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The Blue Book Magazine, September 1922, with "Easy Street Experts"

THE SKELETON TRAIL

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"The Skeleton Trail" leads two amiable adventurers
in rascality along a most interesting road. A specially
attractive story by the famous author of "Winsome Winnie."

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IT was when they were returning from an elaborate lunch at the Astoritz—strolling very gently, for sake of their digestions—that those two genial rascals the Honorable John Brass and his wolf-witted friend and partner Colonel Clumber first noted that there was an unaccustomed look about the window of one Hyams, antique dealer, whose shop occupied a moderately obscure position in one of the side-streets through which the two old crooks occasionally meandered on their way back to their flat.

The Honorable John it was who first pointed out the absence of the skeleton which for some months past had basked in a sunny corner of the window.

"I see," he said, stopping to stare at the shop window, "I see that our young friend Bones has pulled his freight!"

"It'll be a long time before I lose any sleep worrying about that," grunted the Colonel without much interest. "I never considered him handsome, and he always had a very unburied sort of look to me."

"Yes—me too," replied Mr. Brass thoughtfully. "He was an ugly sight—always looked so damned hungry and kind of empty."

They turned away and slowly resumed their walk, enjoying their cigars.

"I shouldn't wonder but what that he man-eater Hyams was pretty glad to get rid of Bones," mused John presently.

"Well, I don't care, one way or the other," declared Colonel Clumber.

They paced tranquilly onward.

"Now, I wonder what sort of figure Hyams would get for a good skeleton," said the Honorable John presently.

The Colonel was satirical.

"The poor devil is dead, aint he?" he demanded.

John smiled.

"Yes—he's dead enough. I've never seen a deader skeleton," he answered.

"He's dead and sold and gone, aim he?" continued the Colonel. "Well, I'd be very glad if you'd leave him where he is—don't drag him back into the conversation for me. It's doing my lunch no good!"

BUT the Honorable John stopped abruptly. His brains had reached the objective toward which they had been groping.

"And d'ye think the memory of him is cheering me up at all?" he asked heavily. "Because it aint—only I've been thinking it over, and what I'd like to know, Squire, is this: Who buys skeletons, and what do they buy 'em for? They can't work, and they don't pay any interest on the money sunk in 'em, and they're not an ornament to a house. They don't come under my idea of what you might call Regular Trade. No, skeletons ain't Regular Trade I think I'll just look in on Hyams and inquire."

But Colonel Clumber was skeptical.

"What for?" he said. "I'll save you the trouble. That sportsman with the ribs was purchased by a medical student. They're great lads for bones, those boys."

"Why?" asked John, good-humoredly.

"They dissect 'em!" said the Colonel patiently. "They disassemble 'em and label 'em and reconstruct 'em!"

But the Honorable John was unconvinced.

"Dull work, that," he commented. Nevertheless he moved on again.

"Not a job I should care much about," he said presently.

"What isn't?" asked his partner.

"Taking down skeletons and putting them up again," said Mr. Brass, as though he were talking of motor engines.

"Oh, damn the skeleton, anyway," snapped the Colonel.

But John stopped again.

"Look here, old man, I've got a hunch about that skeleton. A big hunch! I'll just drift back and have a chat with Hyams."

His companion hesitated. "Oh, if you've got a hunch," he grumbled, and resignedly turned with his partner. Hunches—or instincts—were not things which the two old grappling-hooks ever disdained.

"A worn-out skeleton isn't everybody's money," said John soothingly as they retraced their steps to Hyams'.

"I want," said the Honorable John to Mr. Hyams, "to buy a medium quality skeleton. Have you got such a thing for sale. I would go to fifty pounds for a good one."

Only with a violent effort did Mr. Hyams refrain from bursting into tears.

"Only two days ago I sold the best skeleton in London," he declared, "for twenty pounds. Twenty pounds! Aint that an awful accident to happen to any man? And I aint got no other man-size skeleton in stock. Wouldn't no other skeleton suit you? I got a fine skeleton of a badger. Only fourteen pounds!"

