or conceited. Please to read that, Ingram.”

The Superintendent accepted and examined the page of the Daily Post offered him.

“The marked ‘ad’?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve read it, sir.”

“What do you make of it?”

“Make?” The Superintendent, quite at a loss, shook his head in a guarded way.

“Anything suspicious?” demanded the client.

“Not that I can see.”

“Ah!” Gilead mutely requested the return of the paper, folded, and restored it to his pocket. “Now, I’ll tell you, Ingram,” he said quietly. “That advertisement represents a quite transcendent piece of fraud and trickery, and, with no more to go upon than you see, I’ve traced it, as I believe, to its source. Could any one of your men have done better, do you think? But I wont believe he could, and I’m just as proud as Punch of my success. If I’m wrong, I will cry off all detective work for the future. But I may be right, and yet miss my quarry through circumstance or misjudgment. I want you to lend me a plain-clothes officer, a strong, skilful, and trustworthy man.”

“Certainly, Mr Balm. Will you tell me—”

“I’ll tell you nothing, Ingram. I’m going to claim to myself all the honour and glory of this business. I’ll tell you nothing; but—yes, I’ll ask you a question. Do you know George Lightfoot by name?”

“Wait—wait—George Lightfoot? Yes, sir, I remember the man.”

“And the crime for which he was sentenced?”

“Yes, to be sure.”

“Would it be legal to arrest him on a charge of larceny arising out of that crime, but subsequent to it?”

“Better take out a warrant.”

“Very well, procure me a warrant for the arrest of George Lightfoot, and send it on with the officer to the Agency.”

“You won’t tell me the charge?”

“No.”

“Well, sir, we must stretch a point for you. What time do you want them?”

“At six o’clock this evening, punctually. I undertake full responsibility for this course, you understand, Ingram? If anything, in any way, should miscarry, I am the one to blame.”

His manner had grown suddenly very grave and earnest. He left the Superintendent curious, but impressed against his will.

At six o’clock to the tick the detective arrived at the office, presenting the appearance of a stalwart, silent man, who knew how to keep his thoughts to himself. Gilead, after a few words of instruction, slipped an electric torch into his pocket (a precaution impressed upon him through his late experiences in the Empty House), locked up the place, and, descending to the hall, deposited the keys with the porter and issued with his companion into the street.

It was a shrill inclement evening. Bitter north-easterly winds had succeeded to the fogs of the week past, and the mud in the roads was long crumbled into an arid dust, which was swept up in clouds and blown in stormy veils above the house-tops. The pavements were as white as picked bones; the very flames of the lamps shivered in their little glass-houses; one took the stinging blasts headforemost, grinding them in palpable grit between one’s teeth, and, detesting all things and people, butted aggressive into struggling pedestrians, and gloried in the proverbial coldness of charity.

Gilead was constitutionally incapable of such spleen; yet even his invincible courtesy found a difficulty in keeping, so to speak, its equilibrium; and when, as it once happened, a little cold grimy hand, gripping a couple of match-boxes, was thrust across his path, he drove half-consciously upon the obstruction, and scattered it to the winds.

The act, repented as soon as done, had been due more to a sense of urgency than of irritation; but it had the effect of checking his somewhat excited career, and of restoring to him his moral balance. The fortunate urchin, having profited by it to the tune of a gold piece, dropped voicelessly behind.

The two men beating up Victoria Street, and across the cold comfort of Broad Sanctuary, headed for Westminster Bridge with set teeth. If they had attempted speech, the wind would have howled them down. It was a charging voice, a destructive terrorist, that shivered the lamps on the river into splinters of light, and hammered screeching on the doors and windows of the timid, and blew such an accumulation of human fuel into the public-house bars that they blazed and roared again.

It was for this reason, no doubt, that Lower Marsh exhibited, when they turned into it, a darkly depopulated aspect. Its traffic seemed shrunk to a minimum, the bones of its squalid ugliness were laid bare, the small grime of humanity that drifted down its pavements appeared of less account than the dust whirled about its lamp-posts. It was in the shadowy neutral ground between two of these that Gilead halted his companion, and pointed to the name of J. Jenniver written above their heads.

“It’s here,” he whispered—“and so is he.”

A weak perpendicular edge of light drawn upon the lowered blind of the shop seemed indeed to witness to the presence of someone in the back room, the door of which was patently ajar.

