IV

It was cold in the train--icy cold, and in spite of his fur coat Sir

Richard found himself shivering. Only his arm hanging in a splint burned

with the fires of hell, as if imps with red-hot pincers were slowly

tearing apart the nerves. Sir Penniston, sitting opposite, smiled

encouragingly at him.

There were several people in the carriage. The lamps had been lighted

and in the corner, beside a large black case, sat Jermyn. Next to him

came Joyce, looking exceedingly respectable and very solemn. But the

other three he did not remember to have seen before--that tall,

white-whiskered man in the otter collar: he probably had been presented

and Sir Richard had forgotten. Then there was a big, broad-shouldered

fellow in a soft cap, and next to him a slender, white-faced youth whose

chin was buried in the depths of his coat collar, and whose hands were

thrust deep into his pockets. The big man looked out the window

occasionally and inquired the time, but the youth beside him kept his

eyes fast shut and hardly moved. Had he not been sitting bolt upright

Sir Richard fancied that the latter might have been taken for a corpse.

"Woxton next stop, gentlemen!" announced the guard, opening the door for

an instant as the train paused at a way station. A cold blast of air

followed and Mortmain's teeth chattered. It was quite dark in the

compartment and he felt very weak and miserable. He could not remember

getting aboard the train, but the purport of it all was unmistakable.

The agonies of the morning rushed back across his memory, and his hand

throbbed and twisted within the splint. He felt sick and faint and the

atmosphere of the carriage seemed suffocating.

"How much farther is it?" inquired the man in the otter collar. "We've

been traveling for hours!"

"Only eight miles," answered Crisp cheerfully. "It certainly has seemed

an unearthly distance."

There was a long silence punctuated only by the puffing of the engine

and the shriek of the whistle. Suddenly the pale young man whimpered.

The sound sent a chill to the marrow of Sir Richard's spine.

"If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee--"

whispered the youth. Then he fell to sobbing in the depths of his

collar, but without opening his eyes.

"Come, come, my man! None of that!" cried Crisp angrily. "You're a lucky

fellow! Why, your fortune is as good as made."

Mortmain shuddered.

"If thy hand offend thee--" he repeated to himself. "If thy hand

offend----"

Then he became conscious of still another presence somewhere--a presence

that watched him furtively, but hungrily, with eager, greedy eyes. He

stared along the seats and into the crannies. Could it have been a face

at the window? No, the black night rushed by steadily and blankly. And

yet he could not convince himself that another face had not been there a

moment before.

The train slowed up with a screeching of the brakes and came to a stop.

The door was flung open; his companions hurriedly arose, and the

broad-shouldered young man placed his arm protectingly about the baronet

and assisted him to the platform. A fine snow was sifting down silently

over the lamplit road and upon two large depot wagons standing beside

the station. Again Mortmain was conscious of a presence. He glanced

quickly across the platform and thought he saw a shadow spring from a

rear carriage and leap into the darkness of the bushes.

"What was that?" he gasped.

But the others paid no attention, being busily engaged in deporting

their cases and portmanteaus. The train started on again. Only the

station agent was left, his lantern making an opaque circle in the

intense darkness of the snow-filled night.

The horses champed impatiently, and as quickly as was possible the party

divided and climbed into the wagons, Crisp, the nurse, and Mortmain

entering the last. The doors were slammed to and they started. Still

Mortmain felt convinced that they were not alone. Looking back just as

they were leaving the dim lights of the station, he could have sworn

that he saw the figure of a man running steadily along behind, crouching

low against the road. To the south a distant glow bespoke the presence

of a village, but the wagons swung sharply to the north and plunged into

a wood.

A drowsiness had come over the baronet and he pressed close to the

nurse, terrified and shaken by the dread of some approaching peril. This

hired man seemed nearer to him than any other living soul. He cried

softly, fearing to be observed, and the tears coursed down his hot

cheeks and lost themselves in his furs. Now and then he would listen

intently for the sound of some one running, but he could hear nothing

save the crunch of the wheels and the jingle of the harness. Yet he knew

that just behind them, clinging to their wheel, was pressing that

mysterious figure that had leaped into the darkness beside the station.

After what seemed an hour, a bend in the road disclosed a single light

not far ahead and in a few moments the wagons stopped before a high

wall. The party got out and Crisp opened the gate. Mortmain stared

fixedly down the road, waiting for the unbidden guest to creep swiftly

into view.

"Here we are!" cried Sir Penniston. "Wait a moment until I notify the

farmer."

As the surgeon hastened up the paved walk to the cottage, the wagons

turned and started back at a brisk trot, like a home-going funeral

procession. All the windows were dark and Mortmain clung sobbing to the

nurse's arm.