"No—no badgers need apply—nor polecats—nor skunks! I want a human skeleton," said the Honorable John. "D'ye think your customer would part with his for a profit?"

HYAMS shook his head. He seemed very sure of that.

"My customer was a student of ostosto-something—studied bones, you understand—and he wanted him very badly, that skeleton. He had searched everywhere for one."

"Oh, had he?" The Honorable John seemed very disappointed. He reflected for a moment. Then he took out his notecase.

"Better try it, I suppose," he muttered, "though there's not much chance."

He passed the sovereign to Hyams.

"Now, look here," he said authoritatively, "I'm going to buy that skeleton off that medicine man. I'm a bone-dissector, and a—a—disassembler and re-constructor, and I need that skeleton badly. My name is Sir James Johnson, and I've got an important case, d'ye see? Write me a letter of introduction to the party you sent the skeleton to, and I'll call and try to get him to see that my need of a skeleton is more important than his. There's a sovereign to pay your expenses, and if I get the skeleton, you shall have a fiver for your commission."

Mr. Hyams was a strictly business man, and in less than five minutes the partners were strolling home with the knowledge that the buyer of the skeleton was one Mr. Roy Rainbird, of Alperton West, Hants.

"Alperton West," said the Honorable John. "Let's look—that's the place where they have the big sheep, horse, and fat bullock fair every year, isn't it?"

"It is that," replied the Colonel sarcastically. "What about it? Does it seem to convey anything to you?"

"Not at present," said "Sir James Johnson," failing apparently to notice the sarcasm. "Does it to you?"

"Yes," chuckled Clumber, "it conveys to me the fact that you're a cold quid out of pocket."

"That's all right. I'll take care of that, old man," said the Honorable John as they let themselves into their flat.

"I'll take care of that," he repeated presently, as he sank into his shamefully luxurious armchair. "Certainly I will!" He pressed the bell, and Sing, that Chinese cormorant who acted as valet and general conjuror to the partners, entered.

"You can telephone Bloom that we shall be down at Purdston to dine and sleep, Sing, my son. And you can't do it too quick to please me. Then you'd better see about the car and get ready."

"Yes, master," purred the sulphur-hued Celestial.

"Not forgetting to bring in some whisky and soda before you get busy," the Honorable John reminded him.

"I blinging whisky soda allee same this minute."

He disappeared noiselessly, returned like a quick and efficient ghost well trained to work about the house, placed a tray on a table between the partners and vanished again.

"A good lad—a very good lad. That's a well-trained Chink, that lad is. Trained him myself," said Mr. Brass, and liberally helped himself. "You've got Bloom pretty well trained," he referred to the manservant who, with his wife, formed the indoor staff of the partners' tranquil country retreat at Purdston, on the Surrey-Hants border,—"but Sing can give him fifty in a hundred and still take the hide off him!"

Colonel Clumber languidly agreed, and the two friends quietly dropped off into the deep doze with which they usually aided their vitality after lunch.

THE ordinarily somnolent agricultural town of Alperton West being no more than thirty miles from Purdston, the Honorable John and the Colonel were able to rise late, breakfast in absolute leisure, and enjoy a couple of cigars, play a quiet game of billiards, take an eagle-eyed stroll through the hothouse and kitchen garden, on the following morning—a Sunday—and yet reach Alperton West in ample time for a simple but well-cooked lunch (ordered by overnight wire) at the leading hotel of the place.

It was mid-September and a glorious day. The great annual sheep and cattle fair had finished the day before and the two old vultures had the place practically to themselves.

They lunched in a very delightful little summer-house at the foot of a lawn facing the river which runs through Alperton, and as was their custom, they were attended by Sing, supported by an elderly waiter of the hotel.

It proved a very satisfactory lunch and when, presently, the Honorable John faced the old waiter, there was a mild benevolence in his eye which spoke eloquently of hefty tips to come.

