Chapter VI: The New Beater

"We drove back to the Abbey, and I was in good time to sit down with the party at breakfast and hear all the preparations for the coming shoot.

"After breakfast Lord Balin took me into the gun-room and let me choose a couple of guns. As my host is of about my own height and arm-length, I found no difficulty in finding two that he had discarded with advancing age, a rather heavy Lancaster and a lighter Westley Richards.

"We drove to the woods about a mile away where the shooting was to begin. Great traditions of sport are followed at Balin--a company of keepers marshals and directs an army of beaters, and the procession of shooters, beaters and guns through the great beech wood is most interesting. Pheasants and ground game abound, but the shooting is varied. An occasional roe-deer starts before the beaters in the copses. Now and again, a glade in the woods opens and discloses a mere surrounded with willows, rushes and sedges, where mallard, teal, widgeon and snipe rise before the guns.

"The day was clear and the air ringing. It is the good old fashion at Balin Abbey not to repress the homely humor of the rustic beaters. They seemed to enjoy the sport quite as much as the gentlemen, and one heard jests and laughter and mutual chaff among them. Now and again, when the covert was more than usually thick, I heard singing along the line. Some one with a clear, resonant voice had started the well-known Somersetshire song, 'Cham a Zummerzetshire man,' and keepers and beaters and even 'the guns' themselves joined in the chorus to this air, known to every soul in Somerset.

"'Who is it with that good voice?' I asked of one of my loaders.

"'It is a queer half-cracked fellow that one of the keepers picked up on the road, looking for a job of hedging and ditching. He doesn't shirk his work in the woods, doesn't Joe, and he keeps the line in heart with his songs and catches.'

"I remembered the misadventures of poor Sergeant Smith. 'What,' I thought, 'has Coggins the impudence to venture into the lion's den?'

"'Is the fellow,' I asked, 'a Somersetshire man?'

"'By his talk,' said the loader, 'I should say he comes more Devonshire way, but he knows all our West Country ditties. Hark to him now, sir!'

"The singer began the first verse of that queer old Somersetshire ballad--

A shepherd kept sheep on a hill so high,
And there came a fair lady riding by.

The long line of beaters and keepers burst out with the odd uncouth words that form the chorus of the old ballad, and beat the measure out vigorously with their sticks against the tree trunks--then the ballad went on with the singer's ready memory, and the verses were broken into now and again with the rustle of a pheasant's wings through the tree branches, the cries of a keeper, 'Hare back,' or 'Cock forward,' or the banging of the guns. At the end of the song the gentleman cried 'Bravo!'

"'Where have I heard that voice?' I asked myself, 'that fine, rolling baritone?'

"We stopped to lunch at an enchanting spot in the great beech woods. The ladies had already arrived and were sitting or standing under the trees where the great bulging roots of the beech trees, covered with moss, emerald green, formed convenient seats. On the dry bare earth, still spangled with the fallen leaves, russet gold, the servants from the Abbey were laying the cloth for luncheon and handing out dishes from the hampers they had brought.

"The keepers and beaters sat down round a good midday meal, fifty yards away from us. Much laughter, chaff and talk was going on among them. We men went forward to look at the game, laid out in rows on a grassy bank. Lord Balin congratulated me heartily on my shooting. He and I between us had accounted for more than three-fourths of the whole bag.

"We lunched, and the meal was gay.

"'Did you have that delightful Joe again among the beaters?' asked Lady Drusilla--'the rustic with the lovely voice?'

"The men told her of his singing of the Somersetshire ballad and how they had enjoyed it.

"'When one thinks,' said Lady Drusilla, 'that a man with a voice and memory like that could earn a fortune at those hateful London music-halls!--and lose his country complexion, his country figure, and his country health in a season! How lucky it is no one tells him!'

"The point was debated. Mrs. Townley said he ought to be told the truth and have his choice offered. She said, 'Surely ignorance is never bliss in this world, and poverty, I am quite sure, was never a blessing to any one.'

"The discussion went on and only ended by our begging our host to let the man come and sing to the ladies.

