The Legendary Detectives II: 8 Classic Novelettes Featuring the World

with Miss Dow to give up the idea of eloping, because, remember, I loved her, too. She finally consented to go on with our party, as her automobile had gone. We came out of the inn together. When we reached the automobile – The Green Dragon, I mean – I saw Miss Melrose getting into Mr. MacLean's automobile, which had come up meanwhile. Instantly I saw, or imagined, the circumstances, and said nothing to Miss Dow about it, particularly as Mr. MacLean's car dashed away at full speed.

'Now, in taking Miss Dow to The Green Dragon it had been my purpose to introduce her to Miss Melrose. She knew Mr. Curtis. When I saw Miss Melrose was gone I knew Curtis would wonder why. I couldn't explain, because every moment I was afraid Mason would appear to claim Miss Dow and I was anxious to get her as far away as possible. Therefore I requested her not to speak until we reached the next inn, and there I would explain to Curtis.

'Somewhere between the Monarch Inn and the inn we had started for Miss Dow changed her mind; probably was overcome by the humiliation of her position, and she used the knife. She had seen me take the knife from my pocket and throw it into the tool kit on the floor beside her. It was comparatively a trifling matter for her to stoop and pick it up, almost from under her feet, and-'

'Under all these circumstances, as stated by Mr. Reid,' interrupted The Thinking Machine, 'we understand why, after he found the girl dead, he didn't tell all the truth, even to Curtis. Any jury on earth would have convicted him of murder on circumstantial evidence. Then, when he saw Miss Dow dead, mistaken for Miss Melrose, he could not correct the impression without giving himself away. He was forced to silence.

'I realized these things – not in exact detail as Mr. Reid has told them, but in a general way – after my talk with the waiters. Then I set out to find out why Mason had not appeared. It was possibly due to accident. On a chance entirely I asked the man in charge of the gasoline tank at the Monarch if he had heard of an accident nearby on the night of the tragedy. He had.

'With Mr. Hatch I found the injured man. A monogram, 'M.M.,' on his watch, told me it was Morgan Mason. Mr. Mason had a serious accident and still lies unconscious. He was going to meet Miss Dow when this happened. He had two railroad tickets to New York – for himself and bride – in his pocket.'

Reid still sat staring at The Thinking Machine, waiting. The others were awed into silence by the story of the tragedy.

'Having located both Mason and Miss Dow to my satisfaction, I then sought to find what had become of Miss Melrose. Mr. Reid could have told me this, but he wouldn't have, because it would have turned the light on the very thing which he was trying to keep hidden. With Miss Melrose alive, it was perfectly possible that Curtis had seen her in the Winter Street store.

'I asked Mr. Hatch if he remembered what store it was. He did. I also asked Mr. Hatch if such a story as the murder of Miss Melrose would be telegraphed all over the country. He said it would. It did not stand to reason that if Miss Melrose were in any city, or even on a train, she could have failed to hear of her own murder, which would instantly have called forth a denial.

'Therefore, where was she? On the water, out of reach of newspapers? I went to the store in Winter Street and asked if any purchases had been sent from there to any steamer about to sail on the day following the tragedy. There had been several purchases made by a woman who answered Miss Melrose's description as I had it, and these had been sent to a steamer which sailed for Halifax.

'Miss Melrose and Mr. MacLean, married then, were on that steamer. I wired to Halifax to ascertain if they were coming back immediately. They were. I waited for them. Otherwise, Mr. Hatch, I should have given you the solution of the mystery two days ago. As it was, I waited until Miss Melrose, or Mrs. MacLean, returned. I think that's all.'

'The letter from Miss Dow in Chicago?' Hatch reminded him.

'Oh, yes,' said The Thinking Machine. 'That was sent to a friend in her confidence, and mailed on a specified date. As a matter of fact, she and Mason were going to New York and thence to Europe. Of course, as matters happened, the two letters – the other being the one mailed from the Monarch Inn – were sent and could not be recalled.'

* * *

This strange story was one of the most astonishing news features the American newspapers ever handled. Charles Reid was arrested, established his story beyond question, and was released. His principal witnesses were Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Jack Curtis and Mrs. Donald MacLean.

THE BUNCH OF VIOLETS

(Detective: Max Carrados)

Ernest Bramah

Max Carrados has been hailed as 'the first and best blind detective,' a well-deserved appellation. His creator, Ernest Bramah (1868-1942), was so reclusive that for many years reviewers speculated that the name must be a pseudonym disguising some well-known writer. Finally, Bramah was forced to refute the claim, writing woefully that, 'Either I am to have no existence, or I am to have decidedly too much: on the one hand banished into space as a mythical creation; on the other regarded askance as the leader of a double (literary) life.' In fact, Ernest Bramah was his real name, Ernest Bramah Smith, and he labored anonymously on the editorial staff of a number of highly regarded publications. Bramah was also the creator of another celebrated literary figure, Kai Lung, a fictive Chinese storyteller, whose ironic tales amuse and entertain while concealing a poniard for human foibles. No less an authority than Ellery Queen singled out the first of the four volumes of the Max Carrados stories, The Eyes of Max Carrados (1923), as 'one of the ten best books of detective shorts ever written.'

When Mr. J. Beringer Hulse, in the course of one of his periodical calls at the War Office, had been introduced to Max Carrados he attached no particular significance to the meeting. His own business there lay with Mr. Flinders, one of the quite inconspicuous departmental powers so lavishly produced by a few years of intensive warfare: business that was more confidential than exacting at that stage, and hitherto carried on a deux. The presence on this occasion of a third, this quiet, suave, personable stranger, was not out of line with Mr. Hulse's open-minded generalities on British methods: 'A little singular, perhaps, but not remarkable,' would have been the extent of his private comment. He favored Max with a hard, entirely friendly, American stare, said, 'Vurry pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Carrados,' as they shook hands, and went on with his own affair.

Of course Hulse was not to know that Carrados had been brought in especially to genialise with him. Most of the blind man's activities during that period came within the 'Q-class' order. No one ever heard of them, very often they would have seemed quite meaningless under description, and generally they were things that he alone could do – or do as effectively at all events. In the obsolete phraseology of the day, they were his 'bit.'

'There's this man Hulse,' Flinders had proceeded, when it came to the business on which Carrados had been asked to call at Whitehall. 'Needless to say, he's no fool or Jonathan wouldn't have sent him on the ticket he carries. If anything, he's too keen – wants to see everything, do anything and go everywhere. In the meanwhile he's kicking up his heels here in London with endless time on his hands and the Lord only knows who mayn't have a go at him.'

'You mean for information – or does he carry papers?' asked Carrados.

'Well, at present, information chiefly. He necessarily knows a lot of things that would be priceless to the Huns, and a clever man or woman might find it profitable to nurse him.'

'Still, he must be on his guard if, as you say, he is. No one imagines that London in 1917 is a snakeless, Eden