"A neat and gentlemanly little lunch, well cooked and well served, my son," observed the Honorable John.

"Thank you, sir," replied the waiter. "Having your Japanese servant to help made a great difference, gentlemen."

"Chinese, not Japanese. That lad is Chinese, and a very good lad too," corrected John.

HE took out a ten-shilling note.

"Where does Mr. Rainbird live?"

"Mr. Roy Rainbird, the bank manager, sir? He lives at the bank—the West and Home Counties Bank."

"Still over the bank? I understood he had moved from the bank and was living farther out of the town?" continued the Honorable John, who had understood nothing of the kind, nor cared.

"Oh, no sir—not as yet. He still lives at the bank. I haven't heard anything about his living out of the town, sir—and I was talking to Mrs. Doreen Delane, his housekeeper, only the other day, sir. She was having tea on the lawn here, after a row on the river, sir."

"Umph! I must have been mistaken," said the Honorable John.

"I'm afraid so, sir. I fancy, sir, Mrs. Delane would have mentioned something about it—she was having tea with a lady friend of hers, and they talked a good deal, sir."

John put the ten-shilling note back into his pocket, and the waiter's jaw dropped. But his features grew more composed when Mr. Brass brought out a pound note.

"You see, sir," said the waiter, "there's a sort of a rumor going round that Mr. Rainbird and Mrs. Delane mean to make a match of it, sir." He paused, watching the Honorable John.

"And a very handsome pair they'd make, sir," he added—evidently thinking that Rainbird was a friend of Mr. Brass.

"Oh, that's what they say, is it, waiter?" The Honorable John put the pound note on the table and lighted a fresh cigar. "I don't recollect ever meeting her. Pretty stylish, handsome party, is she?"

The waiter brightened up.

"She is that, sir. She don't need to go out of Alperton West to find a husband, not Mrs. Delane, sir. But there aint much doubt that Mr. Rainbird is the man, sir."

THE waiter came closer to Mr. Brass and the pound note.

"It's no business of mine, sir, of course, but I've got what you might call inside information about them two," he said in a lower tone. "He's a pretty dashing gent, Mr. Rainbird, and she aint exactly a dull party!" The water smiled.

"I was in London a month back, sir, and called round at the Savoy, where I worked when I was quicker on me feet, to see an old friend of mine, a waiter there. I took a look at the dining-room,—in a quiet sort of way,—and there was Mr. Rainbird and Mrs. Delane tucked away in a corner—seeing life, sir. I asked Jimmy—my friend, sir—about 'em. He hadn't particular listened to their conversation, but he'd sort of gathered, sir, that they'd dined at the Carlton, been to the Lyric, I fancy 'twas, and were winding up at the Savoy, sir. So what I mean to say, sir, it looks like a case, sir!"

"Sure!" said the Honorable John. "Well, well, so it does. But I should have thought Mr. Rainbird was too studious a man for much of that round-the-town life."

The waiter was surprised.

"Studious, sir! Mr. Rainbird!"

"He used to be, but maybe he's grown out of it. Doesn't he buy any fossils and things—bones and specimens for his collection nowadays?"

The waiter smiled. "Not that I ever heard of, sir."

"Ah, he must have made a fresh hobby—Mrs. Delane, very likely."

"Ha-ha! Yes sir!" agreed the waiter. Mr. Brass pushed the pound over. "There's something for you, my son," he said, though the man was old and garrulous enough to be his father. "A good lunch is worth a good tip—that's my motto."

"Yes sir! Certainly, sir. My motto too, sir." Collecting his loot, the waiter vanished.

The two old wolves stared at each other. "There was nothing the matter with that hunch of yours," said the Colonel.

Mr. Brass shook his head in agreement. "I knew it was a hunch and a half, all along," he said.

He ruminated silently for a few moments.