“I never doubted that he would be,” whispered Gilead, excusably vainglorious. “We’d better not delay. He’s vicious and suspicious. Now, officer! And be prepared for contingencies.”

“You won’t wait, then, sir, for the young woman’s arrival?”

“No, I think not. Better make sure of our bird in the hand. We shall find her more amenable to argument when once we’ve settled with her confederate. She’s little to blame, poor creature—his tool, no worse. Now.”

“Very well, sir. Stand by. It’s like he’ll take us for her.”

He tapped on the door. Almost with the sound, the streak of light vanished from the blind, and left all in darkness.

No response followed. They waited a breathless minute.

“Queer!” muttered the detective. “The young woman can’t have arrived before us, I suppose?”

“Not if I’m right in my calculations,” said Gilead. “Try again.”

The officer knocked a second time, and louder. “It’s all right,” he whispered in a moment. “I hear steps. He’s coming.”

But still the door was not opened—only some indefinable consciousness of a presence standing silent behind it was conveyed to them.

The detective rapped again.

Then suddenly, so close that it made Gilead start, a voice spoke through the keyhole—an odd strained little voice, with a hiccup in it.

“Who’s there? What d’you want?”

Gilead, glancing at the detective, put his finger to his lips and bent to respond:

“I’ve brought some bird skins.”

“I don’t want no bird skins,” answered the voice.

“But you advertised.”

“I don’t care. I’ve got all I need.”

“Won’t you look at them?”

“No.”

“Just a squint, while I stand here. I’m short of cash.”

“Wos that to me? You clear out.”

“You advertised, you know. I’m not going to be put off without a reason. If you won’t open, I’ll kick the door in.”

“Gosh! will you? Now, look ’ere; I’ll consider of ’em just this once to oblige you, if you’ll pass ’em in and take my answer and git. Is that a bargain?”

“All right.”

A chain rattled; a key was turned; the door opened an inch or two—and quick as thought the detective shot into the aperture an inflexible munition boot. There followed an oath, a crash; the vicious elastic figure of Mr Lightfoot, alias Jenniver, glimmered one moment in semi-darkness, and the next they were in, and the man was gone.

“The room behind! Quick!” cried Gilead.

They were round and into it on the echo of his cry. As they stumbled forward blindly—for the light had been extinguished—a flash and explosion met them full face, and Gilead tripped and half fell against the wall. But in the very act he remembered his electric torch, and whipped it out and pressed the button. The sudden flash revealed two men down upon the floor, wrestling together in a mortal grip.

“Make for his revolver!” gasped the detective—“quick, before he can get at it.”

Gilead saw where the weapon had fallen, and, snatching at it on the instant, presented it at the young dealer’s head.

“Give in, Lightfoot,” he said, in a voice as cool as judgment. “I allow you two seconds.”

With a ghastly groan, the man rolled over and surrendered.

They got him to his feet and handcuffed. From the moment of his defeat he appeared void of all volition. His face was as grey as streaked putty; the sockets of his eyes were white; drops of sweat stood on his forehead. They relit the gas, and helped him all limp into a chair, where he sat half-collapsed.

“Good God!” whispered Gilead: “has he shot himself?”

“Not he,” said the detective, coolly picking the dust of the fray from his coat. “A mercy he didn’t one of us. You’re all right, sir?”

“Yes. And you?”

“A bit scorched—no more. I wonder at you, Lightfoot. You’ve made a bad mess of this business, my lad.”

Gilead uttered a sudden cry.

“It’s there! Look!”

The room was empty, save for a common chair or two and a bare deal table; and in the middle of the latter lay a single folded parrakeet skin, green, with a rose and black collar round its neck.

He stood staring a moment, then went and lifted and balanced the thing in his hand. And, so holding it, he turned, with a lost expression on his face.

“Why,” he said, “I must have miscalculated after all, and she’s been here before us.”

The detective uttered a quick exclamation:—

“Look at the man! What’s taken him?”

He was writhing and tearing at his bonds. Suddenly he broke into a whining unearthly cry, that tailed off into a string of inarticulate blasphemies.

“Officer,” said Gilead whitely: “there’s something beyond what I looked for in this business—something, I believe, infinitely blacker and more deadly. Stay you here while I go over the house.”

The prisoner, straightening himself convulsively, moved as if to spring.

“All right, sir,” said the detective, prompt to interpose. “You can leave him to me.”