"Hit's all right, sir," whispered the latter sympathetically. "Hit's all

right!"

Slowly the party made their way to the porch. A light appeared in the

lower windows, then the door was opened. The nurse, half carrying the

baronet, helped him into the hall and seated him upon a wooden chair. As

the door closed Mortmain saw a shadow at the gate.

"Look! Look!" he cried. The warm air swallowed him up; he felt a rush of

blood to his neck and face; the figures about him swayed and swam in the

dim light; there was a stabbing pain in his hand and he knew no more.

V

When Mortmain was able to reappear in society he was astonished to find

that the murder of Lord Russell was no longer a matter of interest or of

discussion. The temporarily shocked and horrified community had

apparently within a short time placidly accepted it, and apart from

occasional references in the newspapers, it was rapidly becoming a mere

matter of history, taking its proper chronological place in the long

list of London's unsolved mysteries. It had been given out at the time

that the horrible death of his old friend had so prostrated the baronet

that he had been threatened with total collapse, and had only been

restored to health by remaining in bed under the constant care of a

certain distinguished physician. At times Mortmain was almost inclined

to believe this himself, for the ghastly night at the lonely farmhouse,

his ensuing illness and slow recovery, seemed, in the full swing of the

London season and contrasted with the brilliant colors of its

festivities, less actuality than a dreadful nightmare which continually

obtruded itself upon his recollection. He had resumed his place in

fashionable life with his old assurance, picking up his cards where he

had left them lying face downward upon the table. Within a week he was

again "among those present" at every gathering of note, and he had

dropped hints of his intention to give a new and unique musical

entertainment which was to surpass anything of the kind theretofore

attempted. He had also resumed his attentions to Lady Bella Forsythe

with a definite purpose--that of rendering himself financially

impregnable.

But Sir Richard was not the same. His glass showed him to be paler than

of yore, his eyes more deeply sunken, his hair touched at the edges with

a ghost of white, the lines of his mouth more firmly marked. His friends

jokingly told him that he was growing old. He had paid a heavy price for

what he had bought, yet it was not loss of vitality, not physical shock

alone that had thus aged him, but a ghastly, damning fact that never

left him for an instant, waking or sleeping: _the fact that the man had

died_. They had not told him at first--it might have affected his cure.

The result upon his spiritual being when he learned of it had been no

less disastrous. _The man had died._ There was no longer any pensioner

to claim his annuity; no creditor even to demand the price of his awful

bargain; no witness to testify to its hideous terms--he had fled the

jurisdiction of all earthly courts. Sir Richard was free. But the

thought of that life forfeited to his own egotism was a millstone about

his neck, bowing him forever to the ground.

He intentionally talked frankly of Lord Russell. The old man had been

highly respected and, indeed, moderately prominent in philanthropic

circles. Mortmain had made a point of going personally to see the

bas-relief erected to his memory. He learned that the next of kin was a

Devon man who never came up to town, and that the executors had taken

possession almost immediately and disposed of the house to an American

millionaire, who was even now remodeling the historic mansion, inserting

Grecian columns and putting on a Château de Nevers roof. Of course he

inspected this with friends, was properly disgusted, and seized the

opportunity to gratify his curiously morbid hunger for the details of

the murder. He learned that, though few of the facts were known to the

public, opinion had crystallized into a settled acceptance that the

murderer had made good his escape and that the identity of the murderer

was known. In fact, the silence of Scotland Yard was rendered nugatory

by the reward of £1,000 offered by the County Council for the

apprehension of Saunders Leach, the recently discharged secretary of the

philanthropist. Nothing had been heard of him since Lord Russell's

butler had admitted him to the house, an hour or two before the murder,

upon his representation that he had come to look over some papers at the

request of his erstwhile master. The butler, a most respectable person,

had introduced him into the library, where Lord Russell was, and

departed. He had recalled afterwards--it had come out at the hearing at

the Central Criminal Court--that he had heard the sound of voices raised

at a high pitch, but, as his master was at times somewhat querulous,

this had not particularly attracted his attention. An hour later, when

he had brought the evening papers, he had discovered the aged man lying

face downward upon his desk, and a window, bearing the bloody traces of

the assassin, open to the night. And Leach had vanished--as if he had

never lived.

The thing most puzzling to Sir Richard, as to everybody else, was the

failure of any apparent motive for so ghastly a deed. Leach, according

to old Floyd the butler, had been a very decent sort of fellow, rather

sickly Floyd took him to be, without any particular faults or virtues.