"If you can tell me what a good-looking bank manager with a good-looking housekeeper he expects to marry, both with high-priced tastes, needs with a secondhand skeleton, I should be much obliged," he said presently.

The Colonel smiled a half-inch smile. "Well, it wont dislocate anything particular if we stroll down to the bank and get acquainted with the man, will it?" he suggested.

The Honorable John rose. "No. But it's a Sunday, and the bank's closed. Still, he lives at the bank, and he might be at home yet—if he values his digestion. Anyhow we might get a look round; that was the idea of coming down here on a Sunday, wasn't it?"

So they strolled in the leisurely way which usually characterized their strolls, down to the West and Home Counties Bank, each pondering in his own way the interesting little problem of the skeleton and its relation to the bank manager and the lady-housekeeper who apparently shared a taste for seeing life.

THE West and Home Counties Bank at Alperton West was not merely one of the newest buildings in the town, but one of the prettiest. It was bank and house in one—the office part of it opening onto the street, and the house part onto a lawn and garden at the side, screened from the street by a well-kept and thriving privet hedge.

The partners paused opposite the bank and openly surveyed it for a few seconds. The street was practically deserted.

"We'd better put the old story across at him," said John. "Think of building a factory here and want a little information about local conditions and so forth."

The Colonel had no better plan to propose, and they crossed to the gate opening onto the garden, and so to the front door of the house section of the bank.

He knocked—a moderate, reassuring knock. Nothing loud or startling.

There was a longish wait. Then the door was opened by a pale woman, distinctly handsome, with a mass of rather remarkable brownish-gold hair. She was well-dressed, and was wearing a Panama hat and a well-cut blue linen coat and skirt. In one hand she held a pair of gloves, and her coat was unbuttoned so that she gave one the impression of having just entered the house. Tall and remarkably shapely,—though perhaps a thought full-blown,—she was distinctly the type the Honorable John and his partner most admired.

DOWN the front of her skirt was a long, greasy streak like a fresh oil-stain, and there was a pronounced odor of paraffin. Also her pallor was not a natural pallor, but apparently that of anger, and her big blue-gray eyes were bright, like blue ice with the sun on it. "Wants a cup of tea, maid's out, got to make it herself, and is having a hell of a struggle with the stove," decided John in his mind, instantly. "She's a queen, all right; but she looks ready to bite just now."

Aloud he said, removing his hat: "Mrs. Delane, I believe? We wish to see Mr. Roy Rainbird—"

She went an angry but attractive pink, and her eyes glinted bluely.

"Very possibly! So do I," she said in a voice that trembled with rage. She was looking them over searchingly, and suddenly her face cleared a little.

"You are the detectives," she said, "aren't you?"

There was in the personal beauty of the two old crooks a certain severity, an austerity, indeed, one might truthfully say, a hardness which on more than one occasion had been the cause of other people's making the same mistake.

The Honorable John hesitated, rather artistically.

Then he said: "Oh, no, not at all, Mrs. Delane. Not detectives! But we'd like a few words with Mr. Rainbird, if he is disengaged."

"Oh, he's disengaged," she said bitterly, and quite obviously not believing Mr. Brass' skilfully hesitant disclaimer.

"Quite disengaged—so much so that I fancy he's disengaged himself from the bank, myself and Alperton West forever! Come in, if you like, and look at the place. I think, on the whole, I'd prefer you to."

She stood aside, and they entered. She closed the door and faced them.

"This," she said with bitter sarcasm, "is the hall—not, as perhaps you may imagine, the woodshed and oil-house."

They glanced round and perceived that there was some justification for the sarcasm. The place was piled with shavings and bits of dry wood, and reeked of paraffin.

They surveyed it and smiled.

"It's like that in every room," said the beautiful housekeeper. "And the stairs are too quaint! I knocked an open flower-bowl full of paraffin oil off a bracket on the stairway wall a few moments ago. In the bank it's ridiculous. The only thing that amazes me is that the place isn't burnt to the ground. But something went wrong with the program—the ignition was badly timed, as the motor people say. Come and see it—it's in the bank. Candles and gunpowder and paraffin and string."

