at the sight of the other’s face and dropped his hand to his pocket.
“You look out for me,” said Frank, and Black’s face blanched.
The girl had recovered her speech. “How dare you — how dare you!” she whispered. “You tell me that you will arrest me. How dare you! And you say you love me!” she said scornfully.
He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, quietly enough. “I love you. I love you enough to make you hate me. Can I love you any more than that?”
His voice was bitter, and there was something of helplessness in it too, but the determination that underlay his words could not be mistaken. He did not leave her until Black had taken his leave, and in his pardonable perturbation he forgot that he intended searching the colonel for a certain green bottle with a glass stopper.
Colonel Black returned to his flat that night to find unmistakable evidence that the apartment had been most systematically searched. There existed, however, no evidence as to how his visitors had gained admission. The doors had been opened, despite the fact that they were fastened by a key which had no duplicate, and with locks that were apparently unpickable. The windows were intact, and no attempt had been made to remove money and valuables from the desk which had been ransacked. The only proof of identity they had left behind was the seal which he found attached to the blottingpad on his desk.
They had gone methodically to work, dropped a neat round splash of sealing-wax, and had as neatly pressed the seal of the organization upon it. There was no other communication, but in its very simplicity this plain “IV” was a little terrifying. It seemed that the members of the Four defied all his efforts at security, laughed to scorn his patent locks, knew more about his movements than his most intimate friends, and chose their own time for their visitations.
This would have been disconcerting to a man of less character than Black; but Black was one who had lived through a score of years — each year punctuated, at regular intervals, with threats of the most terrible character. He had ever lived in the shadow of reprisal, yet he had never suffered punishment.
It was his most fervent boast that he never lost his temper, that he never did anything in a flurry. Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was going to work actuated by a greater consideration than self-interest — a consideration of vengeance.
It made him less careful than he was wont to be. He did not look for shadowers that evening, yet shadowers there had been — not one but many.
Stuffing
(Edgar Wallace)
There are several people concerned in this story whom it is impossible within a limited space to describe. If you are on friendly terms with the great men of Scotland Yard you may inspect the photographs and finger-prints of two—Harry the Valet and Joe the Runner.
Lord Carfane’s picture you can see at intervals in the best of the illustrated weeklies. He was once plain Ferdie Gooberry, before he became a contractor and supplied the army with odds and ends and himself with a fortune and a barony.
In no newspaper, illustrated or otherwise, do the names of John and Angela Willett appear. Their marriage at a small registrar’s office had excited no public comment, although he was a BA of Cambridge and she was the grand-niece of Peter Elmer, the shipping magnate, who had acknowledged his relationship by dictating to her a very polite letter wishing her every happiness.
They lived in one furnished room in Pimlico, this good-looking couple, and they had the use of the kitchen. He was confident that he would one day be a great engineer. She also believed in miracles.
Three days before Christmas they sat down calmly to consider the problem of the great annual festival and how it might best be spent. Jack Willett scratched his cheek and did a lightning calculation.
‘Really, we ought not to spend an unnecessary penny,’ he said dolefully. ‘We may be a week in Montreal before I start work, and we shall need a little money for the voyage.’
They were leaving on Boxing Day for Canada; their berths had been taken. In Montreal a job was awaiting Jack in the office of an old college friend: and although twenty-five dollars per did not exactly represent luxury, it was a start.
Angela looked at him thoughtfully.
‘I am quite sure Uncle Peter is going to do something awfully nice for us,’ she said stoutly.
Jack’s hollow laugh was not encouraging.
There was a tap at the door, and the unpleasant but smiling face of Joe the Runner appeared. He occupied an attic bedroom, and was a source of worry to his landlady. Once he had been in the newspaper business, running evening editions, and the name stuck to him. He had long ceased to be associated with the Press, save as a subject for its crime reporters, but this the Willetts did not know.
‘Just thought I’d pop in and see you before I went, miss,’ he said. ‘I’m going off into the country to do a bit of work for a gentleman. About that dollar, miss, that you lent me last week.’
Angela looked uncomfortable.
‘Oh, please don’t mention it,’ she said hastily.
‘I haven’t forgotten it,’ said Joe, nodding solemnly. ‘The minute I come back, I’ll bring it to you.’ And with a large and sinister grin he vanished.
‘I lent him the money because he couldn’t pay his rent,’ said Angela penitently, but her husband waved her extravagance away.
‘Let’s talk about Christmas dinner. What about sausages…!’
‘If Uncle Peter—’ she began.
‘Let’s talk about sausages,’ said Jack gently.
Foodstuffs were also the topic of conversation between Lord Carfane and Prince Riminoff as they sat at lunch at the Ritz-Carlton. Lord Carfane emphasized his remarks with a very long cigar.
‘I always keep up the old English custom of distributing food to the poor,’ he said. ‘Every family on my estate on Christmas Eve has a turkey from my farm. All my workers,’ he corrected himself carefully, ‘except old Timmins. Old Timmins has been very rude to me, and I have had to sack him. All the tenants assemble in the great hall… But you’ll see that for yourself, Prince.’
Prince Riminoff nodded gravely and tugged at his short beard. That beard had taken Harry the Valet five months to grow, and it was so creditable a production that he had passed Chief Inspector Mailing in the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton and had not been recognised.
Very skilfully he switched the conversation into more profitable channels.
‘I do hope, my dear Lord Carfane, that you have not betrayed my identity to your guests?’
Ferdie smiled.
‘I am not quite a fool,’ he said, and meant it.
‘A great deal of the jewellery that I am disposing of, and of which you have seen specimens, is not mine. I think I have made that clear. I am acting for several of my unfortunate