It seemed to outrage reason to suppose that an anæmic little clerk

could have murdered a helpless old man simply out of revenge for having

lost his place. And then nothing had been stolen--that is, nobody but

Sir Richard knew that anything had been stolen. Yet the public and the

London County Council pronounced unhesitatingly as established fact that

Saunders Leach was the assassin, and that he should be hunted down to

the very ends of the world and, if need be, followed into the next. Only

Scotland Yard remained silent after annexing the contents of the room,

the windows, the carpet, and even portions of the faded paper from the

very walls themselves. Then Parliament went into a convulsion over a

proposed excise alteration and London forgot the murder of Lord Russell

in its feverish interest in the expected legislative abortion. There was

an appeal to the country; a premier retired to Italy; some few thousands

were added to the credit column of the national ledger at the expense of

a ministry, and once more the advent of royalty at St. James's dazzled

the cockney eye and filled the cockney mouth to the stultification of

the cockney brain. Lord Russell was forgotten--as completely as Saunders

Leach--as totally as an isle sunk beneath the waters of oblivion.

The first time Sir Richard had essayed to write he had been deliciously

horrified at the ease with which his pencil had followed the pressure of

his new fingers. His recent clothes added an extra inch to his sleeves,

and his broad cuffs fully concealed the white seam that ran around his

wrist. The hand itself served his purposes well enough, but unmistakably

it was not his own. He never laid the two together--never let his eyes

fall upon the vicarious fingers if he could avoid it, for inevitably a

sickening sensation of repulsion followed. His own fingers were long

and tapering, the nails fine with pronounced "crowns," the back of the

hand slender and smooth; the new one was broader and hairy, the fingers

shorter and square at the ends, the nails thick and dull with no

"crowns," and the veins blue and prominent. There were too many pores!

He loathed the thing, tell himself as often as he would that it was

nothing but a mechanical device to supplement Nature. Physically he felt

as if he were wearing a glove that was too small for him, into which he

had been forced to stuff his hand. This seemed to produce a tight,

swollen sensation which was the only indication of his abnormal

condition. He ate, drove, used his keys, articulated his fingers, and

even wrote with the same muscular freedom as before. His chirography

actually and undeniably exhibited the same general characteristics, only

intensified and with less certainty of stroke and pen-pressure. The

letters which had previously been merely somewhat original in structure

as suited a man of fashion, now became humpbacked and deformed. It was

as though the spiritual qualities of Sir Richard's penmanship had shrunk

away, leaving only the grotesque residue of a dwarfed and evil nature.

But apart from the question of chirography one other manifestation

constantly reminded Mortmain of his crime. This was an itching in the

grafted hand whenever its possessor became angry or excited. Even hard

physical exercise produced the same phenomenon. It seemed as if Nature,

having provided for the circulation of a certain amount of blood, found

on reaching this particular extremity that the supply exceeded the power

of reception. If angered, he found himself indulging in ungovernable

fits of passion, with his eyes suffused and his head buzzing. At times

he experienced an almost irresistible impulse to throttle somebody. On

the slightest provocation the fingers of his right hand would curve and

clutch, and a fierce longing seize him to compass the extinction of life

in some animate being--to feel the slackening of the muscles in some

victim--an emotion elemental, barbarous, cruel, but keen, masterful and

pervading. He had an exhilarating sensation of strength and vitality new

to him. Moreover, his attitude toward his fellow-men had imperceptibly

altered. Before his operation he had hated all evil doers and been

strongly loyal to government and law; now he sympathized with the

lawbreakers. In defying society and deliberately violating its statutes,

he had allied himself with its enemies.

This he realized and accepted. At any moment he might be called upon to

face a criminal prosecution for the felony of mutilation; and there was

still the peculiar and inexplicable silence of Flaggs in regard to the

papers which he had taken away with him on the morning after the murder.

No word had ever passed between them on the subject, and yet the notes

were outstanding and in the hands of a more dangerous holder than even

Lord Russell himself. By merely handing them to the executors, Flaggs

could not only throw Sir Richard into bankruptcy, but could place him in

the awkward position of having suppressed the notes at the time of Lord

Russell's death. That, too, would lead to a still further and more

delicate complication. He would naturally be asked how he had secured

possession of the notes. It would be clear that they were in Lord

Russell's hands at the time of the murder. Flaggs would explain that

_he_ had procured them from Sir Richard. So far as _he_ was concerned,

he had been safely "jugged" at the time of the murder. He could call a

score of sergeants, matrons, and bobbies to prove that, and establish it

by the police records themselves. Where, then, people would want to

know, had Sir Richard obtained them? It would be a hard question to

answer in such a way that the answer would carry any sort of conviction

with it.