Gilead, clipping his little torch into flame, hurried instantly out of the room. A deadly constricted feeling was at his heart; he looked with certainty for some horror to be revealed in a moment. Yet he had no least reason for blaming himself. He had merely watched, not directed, the course of events. Indeed, Providence, it might be said, had appointed in him its unconscious Nemesis. Would only that it had permitted him to forestall in that character the deed he feared.

In the passage he paused an instant to shut and relock the front door, which had remained open from their first entrance. Then he turned to consider his ground. A narrow flight of stairs rose before him; beyond, at the black end of the passage, a second dropped into the basement. He mounted the former in the first instance, his heart beating thickly, and came to a little cluster of rooms, three in all, which revealed nothing but dust and emptiness and peeling wall-paper. Satisfied that they contained, and could contain, no secret, he left them, and, returning to the passage, descended to the basement. He knew now that what he sought, if it existed, must be hidden somewhere here. A sense of something monstrous to be revealed tingled in his veins; stealthy things seemed to rustle and escape before him; at the bottom of the flight he hesitated, momentarily sickened from his quest.

What business was it of his? A bugbear, very likely, of his own fancy! The shock of unforeseen defection in an act of larceny was no doubt sufficient to account for the state of the man above.

A glow came to his face in the darkness. He was glad that heaven and he had been alone together with that shameful thought. He breathed out all his pusillanimity in a great scornful sigh—and the sigh was answered.

He stood a moment as if paralysed. It had been little and tremulous, but unmistakable—an echo, perhaps, of his own. Vaulted darkness gasped at him in front, exhaling a smell of cold flags and cold soot. Close beside him was the near-closed door of the coal-cellar. In a sudden spasm of horror he pushed this open, and, casting his light before him, saw the body of a young girl lying prone upon her back on the stones.

Now a great sorrow and pity came on the instant to nerve him. He bent to look into the bloodless face and saw its eyes closed, its white lips parted; but the nostrils quivered slightly and he knew that she still lived. There was little need to question what had struck her down. High on the bosom of the cheap frock she wore was a crimson splash, and from under her shoulder spread and crawled a black and sluggish little pool.

But she was not dead. God help him yet to mend a deed so foul and inhuman! He rose—hope was to the swift. As he turned to go he saw leaning against the wall a spade and mattock, and he shuddered in the knowledge of their purpose.

It was with a face as set as stone that he came hurrying into the little room above.

“He has shot her,” he said. “She is lying in the cellar—but she still breathes. Look to him there while I run for a doctor.”

He was gone before the officer could speak. But, at his words, the abject figure in the chair had ceased to moan and writhe. It sat up; it made an attempt with its damp manacled hands to repoint the little red spurs on its lip; it spoke even in a thick unsteady voice:—

“I’ll make you all pay hell for this. It’s a plot to rob me. She shot herself—she did on my living oath. What have you done with my rose-ring?”

The detective exerted some cool pressure.

“It’s my duty to warn you, Lightfoot,” he said, “that I’ve a warrant for your arrest in my pocket, and that whatever you say now will be used as evidence before the magistrate.”

III.

“Of course it is an acquired taste,” said Gilead. “All education is acquired. Do you like olives?”

“No, I can’t bear them,” said Miss Halifax, making a face over the unexpected question.

“They are invaluable,” he answered, “in bringing out the bouquet of claret. So it is with that Japanese print” (he was standing with her before a fine hachirakaki by Masonobu, which hung upon the wall). “Take it in the right spirit, and then see what that exquisite little arrangement by Whistler yonder owes to it. Why you yourself, you know, are truly insensible of your obligations to this same Masonobu among others.”

It was a Sunday afternoon, and he had invited his secretary and amanuensis to tea with him in the Albany, with the express purpose of relating to them, for their personal and private edification, the history in detail of the bird-skins, about which, during the whole day preceding, he had maintained an amused but impenetrable reserve. They knew that he had been successful in his quest, and they knew little else. He tantalized them even now by delaying the recital.

“My obligations!” said the young lady, raising her brows in a very pretty puzzled way. “How, Mr Balm?”

“Why,” said he, “to what, beyond a naturally refined taste, do you think you owe the judgment so charmingly displayed in the decoration of your own rooms? It was these early Japanese artists who were as responsible as any for the growth among us of a spirit of true appreciation of the beauty and value of line in decorative composition. You must really learn to honour your artistic ancestry, Miss Halifax.”

She sighed.