"He came. It was just the man Sergeant Smith had told me of in the lane, the same leather gaiters, the same tucked-up smock frock, the same little battered wide-awake hat set back on his head, that gave him, with his upraised eyebrows and perpetual smile, an air of rustic simplicity and innocence. Could this possibly be the redoubtable Coggins? I had reproved Sergeant Smith for not suspecting him in this very guise, and now I could hardly bring myself to consider him anything but what he seemed to be, a simple West Country lout who was accepted for such in a company of his own West Countrymen.

"He stood leaning on his beating stick, with his hat in his hand, seeming half shy, half proud that he had attracted the attention of 'the quality.'

"He began to sing the old ballad. At first his voice was a little shaky as if with a natural diffidence before the strange company. Then he gained confidence and sang, and his voice rang out clear and ringing. At the end of every verse came the queer chorus, joined in by the rustics' voices from the distance, and presently the ladies and gentlemen caught ap the air too, and the woods re-echoed with a melody perhaps as old as themselves. Something quaint and old world, something of rustic wit, rustic humor, and rustic romance that our modern hurry has quite let slip from our lives was in the old song. Lord Balin's guests were delighted. They cheered the singer heartily and asked for another song.

"I watched every look and turn of the man's face, every inflection of his voice. Where, when, and in what different circumstances had it all been present to me?--not the song indeed, that was new to me, but the ring of the singer's voice, and all his inflections, all his tricks of manner. Memory sometimes shuts the gates of consciousness very close, but a whisper comes at times through the locked portals.

"Mrs. Townley rose and approached the singer--she said a word or two of praise to him. He took off his hat, bowed with a bashful, rustic grace, and held it out toward her, asking unmistakably for a tip. The men laughed at the broad hint and felt for their purses, and Mrs. Townley searched in the knotted corner of her lace handkerchief--a lady's purse--for a coin.

"I stepped quickly forward between Mrs. Townley and the singer and looked hard at her hands. The man, seeing himself watched, stepped quickly back. Mrs. Townley laughed nervously. 'You must sing us another song, Mr. Joe,' she said, 'and then I'll make a collection for you.'

"I said to myself, 'You will drop nothing into Joe's hat with my leave, madam,' and I kept a sharper watch than ever upon the two. I knew not much as yet, but something told me that I was in the presence of the two chief actors of the drama at Balin Abbey. Why was Coggins here? for that the singer was Coggins I had no doubt at all now. Had I had any before, Mrs. Townley's action and manner would have sufficed to banish these doubts.

"To what criminal end was Coggins still here? For no possible reason, I was sure, except that his confederate had had no opportunity as yet of passing into his hands the stolen gems whose setting she had hidden among the Abbey ruins.

"How was it I had come to fix the guilt of confederacy so confidently on Mrs. Townley? The actual evidence was almost nil. I answer that I arrived partly intuitively at this conclusion, partly by the elimination of every other possible personage in the house. That there was a confederate was certain. The cleverest burglar could not have acted alone. Who, then, was it? I saw at once that only two persons were intellectually capable of the difficult _rôle_ played by the confederate--Lady Drusilla and Mrs. Townley. Lady Drusilla's character, her age, her antecedents and a certain air of uprightness about her, put her beyond all possibility of suspicion. There was nothing of all this in Mrs. Townley. I had been at once impressed by a tone of insincerity in her voice, a false gaiety in her manner, a feigned seriousness, and a constant pretense of sham enthusiasm and sham earnestness. She was never quite at home among the people of more assured social position than herself at the Abbey. She had not their ease and naturalness. All this had set me against her in spite of her great beauty and her obvious desire to please and attract. I must confess too that Lady Drusilla's strong disparagement almost at starting had been for something in my distrust. With pretty women it is often the first stroke that wins the game, or loses it for them. If they make that first happy stroke to their advantage, their charm and beauty tell on us and they score; if it is we who get in the first winning point, it is they who lose. Mrs. Townley never made the first winning stroke; I was in opposition to her from the first.