No one, of course, would believe that he had found them, as in fact was

the case. Any such explanation would excite instant suspicion. If he

should say that he had paid them and had received the notes from Lord

Russell's lawyers, inquiry would at once demonstrate that the lawyers

had never had possession of the notes, or received any money from Sir

Richard. If he said that he had taken the money to Lord Russell and

received the notes _from him_, his own evidence would place him upon the

scene of the murder at approximately the moment of it. Further, no draft

in payment of the notes would be found among Lord Russell's papers, and

the suspicion would immediately arise that he had proffered a forged

draft to secure possession of the notes, and then murdered the old man

to get it back.

It was indeed a predicament of the worst sort. In Sir Richard the

horrible unfairness of it bred a hatred for a society in which such

things were possible. He looked at any moment to find himself made the

defendant in a criminal prosecution, just or unjust--the unjust the more

difficult of the two to escape. He needed money--money to fight with,

money to live on, money to keep up his hollow pretense of

respectability. And as his attitude toward society gradually changed,

the dead-alive thing at his wrist with the white seam throbbed and

itched until Mortmain longed fiercely to tear it off. At night he would

dream--and this dream repeated itself over and over again--that he was

fastened to some miserable convict, shackled by the wrist in such a way

that somehow they two had grown together, and as he struggled in his

sleep his fellow would turn into the grinning, jeering image of

Flaggs--Flaggs fastened to him by a bond of burning, itching

flesh--Flaggs joined to him like a Siamese twin, flesh of his flesh,

blood of his blood--until by some unnatural evolution _he_ became Flaggs

and could see his own wretched shape writhing at the other end of their

mutual arm. Then shaking, chilled, and covered with perspiration he

would awake and look for Flaggs beside him, and hold his hand to the

blue night-light only to find the seam about his wrist and the

dead-white hand throbbing until he thought he should go mad.

By day he was haunted by the vision of Flaggs watching his house and

following him along the streets. He could not get the fellow out of his

mind. This terror of the drunken clerk became a positive obsession. As

he walked the streets or drove in his brougham through the park he was

constantly planning out what he should say when they should finally come

together--when Flaggs should call for him, summon him as his own. Could

he defy him? Could he palliate him? The hand twitched at the thought of

it. He fancied that Flaggs followed him everywhere in various disguises,

running swiftly behind, dodging into doorways and up side streets when

he turned around. And this habit of turning around and glancing

furtively up and down grew on Sir Richard, and with it grew the itching

in his hand, until he suspected that people shook their heads and said

that his illness had undermined his health more than they had supposed.

It was no bodily illness that thus affected Sir Richard, but spiritual

degeneration. He went from dinner party to dinner party and from

musicale to musicale, paying court to Lady Bella Forsythe as if no

grotesque face were peering from behind the arras of his brain. Yet in

reality he was preparing to meet Flaggs in the final struggle for

supremacy. Flaggs, like death and the tax man, was coming--_when_? He

could not tell, but inevitably. And he must be ready, armed _cap-a-pie_

to meet him on every ground. He had at last resolved to marry Lady

Bella. It was an essential in his campaign to defeat Flaggs. There must

be plenty of money--money, that was what he needed, what he wanted. It

was partly for Lady Bella that he had planned his musical entertainment,

for, in addition to its practical desirability, if he purposed to retain

his position in the social world, it would afford an excellent

opportunity for presenting himself to her as a person worthy of her own

high station and acquaintance. His own music--! Alas! the brain was

willing, but the fingers were powerless. Where before he had produced

the most delicate of harmonies there now resulted nothing but harsh

discords. The hand would not stretch an octave!

The Milbank Street house blazed into the early evening with a thousand

lights. All day long wagons of roses and asters had stood before the

doors, and aproned men had staggered into the hall with pots of flowers

and stands of palms. Confectioners' wagons, loads of camp chairs, and

now a large awning were the indubitable evidences of what was afoot.

Night came on. The white cloth on the carpet across the sidewalk was

trampled to a dirty gray. The orchestra began to arrive, and, shedding

their coats in the servants' entrance, toiled up the back stairs and

tentatively made their way through the flower-banked halls to the

conservatory. Sir Richard sitting in his den and awaiting the arrival of

his first guests could hear the musicians tuning their basses and

testing the wood winds. But there was no music in Sir Richard's soul.