“I will try; only I do wish my ancestry had adopted a more attractive convention for its faces. They have no more expression than eggs. It will do, I suppose, if I taste Masonobu and drink in Whistler. You tell me, you know, to love the wine for the olive, and not the olive for the wine.”

He laughed.

“That is well answered; but I don’t despair of you yet. You shall come by and by to love the olive for its own sake. Yes, that is the Pigalle.”

“Isn’t it a dear!” she exclaimed, this time with a whole-hearted admiration.

“It ought to be,” he answered. “I gave three thousand guineas for it.”

She smiled lovelily on him, thanking him silently for the little whimsical significant confidence. “Mr Balm,” she said plaintively: “when, please, are we to hear about the Quest?”

“At once,” he answered. “I was only waiting your command. I am just spoiling, as the Americans say, for an audience. You shall own, Nestle, that I have managed, in spite of the French proverb, to draw oil from a wall.”

He brought and settled them snugly about the fire, went to a cabinet, and, returning with some article in his hand, placed a little occasional table in their midst ready for its reception.

“You will remember,” he said, “the terms of the advertisement, and the emphasis laid on a particular species of parrakeet skin—the rose-ringed, in short. It was from the first our astute secretary’s opinion, Miss Halifax, that the advertiser had in view less that species than a single example of that species, and he was perfectly right. I hold the proof in my hand.”

He offered it for their inspection. Nestle, uttering an exclamation, bent to look.

“Take it,” said Gilead, “examine it, weigh it, and return it to me. What do you make of it?”

“It answers to the description certainly,” said the secretary—“green plumage, rose and black band. It is about sixteen inches long, and it has been worn. Two things only strike me.”

“What?”

“The weight of its head, and the fact that it has eyes.”

“Precisely. Now will you lay it down here awhile? It came into my hands the night before last under pretty tragic circumstances. There was an attempt at murder—yes indeed there was, Miss Halifax—of which an unhappy girl was the victim. I arrived on the scene too late to prevent the crime, but not too late to have the criminal arrested red-handed. It was only then that I reached a final solution of the problem I had set myself to unravel, and which solution it needed no more than a single piece of corroborative evidence, since supplied, to confirm. By the courtesy, or perhaps I should say the particular favour, of Chief Superintendent Ingram, I am allowed the temporary custody of these pièces-de-conviction. Yes, Miss Halifax?”

“The girl? the poor victim?”

“She is not, I am happy to say, so mortally hurt as at first it was feared. There is a chance, at least, of her recovery. The bullet has been extracted.”

“The bullet?”

“I am beginning, you see, at the end, like a Chinese book.”

“O! please to go on. I will not interrupt you again.”

“As often and as much as you like. By the way, where am I to begin?”

“O! from your visit to Doddington Grove. I know so far.”

“Very well. Now, as you may suppose, I found nothing whatever in Doddington Grove, a respectable street in a respectable neighbourhood, to afford me the slightest clue to what I sought. I had, in fact, after a hopeless investigation, come to realise my complete inability to make bricks without straw, when chance, or Providence, directed my steps, in retreating, past a shop in the Kennington Road, in the window of which I saw something which brought me to an instant stand. This something was nothing less than a bundle of bright-coloured bird-skins, tied round with a piece of red tape.

“I went at once into the shop. It was one of those second-hand concerns, used by small brokers for the disposal of articles picked up by them at sales; and I ascertained without any difficulty that the packet of skins—which I bought there and then—represented the remainder of a considerable parcel, the bulk of which had been sold to a hat and bonnet shop proprietor in the Borough. The original lot, had, I learned, figured in its entirety among the effects in a sale at a house in Doddington Grove; and with small pains I was able to discover the number of that house, the date of the auction, and the name of the late tenant, who it appeared, had been a Mrs Barclay Rivers, a widow.

“So far, so good. I had secured at length a definite base from which to conduct operations, and I felt considerably elated. I must beg you both to bear always in mind that from first to last I was my own sole detective in this matter. Any doubt in that respect would seem to tarnish my laurels, of which I am inordinately vain.

“Now, to continue. There was here, you will perceive, at least a certain relation established between a Mrs Barclay Rivers and a packet of bird-skins, with the man and girl in Lower Marsh for the hyphen connecting them as it were. How to ascertain the nature of the relationship, the degree of kindred so to speak, was the question. Obviously, the simplest course was to hunt out the widow herself, and to make a frank offer to her of my services; and that was the course I adopted.