"When I saw her rise to go toward the man I knew now to be the disguised burglar--when I saw her fumble with her knotted handkerchief, I knew that in another minute the jewels would have passed from her to him. I had stopped her, and the moment afterward I almost regretted that I had done so. What if I had let her pass the stolen gems and then immediately arrested the culprit with the property on him? What a coup! What a bold and dramatic situation! Yes! and what an extremely unpleasant one to every guest present, and what if a single link in my long line of suppositions and intuitions and conclusions had broken? What if the new beater was, after all, a harmless rustic, the jewels not in his possession at all? What if Mrs. Townley was an innocent lady? My blood ran cold at the thought of such a catastrophe of misadventures happening in this delightful woodland scene.

"Mrs. Townley returned to her seat under the beech tree. I stood watching them both in seeming eager talk with the other guests.

"'Won't he sing us another song?' asked Lady Drusilla.

"Lord Balin asked him. The fellow took off his hat and grinned from ear to ear.

"'Do, Mr. Joe,' said Mrs. Townley, 'some good old country ditty, and after that we will make a collection for you.'

"Joe played at being the diffident, over-honored minstrel. At last he set his hat again upon the back of his head, and slanting his long stick upon his shoulder, he began the first bars of an air that is known to every English soldier. It is called 'Turmut Hoeing,' and is the regimental march of the Wiltshire that was once the 36th Regiment. The words are simple, rustic and homely, like the air. Here they are, for I know them by heart:

"Some love to plow and some to sow,
And some delight in mowing.
Some, 'mid the hay, will stand all day,
And loves to be a throwing
The new mown hay wi' pitchfork up--
Gie I the turmut hoeing!
Gie I my hoe and let me go
To do the turmut hoeing.
Oh! the hoe! 'tis the hoe, the hoe I loves to handle!
And 'tis just so! ay! 'tis just so, that the hoe I loves to handle.

"The disguised burglar suited his action to the words, using his beater's staff as a hoe.

"For 'tis the pay, five bob a day,
The farmer is a owing!
Five bob a day will jolly well pay
To set the ale-pot flowing!
So that's the reason that in the season,
When turmut flies be blowing,
I takes my hoe and off I go
To do the turmut hoeing!
Oh! the hoe, &c.

"Some loves to sing of early spring
And days of barley sowing,
Some love to rhyme of sweet May time
When daffodils be blowing.
Gie I the moon that shines in June
When turmut fields want hoeing.
Ah! he's no fool who loves the tool
That does the turmut hoeing!
Oh! the hoe, &c.

"The pretended rustic had not sung the first line before the scales seemed to fall from my eyes--air, voice, and manner all came back to me in a moment, and, now that I could remember so much, the face itself began to reveal itself through all its disguises. I had heard the song sung a score of times at our mess by Captain Towers, Towers the turf swindler, Towers the card-sharper, Towers the author of my ruin, Towers the cause of my kinsman's death, Towers whose own death I had read in the papers and believed in, three years before, Towers himself was before me! Here was a revelation indeed. In a flash and by a sort of accident I had learnt more than the whole police force of London knew. If this indeed were Coggins, then Coggins the burglar and Towers the swindler were one and the same man, and my triumph was that here stood I face to face with him and he knew me not! I knew his secret and he never suspected mine. In truth he had not heard my voice, except in those tones that a man does not often use in the society of men, either his equals or inferiors. I had spoken but a word to Mrs. Townley in his hearing. My face he would not know, it was sufficiently disguised by my beard.

"I listened to his song, as he sang with excellent comic effect and in the broadest of Wiltshire accents. The song is well known in the West, and I want you to read into it all the character and cleverness which the disguised criminal was employing, in the presence of his former victim. There is a humor in naked facts even greater sometimes than the humor in words, tone and manner, and that form of humor I was enjoying to the utmost and all to myself, while the scoundrel was priding himself upon taking us all in.

"The ladies liked the turn the song took in the third stanza. They thought it poetical. I thought the whole thing, song included, was more than poetical. It was an ethical drama charged with human interest, working itself out toward what critics, I believe, call poetical justice, and I was being the instrument of all this, and, as I have said, the sole member of the audience who really understood the plot of the play!