All day long he had been haunted by the ghost of Flaggs scuttling behind

him, and his hand had seemed swollen and discolored. Well, if he could

but get through the night, could succeed in his suit with Lady Bella, he

would go away and rest. Perhaps he would leave London forever--Lady

Bella was very fond of Rome. The sounds of the instruments grew more

confused and louder, the violins mingling with the others. Occasionally

the trombones would boom out and the kettles rumble ominously. Outside

splashes of rain began to fall against the windows, and the wind,

catching in the hollow column of the awning, swept into the halls and

through the open door into the den. Mortmain looked at his watch and

found it was ten o'clock. People would be arriving soon. His hand

twitched and he lighted a cigarette. There was a great deal of traffic

in the front hall--too much. He closed the door and poured out a

thimbleful of brandy. Well, a day or two and he would be rid of Flaggs

forever! Then he heard a low knock. He tried to cheat himself into the

belief that it was Joyce.

"Come in," he cried, but his voice was husky.

Flaggs stood before him.

"I have been expecting you," said Mortmain. It did not seem strange that

he should make this declaration.

"Yes?" queried Flaggs.

"What do you want?" demanded the baronet.

"Ten thousand pounds," answered the clerk. "To-morrow."

Mortmain broke into a harsh laugh.

"Ha! my good fellow! What do you think I am--a Croesus? Come, come, I'll

give you fifty--and I get the notes, eh?"

"Ten thousand pounds," repeated Flaggs stubbornly, "by to-morrow noon,

or I hand you over to the police."

The blood jumped into Sir Richard's face and his dexter hand throbbed

and tingled.

"You miserable rascal!" he cried. "You wretched blackmailer! How dare

you come into my house? Do you know that I could _kill_ you? And no one

would ever be the wiser! Take a few pounds and be off with you or I'll

summon the police myself."

"Not so fast, not so fast, Sir Richard," muttered Flaggs. "I don't think

you'll call the police."

The look on the white scowling face before him told Sir Richard that the

fellow meant to do his business. A haunting fear seized hold upon him

like that which he had experienced in the depot wagon--a feeling that

behind this grotesque, dwarfed figure of a man lurked the hand of Fate.

"That's right. Be reasonable," said Flaggs soothingly. "Some folks would

think ten thousand pounds was cheap to escape the gallows," he added in

lower tones.

"Gallows!" cried Sir Richard, his anger rising. He knew the fellow's

game now. He was being lied to. Flaggs was trying to frighten, to bully

him. "The gallows, my friend, ceased to be the punishment for felony in

1826--even for blackmail!"

"But not for murder," retorted Flaggs with a ghastly smile. "Not for

murder!"

"Enough of this!" exclaimed Sir Richard, but his knees were trembling.

"Here are a hundred pounds. Go!" He put his hand to his breast pocket.

Flaggs laughed.

"Look!" he cried, pulling from the lining of his hat a printed slip

which he unfolded and handed to the baronet.

Mortmain took it in dread and held it to the light.

"_Murder in the first degree defined._

"_The taking of the life of a human being by another

with malice prepense or in the commission of a

felony._"

The last six words were underlined in red ink.

"Well?" he asked, but the word stuck in his throat.

"Well?" returned the other. "It's plain enough, isn't it? What more do

you want?"

"It is not plain, you blackguard."

"Maiming is a felony. You know that. Amputation is maiming. Flynt told

you so. The fellow that sold you that hand of yours died of it, didn't

he?"

Mortmain uttered an exclamation of horror. He looked down at the fearful

thing and it seemed to him to be the color of death. "They can never

prove it!" he cried faintly. "They can't prove it! They cannot!"

"Yes, they can! I saw it done," remarked Flaggs. "I saw him buried in

the garden. He is there yet--minus his hand."

"You villain!" gasped Mortmain. The room reeled, and Flaggs danced

before him, gibbering with glee. The light darkened and brightened again

and seemed to swing in circles.

"Pull yourself together, Sir Richard!" remarked Flaggs mockingly. "Pull

yourself together! Isn't it worth ten thousand pounds or one hundred

thousand pounds? But I'm reasonable. Only ten thousand pounds! Come,

come! Let me have it!"

"_No!_" shouted Mortmain. "Not if I die for it."

"Then you _will_ die for it," said Flaggs.

The sound of the fiddles came through the closed door of the study. The

cries of the lackeys and the roll of carriages arriving and departing

could be heard in the front.

"You will die for it, as there is a God in heaven, if I choose!"

Mortmain stood silent. He had a presentiment of what Flaggs was going to

say.

"A word from me," continued the clerk, "and you hang for the _murder of

Lord Russell_. Everyone knows you hated him. Flynt, Joyce, and I heard

you say you would kill him. You owed him seventy-five thousand pounds

and it was two days overdue. He would have ruined you next day. The

officer saw you outside his window within five minutes of the murder,

and so did I. There was nothing taken but the notes--nothing. They were

found in your possession the next morning. How did they get there? The

case is complete. The notes convict you. I've got them. They are yours

for ten thousand pounds--only ten thousand pounds."