They followed her into a comfortable dining-room, looked into the drawing-room, glanced at the highly inflammable stairs, and so through a strong door, plentifully equipped with locks and bolts, into the bank.

Even as she had said, the vanished Mr. Rainbird had made very generous preparations to blot out the bank. On the floor of the manager's office was the "ignition" device of which the dashing-looking lady had spoken. It was a rather complex but well-thought out arrangement involving the use of a small percussion cap, a falling hammer hinged to a weight, a light cord attached to the hand of a big grandfather clock, and a plentiful train of loose gunpowder leading to a pile of well-soaked shavings close by. Everything had quite evidently been thought out and prepared with fastidious care.

MRS. DELANE, clearly, had been studying the methods of the arsonically inclined Rainbird rather closely before the Honorable John and his partner had disturbed her, for she gave them a very instructive little lecture as they looked the device over.

"He was very thorough, wasn't he? Too thorough! The thing, I fancy, which spoiled everything was the fact that he had arranged too completely for draught. Not content with spreading round enough fuel and oil to burn a place three times the size of this, he left open the door of the office and other doors, and then—forgot my kitten! I've only had it two days, and it must have completely escaped his memory. The kitten probably wandered in here, and playing with things, knocked the percussion cap out of alignment with the hammer, so that when the movement of the clock-hand tightened sufficiently to trip the catch holding up the hammer against the pressure of the spring, and the hammer fell, exactly like a mousetrap, it missed the cap by several inches!"

The partners nodded.

"The last train leaves here at nine—and as a rule everybody is in bed by twelve at the very latest. So he had to get away before nine last night, leaving behind a means of getting the fire started at twelve. Beginning at that hour, the place would have been half burnt down before anyone would know it was on fire!"

SHE smiled bitterly. Then she continued: "The cord, as you see—tightened sufficiently to trip the catch—the last pressure would do it—at about twelve. It would have been a great success—but for the kitten."

"Was anyone sleeping in the house?" asked the Honorable John.

"No—yes, one other! But only one!" she said oddly. "I slept with friends in London last night, and the maid had—at his suggestion, I remember now—been given the week-end off. Come this way."

They followed her upstairs into a bedroom.

"This is his room," she said, and went across to the bed—well soaked with oil.

"Yes," she said, "he was very thorough. I'll say that for him!" And deftly she pulled back the quilt.

The partners started slightly—but only slightly, for the occupant of the bed was an old friend of theirs.

It was Bones the skeleton—and in his embrace were two rolled ribs of beef that must have weighed something like fifteen pounds each!

The Honorable John nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes," he said, "he was a thorough party. It isn't often a firebug provides his own remains!"

He surveyed the skeleton for a moment, then turned away.

"It was a pity to waste good beef like that. They look to me like two amazin' goot bits of beef, those joints do! And now we'll have a look at the safe."

The attractive Mrs. Delane laughed sardonically.

"Yes—it would be a pity not to look at that," she said. "But what do you expect to find in it? Money?"

They stared at her sadly.

"Why, my dear men," she said. "I don't suppose he left as much as a halfpenny stamp in the bank. You don't imagine that Roy Rainbird is the kind of man who forgets to take away his loot—even if he does forget the kitten—and forgets to tell his fiance that he's leaving home and her forever and for aye, do you?"

"No, naturally, we don't, my dear," said the Honorable John rather feebly. "But it's just as well to have a look."

"Oh, certainly," she said. "You may look until you get astigmatism in both eyes, but you wont find anything in that safe resembling money. Why, it was the eight thousand pounds' worth of notes which were paid in during the cattle-fair week that decided Master Roy to get rich quick."

"Eight thousand?"