"When the song and the applause that followed had ended, Mrs. Townley said, addressing us all, 'Now, please, the collection.' The singer took off his hat and held it to one after another of the party of ladies and gentlemen, receiving from each a coin or two. He came toward Mrs. Townley, who had taken her seat some way back from the others, as I guessed with the subject that if anything passed between her and the singer the action should not be visible to the others. He had stepped forward and was reaching out his hat toward her. Just as he was approaching her, I held out my arm and barred his passage. 'Stop,' I said, 'here is my contribution,' and I dropped half a crown into the hat. Then suddenly I took the hat from his hand and handed it myself to Mrs. Townley. I glanced quickly at both their countenances. They kept them admirably. There was a smile on hers, a continued grin on his.

"'Thank you, my lord,' he said to me with a mock gratitude.

"Mrs. Townley fumbled awkwardly for a moment with her handkerchief, and after a little delay, produced a silver coin.

"I had baffled them once again.

"Presently Mrs. Townley changed her seat and sat down on the outlying root of a great beech tree. She seemed, for a moment, to be lost in reverie; she began to trace fantastic figures on the bare earth with the point of her parasol.

"I went up to Lord Balin and began to talk to him, but my eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Townley's movements. 'Lord Balin,' I said, 'will you manage to let me walk with you alone for a hundred yards, when we go from here? I have something important to ask you.' I spoke below my voice.

"'Certainly,' said Lord Balin. 'I will manage that,' and again he began loudly to praise my shooting.

"I smiled, and seemed all ears, but my eyes were following the point of Mrs. Townley's parasol.

"She had drawn what looked to me like the rude representation of a tennis racket. Mrs. Townley was, I had heard an enthusiastic tennis player--was her drawing done in mere distraction? We are all given to trace meaningless lines and figures if we happen to hold a stick in our hands, while our thoughts are otherwise engaged. Yet it looked to be the representation of a very palpable racquet. The parasol point had drawn a circle and filled it with cross lines. Then it drew the shape of a handle. It could surely be nothing on earth but a racquet. Then came a strange figure, an arch with a straight line under it. Finally the figure 7. Could these symbols have any possible meaning for any one? To Coggins? He was still making his rounds of the guests with his hat and grinning out his effusive thanks. He repassed the spot where Mrs. Townley's parasol had been busy. She had hardly raised her eyes for a second as he went by, but, when he had passed, she began at once to obliterate the figures. Presently nothing remained, but the drawn lines were fast in my memory. The figure of the arch, the numeral 7, and a racquet.

"That it was a signal I had not the slightest doubt--a signal to Coggins, and I knew that if I could not interpret it, the jewels would pass to him and be lost for ever.

"An archway, the figure 7, and a racquet.

"Seven might mean seven o'clock--a racquet might indicate the lawn-tennis court--but the archway? I had it--it meant the secluded place beyond the tennis court where the ruins of the Abbey lay, half buried in the turf. One of the remains was an archway. Yes, it clearly indicated the very spot where the jewel settings had been buried. Evidently something was to happen at seven o'clock that evening, or at seven next morning, in this unfrequented spot. I would anticipate the event, whatever it might be, by going there myself at both hours.

"We had another large covert to shoot, and the keepers and beaters went off to take up their line. The ladies started to go home, and Lord Balin and I found ourselves walking across the fields.

"You have had no time to do much yet, I suppose?' he said.

"'I have learnt a good deal,' I said, 'in the last half hour.'

"'You don't say so, my dear Stanley! What a wonderful fellow you are! Why, I have hardly had my eye off you all day. You have been busy eating your lunch and laughing and talking with the women. Come, now! What can you have found out?'

"'First, I have made sure that the burglar is in league with an inmate in your house.'

"'Not a servant?'

"'No, not a servant.'

"'Mrs.----?' He did not utter the name.

"I nodded.

"'Are you quite sure?'

"'I am quite sure now. I have seen signals passing between her and the burglar who broke into the Abbey.'

"The burglar who broke into-- Are you dreaming? My keepers--why I could go bail for the whole of them.'

"'So could I, I believe.'

"'Then who is the man, and are you sure?'

"'The man I mean is Coggins--Gentleman Coggins, the smartest operator in his line, who has been living at Pangford for three weeks past.'

"'Yes, I know that; and how can that lady make signals to him there from our beech woods?'

"'I could see that Lord Balin was beginning to find my statements difficult of belief--perhaps he half doubted my sanity.