"You villain," shouted Mortmain, springing toward him.

The door from the hall opened and Joyce entered letting in the warm

breath of roses and the loud strains of a waltz.

"Lady Bella has arrived, Sir Richard," he announced.

"Tell her I am coming," said Mortmain, starting for the door.

"Wait!" shrieked Flaggs, his face horribly distorted. "Wait!" Joyce had

retired.

Mortmain paused with clinched fists.

"Isn't it worth ten thousand pounds to save a guilty man--a man who

can't escape?"

"Why, you fool!" cried Mortmain, suddenly regaining his self-control.

"Such evidence is valueless. My word is worth _yours_ ten times over,

and I deny that you found the notes in my house. I say that _you_ are

the murderer. And I believe you are!"

"Not so fast! Not so fast!" leered Flaggs. "You know I was 'in quod' at

the time. Don't forget that! And there's one more bit of evidence that

nails you. You can't escape. You're done. I've got you--_the murderer's

thumb marks on the glass_!"

"The devil take you!" yelled Mortmain, the blood suffusing his eyes.

"The devil has _you_ already!" retorted Flaggs. "He's part of you. You

_are_ the devil. Whose hand is that? Tell me that! _Whose hand is

that?_"

Mortmain turned an agonized face toward his tormentor. His spirit was

gone. He was ready to fall upon his knees, but he could not move. He

raised his left hand pitifully as if to shield himself from the coming

blow, and yet his parched lips uttered the soundless word:

"Whose?"

Flaggs gave a dry laugh.

"_It belonged to Saunders Leach!_"

With a sickening of the heart the baronet realized for the first time

the terrible alternative which confronted him.

His selfish willingness to violate the law and mutilate a fellow human

being merely to gratify his own vanity had plunged him into an abyss

from which there seemed no escape. "Murder in the first degree defined:

the taking of the life of a human being by another with malice prepense

_or in the commission of a felony_." By a cruel yet extraordinary chance

he, the needless yet deliberate lawbreaker, had purchased the very hand

which had slain his enemy--from the murderer himself, who was only too

anxious to get rid of it. By an equally hideous but astonishing

coincidence this devil's contract had proved in fact the death warrant

of the murderer, and Mortmain had been his involuntary executioner.

Saunders Leach had paid the penalty of his crime, but Mortmain carried

dangling at the end of his dexter forearm the living evidence that he,

and not Leach, was the assassin. The coil of the rope of fate, at one

end of which hung the limp body of the common criminal, had fallen upon

the neck of his aristocrat brother, and it needed but a word from Flaggs

to send him spinning from the gallows. Should he seek to show that the

finger prints upon the window of Lord Russell's library were not his

own, and by this means to creep from beneath the meshes of the net of

circumstantial evidence in which he was entangled, he would, in the same

breath, be forced to confess that he was guilty of the murder of

Saunders Leach--murder, as the result of the latter's mutilation--murder

under the literal interpretation of the statute. Was ever rat so nicely

trapped? The horror of the thing turned Mortmain into a madman. He

sprang at the clerk in a delirium of rage, his right hand clutched

Flaggs tightly by the throat, and its blunt fingers twisted into the

flesh deeper and deeper. It was done so quickly that the clerk was

unable to escape. His eyes started forward, his tongue protruded, and

his mouth frothed as he made ineffectual attempts to break the baronet's

hold.

"You've got me, eh?" muttered Mortmain, gritting his teeth. "I think

not, Mr. Flaggs!"

The door opened and Joyce entered in much agitation. The orchestra had

burst into a triumphant march and the sounds of many footsteps echoed in

the hall outside.

"Everybody is arrivin', Sir Richard!" exclaimed the butler, "an' Lady

Bella has gone into the music room. His Grace of Belvoir was just askin'

for you. Here are two gentlemen who wish to see you important, sir." He

held the door open and two men in Inverness coats entered and stood

irresolutely near the door.

Mortmain released his grasp upon the neck of Flaggs, who lurched toward

the corner and fell motionless behind a table.

"Sir Richard Mortmain?" inquired the taller of the two, a man of massive

build and with iron-gray mustache and hair.

"The same," replied Mortmain, his fingers still twitching from the

ferocity of his clutch upon the clerk.

The two strangers bowed.

"We have a card to you from Lieutenant Foraker--a friend of yours, I

believe. Permit me," and the tall man stepped forward and extended a

card to the baronet.