"Oh, quite that—in notes. Heaps more, if you count the checks. Sheep at two to three pounds each, bullocks and cows at thirty pounds to fifty each, mount up, you know. This place has a really big fair—thousands and thousands of sheep and hundreds of cattle and pigs change hands—and the dealers use five- and ten-pound notes to an extraordinary extent!"

The partners nodded. They knew that.

"Of course," said the Honorable John as they went downstairs, "you haven't the faintest idea where he went to?"

Her fine eves narrowed slightly.

"Not the slightest," she said. "And although I like you very much,—you're so sympathetic, you know,—do you imagine for an instant that I should tell anybody if I did?"

They were all standing in the paraffin-scented hall at the foot of the stairs. The Honorable John looked at her carefully, and made a shot in the dark.

"Well, no, Doreen, my dear, I don't," he said deliberately. "But do you think you're man enough to gouge that money out of him all by your little golden-headed self?"

Her eyes narrowed still more as she stared back at him, watchfully, appraisingly, summing him up, as he had already summed her.

There was a tense moment; then she relaxed, smiling.

"And I was innocent enough to think you were detectives!" she said. "Why, you're after the cattle-fair money yourselves!"

"Sure!" nodded John Brass amiably.

"Why not? Weren't you? We're about even, I think. At first we thought you were so fierce because Rainbird had left you, but it's the coin you don't like losing, not Rainbird. That's it, isn't it?"

DOREEN flushed a little, and gave a sigh of relief.

"Well, what do you think I've put in two months' housekeeping for that howling waster for? Certainly, it was the money. That's why I came back here unexpectedly today," she said boldly.

The Colonel broke in heavily.

"And if we stand here long enough, holding inquests on money that's gone, we'll be pinched ourselves," he said with that sour but practical good sense which distinguished him. "So, if you and Doreen here want to flirt, you'd better choose a safer place than this."

"Oh, sure. But if Doreen is coming in with us on the deal, we've got to make some sort of plan, haven't we?" replied John.

Doreen was more than willing. No woman likes to be deserted or "turned down," as the Colonel bluntly put it, and she was quite obviously yearning for revenge on the gentleman who, whether she wanted him or not, certainly did not appear to want her.

The trio went at once into a committee on ways and means, from which it took them not more than five minutes to emerge as a trio of sleuths sworn, as it were, to track down the peccant Rainbird and gouge from him the ill-gotten bales of greasy but valuable notes with which he had so successfully decamped.

It was Colonel Clumber who, prowling with his partner about Rainbird's office, while the brilliant Doreen was changing into something slightly less redolent of garage than her blue linen, discovered in the fireplace the torn label containing these words—on one side: Mr. Gregory Dunne, Passenger to Parkstone, via Waterloo, L S.W.R., and on the other side: Mr. Gregory Dunne, Hawksnest, Harbourage Road, Parkstone.

He passed it to John Brass with a grunt of satisfaction, and the latter was a pleased man.

"I never yet knew or heard of one of these deliberate crooks who didn't make one bloomer—and this sport has made two!" he said. "He forgot the kitten, and he forgot to burn this label. It's pretty clear that he left here by the last train last night as Roy Rainbird. In the train he changed the labels on his baggage to 'Gregory Dunne.' So it's Dunne who arrived at Parkstone probably first thing this morning, or maybe last night; and the remains of Rainbird—a few charred bones—would have been found in the ruins of the bank." The Colonel nodded. "Sure. And what we've got to do is to get hold of Dunne about as fast as wheels can get us to Parkstone. Where is it—Bournemouth way, aint it?"

"It is."

The Honorable John lighted a cigar with the air of a conqueror, as the Titian-haired Doreen came in, amazingly well turned out, and fully meriting the frank stares of admiration with which the partners favored her.

"Is that Rainbird's writing, my dear?" asked John, tendering the torn label. She glanced at it, flushing slightly.