"'Mrs. Townley,' I said, 'twice tried to pass something to the person I know to be the burglar. Twice I was able to stop her. Then she traced a signal to him with the point of her parasol on the ground.'

"'And what did she try to pass?'

"'The stolen jewels.'

"'What! they are in her possession?'

"'Yes.'

"'But they would be bulky--all the stolen jewelry together would make too big a parcel to pass.'

"'Yes, in their settings--but they have been taken out of the settings. In their present form they would hardly fill a tea cup.'

"'How do you know that?'

"'Because the settings are here in my pocket.'

"I showed them. They were squeezed and pressed together.

"'Good heavens!' said Lord Balin. 'Where did they come from?'

"I explained how I found them.

"Lord Balin could hardly understand it. 'You were at work early,' he said. 'By-the-bye, you have not mentioned one thing. Who is the criminal, the man who has broken into my house, and to whom you say Mrs. Townley twice tried to pass the jewels, and to whom she made signals? Who is this man? Where is he?'

"'Joe the beater, the man who sang "Turmut hoeing" to us.'

"'Joe the beater!' said Lord Balin, stopping to look me in the face. 'Why, surely not that weak-brained fellow!'

"'He is the most dangerous criminal in all London.'

"'Is it possible? And I have myself encouraged my keepers to engage him! He seemed such a merry, harmless sort of fellow, just a rustic innocent. I even suggested that he might be taken on as an under-beater and watcher.'

"I told the story of how Sergeant Smith had pursued him, how he had spoilt Smith's bicycle, and then, hiding his own, had turned back disguised (the very disguise he had employed to-day), had sent the Sergeant on a wild goose chase in search of a forge which never existed, and how this self-same innocent rustic had been beating the woods all day, and singing country ditties to us.

"'And what can he be doing here?'

"'Waiting,' I said, 'to get hold of the jewels.'

"'Look here!' said Lord Balin, taking out a whistle and giving three loud blasts on it. That will bring the head keeper here--anyhow, we'll get Joe the beater turned off the place at once.'

"I begged Lord Balin to do nothing of the sort. I undertook to watch that he did no harm. If he were sent off, I said, his confederate might devise some new way of hiding, or getting off with, the jewels.

"When the keeper came up I pretended to be interested in Joe and his singing.

"'He's a good companionable fellow,' said the keeper. 'We all like him, and as his lordship desires me to engage him as under keeper, we take him with us on the rounds at night.'

"'Ah,' thought I, 'that accounts for a good deal.'

"Lord Balin sent the keeper back to his duties, and the shooting began.

"I am afraid my loaders were less pleased with me during the afternoon shooting than in the morning. The first condition of good shooting is to have one's attention entirely concentrated on the matter in hand. A second lost in recalling one's wandering thoughts is generally the chance of a shot missed, a head of game thrown away. My thoughts wandered all the afternoon. What mischief was my old enemy Towers, now Ikey Coggins, meditating? What did Mrs. Townley's signal mean? What was the signification of the mysterious figure of the racquet? Surely the archway was enough to indicate the spot. The racquet must be a further special signal agreed upon between the confederates to which I had no clue. Mrs. Townley would be at home three hours before me, and would have time to plot many things.

"I thought of sending a message by one of my loaders to Macgregor to bid him and O'Brien keep watch on her movements. Then I heard the cheery voice of Joe the beater hallooing in the woods, and I thought that, at least while he was with us, no great misfortune could happen.

"While nay thoughts were thus engaged I missed three rocketers in succession. My head loader, pulling out his whisky flask, remarked that I was a bit off my shooting as compared with the morning. 'This morning, sir,' he was pleased to say, 'you hardly let a thing pass. Perhaps I may make so bold as to recommend a drop of this.'

"I took a sip at the proffered flask, and made an effort to pull myself together, with the good result that I knocked down a couple of pheasants right and left almost immediately, and recovered my shooting for the rest of the afternoon.

"It was nearly dark when we reached home, and I asked Lord Balin to let me slip off quietly to my room. From my window I saw Mrs. Townley coming back from the lawn tennis courts. She was an enthusiastic player, and sometimes went out with a boy to field the balls while she practiced services by the hour. It was by now so dark that I could not see whether she carried her racquet with her. As soon as she had come in I sent for O'Brien.