Mortmain mechanically took it between the thumb and forefinger of his

right hand. It felt like celluloid and a trifle slippery. But the

stranger did not release his own hold upon it.

"Pardon me, I have given you the wrong card," he exclaimed

apologetically, and withdrawing the bit of board from Mortmain's fingers

he opened a wallet and fumbled with the contents. As he did so he handed

the first card to his companion, who stepped into the light of the lamp,

and examined it carefully through a small microscope which he drew from

his pocket.

[Illustration: "His blunt fingers twisted into the flesh deeper and

deeper."]

"They are _the same_," remarked the stranger of the microscope to the

iron-gray man.

"What is all this?" cried Mortmain in an unnatural voice. His head swam.

On the mantel the verdigris-covered dragon's face grinned mockingly at

him--it was the face of Flaggs.

"Sir Richard," replied the iron-gray man gravely, "I am Inspector

Murtha, of Scotland Yard."

Mortmain started back and his right hand twitched again. Through the

silence came the measures of "The Flower Song."

"I regret to say," continued the other, "that it is my most unpleasant

duty to arrest you for the murder of Lord Gordon Russell."

At the same instant the veil of Sir Richard's mental temple was rent in

twain; out of a blackness so intense that it seemed substantive he saw

the two inspectors from Scotland Yard fleeing away and diminishing in

size until they seemed but puppets gesturing at the edge of an infinity

of white desert; then with equal velocity they were carried forward

again, growing bigger and bigger until they loomed like giants in his

immediate foreground swinging huge scimitars and waving their arms

frantically; the strains of the violins changed to voices shouting so

sharply that they pained his ears, and waves of light and cosmic

darkness over which scintillated a dazzling aurora followed one another

in startling succession, until suddenly his soul, shot out of a tunnel,

as it were, landed abruptly in a warm meadow covered with daisies, which

dissolved before his eyes into the familiar chamber on Milbank Street. A

gray mist floated hissing up through the ceiling, the chairs rocked with

a strange rotary swing, and the two inspectors smiled cheerfully at him

through a broad and painful band of London sunshine. He swallowed

rapidly, and a horrible faintness seized him which gave place to a queer

sort of anger.

"There's--some--mistake!" he stuttered. The chairs anchored themselves

and the ceiling assumed its normal tint.

"No mistake at all," replied Sir Penniston Crisp.

The problem was too much for the baronet and he gave it up. The

murderer's hand no longer twitched, but it loomed white and loathsome

from the bed before him, as if dead already, somehow--part of

a--yes--what were those things? Bandages?

Crisp and Jermyn saw a look of agonized bewilderment pass over the

baronet's face.

"Did they bring me here from the Old Bailey?" he asked. "Am I out on

bail?"

Crisp laughed.

"That's one way of putting it," he remarked. "Yes, you're out on bail,

and in another second or two you will be entirely free."

"I'm glad you're going to take that thing off again," said Mortmain.

"How could you have done it?"

"It's all right," returned Crisp soothingly.

Then Mortmain suddenly understood. But he waited shrewdly.

"What day is this?" he asked in an innocent manner.

"December 5th," replied Jermyn.

"When did I have that fall; you know--the one that made it necessary for

you to amputate?"

"Your accident happened yesterday evening, but there is no necessity for

amputation," returned Crisp. "Now, my dear fellow, just lie back, will

you?--and don't ask questions. That somni-chloride is still lingering

in your head. I shall have to be going in a minute."

Mortmain obeyed the surgeon's instructions, but he was hard at work

thinking the thing out logically. It was clear that there had been no

amputation, no arrest, no inspectors from Scotland Yard. That scene with

Flaggs, horribly distinct as it still was, had had no actuality. But

where did fact end and illusion begin? Had the notes been taken? Had

there been a murder? Was he a bankrupt? The different propositions

entangled themselves helplessly with one another. At the end of a minute

he asked deliberately:

"Miss Fickles, did a man take some papers from my table this morning?"

"Yes, Sir Richard," replied the nurse.

Mortmain's heart sank.

"Er--was--did anything happen to Lord Russell?" he asked the surgeon

faintly.

"Yes. But don't talk or think of it, Mortmain. I order you! Do you

understand?"

A ripple of perspiration broke out on his forehead and it seemed as if a

film had rolled off his vision. Of course, he had taken the chloride

just after Miss Fickles had gone downstairs for him, and then Crisp and

Jermyn had come. He had felt so miserable! And now he felt so much

better! He opened his eyes, the same Sir Richard that had inhaled the

anæsthetic so obediently.

"I am quite myself now, Sir Penniston," he asserted quietly. "I want to

ask one more question. Flynt was not here, was he?"