"Why, yes. Where did you find that? In the fireplace?" She laughed—rather a hard, ominous laugh. "Why, that's probably the name he intends to go by. He's been too clever this time. What a fool not to burn that label! Why, all we've got to do is to go to Parkstone and—"

"Collect the money," said the Honorable John comfortably.

"And the sooner we start," concluded the Colonel, "the better."

SO they started—back to the Hawbuck Hotel, where tea and so forth was administered to the delightful Doreen—"so forth" including a couple of bottles of champagne designed to maintain the physical well-being of the partners as well as that of the lady.

"It's a longish run—and dusty," said the Honorable John, emptying his glass. "But I think that'll about put us right for the trip. Well, son, ready?" This latter to the leather-clad Sing, who crossed the lawn as he spoke.

"Yes, master—allee same leddy."

They went out to the big, powerful car, Doreen between them, very vivacious, though still apt to snap when speaking of the vanished Rainbird.

It was half-past five precisely when they left Alperton West, and the clocks were chiming eight when they pulled up outside the best hotel in Bournemouth, dusty, dry, and desperate—so the Honorable John said—with hunger.

Doreen had a headache too. She said she was dizzy with pain, and that she would take two aspirin tablets, a cup of bouillon, and lie down for the half-hour it would take the partners to dine.

"The what!" said the Honorable John. "Why, my dear girl, you don't want to think we bolt our food. What's the hurry, anyway? We needn't worry about Dunne for an hour or so. He's probably taking it easy where he is, thinking himself quite safe. It will be a couple of hours at least before we need start out to Parkstone. So take all the rest you need, and when we think we ought to be moving along, we'll send up and let you know."

DOREEN smiled at him gratefully, and the Honorable John had her ushered with considerable ceremony to her room. They then sent Sing to procure a meal, ordering him to report back at ten; and having washed and ordered one or two slight but costly additions and alterations in the table d'hôte as served to them, devoted themselves for the next hour and a half to a leisurely meal.

"A very neat bit of work, I think, old man," said the Honorable John in tones of genuine satisfaction and simple pride, when, at half-past nine, he drained his liqueur glass. "This guy Rainbird, or Dunne, will part up with three-quarters of his loot like a little lamb rather than have the police in, and we'll be back in town by midday tomorrow." He glanced at the clock.

"Well, well, I suppose we'd better be waking Doreen," he continued, and beckoned a waiter.

"That's a very charming, attractive, stylish girl, Doreen," he said. "I'd like to see more of her. She's just my style —beautiful and practical. Got her head screwed on right, and very pretty hair. Very pretty tint that red kind of golden hair is—to my mind."

The waiter returned with a large envelope.

"From the lady for you, sir. The chambermaid had instructions that the lady was not to be disturbed, sir, but that when you sent up to her, you were to have this note, sir."

John took it, shaking his head.

"The poor girl's overdone it," he said, and this proved to be the case. Doreen had sent a hasty little scribble to say that she really was not "up" to tackling Rainbird that night, but hoped that they would do so without her. She knew she could trust them to see that her fair third of the plunder was set aside for her. She inclosed them a photograph of Rainbird so that they could recognize him. Also she informed them of several moles of which Mr. Rainbird was the proud possessor—so that, if he were disguised, they yet had a means of surely identifying him. She would thank them at breakfast in the morning, when she would be quite all right again.

The partners were not grieved. It all fitted in beautifully. They preferred it that way.

Women were uncertain, anyway—even beautiful, practical women like Doreen De-lane.

"It's better this way, old man," said John. "She might have forgiven him at the last moment and made things awkward!"

"Sure," said the Colonel readily. "Sure!"

"All right, then. We do this on our own—quietly, neatly and scientifically—as it should be done," said the Honorable John.

HALF an hour later the car pulled up at Hawksnest. They alighted and went to the door. A middle-aged maid of severe aspect answered their ring, and in response to their request to see Mr. Gregory Dunne on urgent business, invited them into a sternly furnished hall.

She disappeared, returning a minute or so later with the information that Mr. Dunne would prefer to see them on the following morning unless their business was very pressing indeed.