"'Get me,' I said, 'a stable lantern and carry it unlighted, with matches, on to the lawn tennis ground there to wait for me, letting no one see you if you can help it. At what time are the bloodhounds let loose?'

"'Not till ten, or half-past if no carriage-folk are coming to the Abbey or going away. They are that fierce they'd be after the horses in a carriage and pulling the coachman off his box.'

"'Whistle twice in answer to me, softly, when you hear me coming.'

"'I will, sir.'

"It was half-past six. I stole out a few minutes afterward, wrapped in an ulster. I stumbled up the walk in the pitch darkness, giving a low whistle when I thought I was near the tennis ground. Then I made toward O'Brien's double whistle.

"'Here I am, sir,' came O'Brien's whisper close to ma

"'Light the lantern,' I whispered, 'and keep your body between it and the house.'

"He struck three or four matches before he succeeded in getting it alight.

"'Don't throw the matches down,' I whispered. 'Put them in your pocket.'

"I'm doing that, sir,' said O'Brien.

"I took the lantern in my hand and lighted our way to the Abbey ruins. I held it high up and could make out no one and nothing. We walked slowly all round the space occupied by the ruined remains.

"'Is that what you're looking for, sir?' said O'Brien, pointing to the ruined archway.

"'I see nothing.'

"'It's a spade, or something like it, leaning against that bit of ruined arch,' said O'Brien, walking toward it.

"'Is it a tennis racquet, O'Brien?'

"'I'm thinking it may be, sir. Yes, 'tis just that very identical thing.'

"He handed me a large, heavy, substantial racquet.

"'One of the ladies has been playing in the court,' I said, 'and forgot to bring in her racquet.'

"'Sure, 'tis a mighty heavy tool for a lady to handle, sir.'

"'Yes,' I said, 'and I'd choose a lighter one myself for convenience. O'Brien, my man,' I said, weighing the racquet in my hand. 'I'm thinking we may have found what we came down to Balin Abbey to look for. Go in now and open the side door, which is bolted inside. See here, I button this racquet under my ulster. I don't want to go through the hall where the ladies and gentlemen are and let any of them guess at what I'm carrying. Then you'll bring Macgregor up to my bedroom, and perhaps I'll show you both something queer.'

"When the two officers were in my room I bade them lock the door.

"'If I'm not mistaken,' I said, taking up the racquet, 'here is the end of all our trouble.'

"The two detectives looked upon me as one who has taken leave of his senses. The handle of the racquet had, what many racquets have, a roughened covering of reddish india-rubber. I pulled it off, and the handle at first sight seemed to be fashioned just like the handle of any other racquet, but a close inspection showed an unusually large protuberance at the end. It seemed to be jointed to the handle, but our united strength could not pull it off, or unscrew it. Macgregor happened to have a little steel wrench, belonging to his motor car, in his pocket. He closed down the holder on the protuberance and held it fast while I turned the racquet in his hands. The screw worked loose, and presently the top was off, showing that a hole about three-quarters of an inch in diameter had been bored down into the whole length of the handle.

"I looked in and saw that the cavity was packed tight with pink cotton wool.

"'Which of you has a corkscrew?' I asked.

"The Scotsman and the Irishman each produced, in great haste, a neat extracting tool.

"I spread a sheet of newspaper on the table, entangled the point of the corkscrew with the cotton wool in the handle of the racquet and gave the screw a turn. I drew forth a great hank of cotton wool. As the cotton fell upon the table, gems of extraordinary size came tumbling out with it--some remained embedded in the cotton, some leapt out upon the paper--emeralds, green as grass, flat, and as large as a man's forefinger nail, great blood-red rubies, some faceted, some cabochon-shaped, sapphires, blue as southern skies, and diamonds of uncommon size and brilliancy, and this profusion of precious things lay on the table between us three men, under the three-fold light of the electric lamps above our heads, shining and glistening as if they were living, moving things.

"There is, I think, something almost awe-inspiring about precious stones of such lustre and size to persons unaccustomed to see and handle them. The two men retired a step or two from the great treasure before them.