"No, of course not."

"And we have not left the room? No railroad trip, eh?"

"No."

"Thank you," said the baronet. "May I have a cup of coffee?"

What reply this preposterous demand would have invited will never be

known, for at that moment a knock came upon the door and Joyce asked if

Sir Richard could see Mr. Flynt.

"I _must_ see him!" said Mortmain.

"Oh, very well!" laughed Crisp. "You're getting better rapidly."

Flynt entered with a breezy manner which he allowed himself to assume

only when something really desirable had definitely occurred.

"Good morning, Sir Penniston! Good morning, Sir Richard!" he remarked

without sitting down. "I really had to come in and tell you the good

news. The executors have just read Lord Russell's will----"

"Mr. Flynt! Mr. Flynt!" interrupted Sir Penniston.

"Oh, it's all right!" continued Flynt with a laugh. "Better than a

tonic. You see, Fowler, the only next of kin, was just sailing for New

Guinea, and it had to be done at once. I really did Lord Russell an

injustice. May I speak before these gentlemen?"

"Certainly," whispered Mortmain, his eyes fastened feverishly upon the

lawyer.

"Well, to put it briefly, he has made you a great gift! Here, read it!"

and he handed the baronet a typewritten sheet. Mortmain read it eagerly,

although his eyes pained him somewhat:

"To my friend, Sir Richard Mortmain, I devise and

bequeath the sum of five thousand pounds, and take it

upon myself to express the earnest hope that he will

before long publish his views upon art in such a form

that the public at large may have the opportunity to

profit by that which hitherto has been the privilege

only of the few. I desire, moreover, to express my

high personal regard for him and my admiration for his

whole-souled devotion to the arts, and I hereby

instruct my executors to cancel and destroy all

evidences of indebtedness owing to me by said Mortmain

and to treat said indebtedness as null, void and of no

effect, provided, nevertheless, that within six months

of my demise said Mortmain shall assign to the

directors of the Corporation of the British Museum all

his collections of ceramics, bronzes, china,

chronometers, scarabs, including the Howard

Collection, his cabinets of gems and cameos, including

the famous head of Alexander on an onyx of two strata

and the _altissimo relievo_ on cornelian--Jupiter

Ægiochus--the four paintings by Watteau in his music

room, and the paintings by Corot and Whistler from his

library. As the said moneys borrowed from me from time

to time by said Mortmain were, to my knowledge,

principally made use of by him for the purpose of

purchasing and enlarging said collections, which have

increased in value to no inconsiderable extent by

virtue of his care and discrimination since he

acquired them, I am prepared to regard said loans to

him in effect as gifts impressed with a trust in favor

of our National Museum, provided, however, that said

Mortmain is willing to accept the same and execute the

terms thereof as heretofore set forth within six

months; but nothing herein shall be taken to affect

the right of said Mortmain to take up and pay off said

indebtedness within said time, if he shall see fit to

do so, in which case the provisions of this codicil

shall be without any force or effect whatsoever, save

that I instruct my executors to receive said moneys

and hold the same in trust, however, for such

scientific and artistic uses as said Mortmain shall

direct, preference being given to the needs of the

British Museum along the lines of antique works of art

and Egyptology."

As Sir Richard laid down the paper his eyes filled and he turned away

his head.

"A good old man!" said Flynt reverently.

"Indeed he was!" assented Crisp.

"I must know one thing," whispered Mortmain after a few moments. "Did

you send your clerk here this morning to get some papers?"

"Yes, to be sure. I had almost forgotten--I sent Flaggs after an

envelope which I fancied I dropped last evening," answered the lawyer.

"Which _you_ had dropped?" asked Mortmain stupidly.

"Why, certainly. I had the papers connected with Lord Russell's loans

sent here. Flaggs brought 'em--and I dropped an envelope. I _did_ drop

it, because Flaggs found it here this morning."

"What was in it?" asked Sir Richard eagerly.

Flynt elevated his brows.

"Why, if you don't mind my speaking of it, there were some old notes of

yours which had been renewed at various times. I make a practice of

keeping the originals as a matter of precaution."

"Oh!" sighed Mortmain. "_Old_ notes?"

"_Old_ notes," answered Flynt. "Notes taken up and renewed by others."

"Ah!" sighed Mortmain again. "You _did_ drop them, but not in the

study. I found them on the street. They gave me quite a turn."

"Well, we will tear them up now," laughed Flynt.

"Pardon me, sir," said Joyce, opening the door and handing a long box to

Miss Fickles; "some roses with Lady Bella Forsythe's compliments, and

'opin' as 'ow you'll soon be all right again, sir."