"It is very pressing," said John.

"Come this way, then, sir, please."

They followed her, each quietly assuring himself that his automatic pistol was at home—not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good business.

"The two gentlemen to see you, sir," said the maid, ushering them into a study and closing the door on them.

A very tall, very lean, very narrow clergyman rose to receive them.

The Honorable John was so surprised that without speaking, he took out the photograph of Rainbird and compared it with the clergyman. Then he consulted his partner.

"Something wrong, Squire, eh?"

"Sure," said the Colonel sullenly.

"Yes, gentlemen?" inquired the Reverend Mr. Dunne, in tones of rigor.

"It looks as if we owe you an explanation," said the Honorable John. "We're detectives, and we're looking for a man called Rainbird, alias Dunne, and as I say, it looks as if we've got our money on the wrong pony. I suppose you're pretty well known about here, Mr. Dunne?"

THE austere one reflected. "If you would care to have the assurance of the local police authorities that I have labored in this parish incessantly for the last thirty years, I shall be glad to walk round to the local police station with you and procure you the assurance personally," said the clergyman.

But the partners thought not.

"That will not be necessary, I think," said the Honorable John. "The man we want is of average height, about thirty years old, and is a bit moley. You are a good six foot three; you're over thirty—"

"Sixty-two, to be precise."

"Sure. And you don't wear an eighth-inch mole behind your left ear, and a three-quarter inch one just under your collar?"

"I do not. And now, as you probably wish to apologize for your intrusion and hurry away, I will take the apology as made and show you out myself. My parlormaid was on the point of retiring for the night."

Unusually silent, the partners followed him. The door closed quietly behind them, and they headed for the car.

"Back to the hotel, Sing, and quick, you yellow scoundrel!" snapped the Honorable John.

They sent up a most urgent note to the fair Doreen, with unmistakable instructions that she must be roused. The most enthusiastic knockings upon her door, however, failed to obtain a response, and presently the door was unlocked by the manager's key.

The room was unoccupied, but on the dressing-table lay a note addressed to the Honorable John in the name of Robertson —the name he was using that day.

He flashed through it as through a telegram, then put it in his pocket.

"It's all right," he said. "She's gone home by train. She forgot something."

The little crowd dispersed, and the Honorable John and his partner adjourned sullenly to the smoking-room.

"She's a she-cat from Catville, that ginger-headed dame is," said Mr. Brass sourly, passing the note to the Colonel.

The Colonel read it in silence. It ran:

When you two fat men knocked at the bank door. I nearly fainted. Roy and I had everything ready except for packing up the money. But I soon saw that you were easy. You put me to a lot of trouble, but I managed to keep you quiet while Roy packed the money—in my room. What made you jump to the conclusion that Roy had gone the previous night? Was it because I said so? You oughtn't to believe everything a woman tells you—if you don't believe me, get married and learn by experience. Thanks for the motor run. I hope you got on well with old Dunne. He was parson at Parkstone last year when I was down there—funny his name should come into my head when I wrote that label for you to find in the grate, wasn't it? Roy sends you his love, and so do I.

Doreen

P.S.—If I were you, I'd pass through Alperton West on your way home. Take a look at the bank as you go through.

The Colonel handed the note back without comment.

"Skinned! She skinned us like a brace of innocent little rabbits!" said John intensely.

"She did. And that's what you call a hunch!" snarled the Colonel. "We'll never connect with that cattle-fair coin in this world. Roy's probably spending it somewhere hundreds of miles away by now!"

"Yes—and Doreen is on the way to help him!" added John. "We'll certainly pass through Alperton tomorrow, though."

They did. It was much as usual, they observed, with the exception that the bank was burnt to the ground.

"Well, well," said Mr. Brass, as the car slid out of the town, "she was sure some housekeeper, Doreen was."

It was his only comment. But the Colonel was far too disgusted to reply.

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THE END

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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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