"'There's enough to fill the windows of a dozen jewelers' shops in Broad Street,' said the practical Scotsman.

"'Bedad! It's nothing short of a king's ransom,' said the more poetical Irishman.

"I carefully turned up the corners of the newspaper and made a email parcel of the gems.

"'See, Macgregor, if there's any more inside the racquet.'

"Macgregor banged the handle of the racquet down on the table--nothing came out. Then Macgregor held up the racquet to the electric light and squinted into the hole. 'It's all out, sir.'

"'We must leave it as it was. I will spare you some of the cotton wool to repack it with.'

"It amused the men to drop bits of coal from the grate into the cavity that had contained the gems, to fill up the interstices with cotton wool, pack all tightly, replace the top, screw it on tightly, and roll on the indiarubber handle cover.

"'Now,' I said to Macgregor, 'carry it down--don't let any one see you, and hang it up in the passage near the conservatory with the other lawn tennis things.'

"Macgregor presently returned. It was now a quarter to eight, and I was dressing as fast as I could for dinner. He returned to report to me that as soon as he had finished hanging up the racquet with the others, he had gone toward the conservatory, just, as he said, from curiosity to find out if the door leading out was locked at that early hour of the night. As he went toward it he encountered Mrs. Townley coming in from outside through the conservatory. She was wrapped round in a long sealskin cloak, but, for all that, he could see that she was carrying some sort of a bundle underneath it.

"'Very odd!' I said. 'What do you make of that, Macgregor?'

"'I make nothing of it, sir, but it seems queer that a young lady should be out at this hour of the night and come in carrying a big bundle.'

"'Did she pass through the passage where you had hung the racquet?'

"'She did, sir, and I was close behind her.'

"'Did she seem to notice that you had put back the racquet in its place?'

"'She hurried through the passage and looked neither to right nor left.'

"'Is the night still very dark, Macgregor?'

"'Very dark and overcast, after the fine day, and a little drizzle of rain has set in.'

"'There's no moon, I think, Macgregor, to-night?'

"'Not till the small hours, sir, by the almanac, and but little then.'

"'A good night for cracking a crib, eh?' I remarked, dressing in haste.

"'Well, sir,' said Macgregor, smiling, 'not with those four savage bloodhounds roaming round the house.'

"'What would you say, Macgregor, if our friend Coggins had not only humbugged Sergeant Smith, but had got round the keepers here, and even Lord Balin himself? He has been going the rounds every night with the watchers. The hounds must know him by now, and he can come and go as he will by night or day. What do you say to that?'

"O'Brien stood with my white tie in his hand.

"He laughed. 'That beats all, sir! That's cleverness, if you like, but don't let him beat us, sir, for the dear Lord's sake! don't let him beat us!'

"'I'm thinking,' said Macgregor, 'that going the rounds won't help him far with the dogs. They've a kennel of a dozen of them here. The head keeper showed it me to-day. Bloodthirsty brutes, every one of them. I'd sooner face four hungry tigers from the Zoo. Ever since the burglary here these four fresh hounds have been let loose every night.'

"'That's good news, anyhow,' I said. 'Keep a sharp look out all the same, you two. See that the conservatory door is locked--keep my window open, and one of you stay in the room without a light burning. You may chance to hear or see something. I'll be back with you as soon as I can.'

"'I hurried down, but I was not the last. Mrs. Townley was still to appear, and she kept the party waiting. When she did at last come in, she abounded in pretty apologies--smiling, nervous, I thought, but full of life and movement. She wore a resplendent red dress with embroidery of seed pearl, and a great string of large oriental pearls coiled twice round her neck and the ends hanging down. Pearls, she had told me, were her favorite wear. We were told she had lost a necklace of great pearls and diamonds in the burglary, as well as two pendants of pearl and diamond of great price. She deplored these losses hourly, but the wealth of this beautiful woman even after her losses impressed us all immensely. I remarked to myself, as I admired the superb pearls on her neck, that we had not discovered one single pearl among the wealth of precious stones hidden in the racquet. The fact, of course, had nothing astonishing for me.

"I took an opportunity of telling Lord Balin that I had good news for him, but that I would beg him to allow me to say nothing till the morning. 'The night,' I said, 'may bring its further developments.'