possibly a momentary ray of light had been their guide they came direct to the locked door.
'Parkinson,' called Carrados.
'Yes, sir,' replied that model attendant.
'We are all in here; Mr. Hulse and myself, and three – I am afraid that I can make no exception – three unfriendlies. At the moment the electric light is out of action, the key of the locked door has been mislaid, and firearms are being promiscuously flourished in the dark. That is the position. Now if you have the key, Hulse-'
'I have,' replied Hulse grimly, 'but for a fact I dropped it down my neck out of harm's way and where the plague it's got to-'
As it happened the key was not required. The heavier of the officers outside, believing in the element of surprise, stood upon one foot and shot the other forward with the force and action of an engine piston-rod. The shattered door swung inward and the three men rushed into the room.
Darragh had made up his mind, and as the door crashed he raised his hand to fire into the thick. But at that moment the light flashed on again and almost instantly was gone. Before his dazzled eyes and startled mind could adjust themselves to this he was borne down. When he rose again his hands were manacled.
'So,' he breathed laboriously, bending a vindictive eye upon his outwitter. 'When next we meet it will be my turn, I think.'
'We shall never meet again,' replied Carrados impassively. 'There is no other turn for you, Darragh.'
'But where the blazes has Kuromi got to?' demanded Hulse with sharp concern. 'He can't have quit?'
One of the policemen walked to a table in the farthest corner of the room, looked down beyond it, and silently raised a beckoning hand. They joined him there.
'Rum way these foreigners have of doing things,' remarked the other disapprovingly. 'Now who the Hanover would ever think of a job like that?'
'I suppose,' mused the blind man, as he waited for the official arrangements to go through, 'that presently I shall have to live up to Hulse's overwhelming bewonderment. And yet if I pointed out to him that the buttonhole of the coat he is now wearing still has a stitch in it to keep it in shape and could not by any possibility… Well, well, perhaps better not. It is a mistake for the conjurer to explain.'
THE GHOST WALKER
Edgar Wallace
Don Murdock came to the territories with three guns and a breaking heart. At least he had tried to keep the rifts wedged open and still preserved the similitude of hopeless grief and unconquerable despair. It had been easy enough that night when the New York skyline was falling astern and he had looked over the side of the
This man, thought Donald, swallowing a lump in his throat, was going back to a woman who loved him. A sane, shrewd mother of children, who went to church on Sundays and scoffed at ghosts. He could not imagine Mr. Pilot and Mrs. Pilot facing one another, trembling with fury over the matter of manifestations.
He could not imagine Mrs. Pilot drawing her wedding ring from her finger, flinging it on to the table and saying: 'I think we are wasting time, Donald: you cannot understand and never will understand. You are just puffed up with conceit like every other college boy – you think people are crazy because you haven't the vision or the enterprise to get outside your own narrow circle…'
All that sort of stuff, mostly illogical, but very, very, poignant.
So Donald went tragically to the wilds and made a will before leaving New York, leaving half of his four million dollars to Jane Fellaby and the other half to found a society for the suppression of Spiritualism.
Jane had been bitten very badly. She had sat in at seances and had heard voices and seen trumpets move and heard tambourines play, and had had other spiritual experiences. And she objected to his description of Professor Steelfit as a 'fake' and her spiritualistic aunt as a halfwit – and here he was sailing for Africa, the home of primitive realities and lions and fever.
Mr. Commissioner Sanders did not like visitors in the Territories. They were a responsibility, and usually he ran them up to Chubiri on the lower river (which is as safe as Bond Street and much safer than Broadway) and sent them back to the ship with a thrilling sense of having faced fearful dangers.
Bones was usually the guide on these occasions.
'On your right, dear old friends, is the village of Goguba, where there was a simply fearful massacre… shockin' old bird named N'sumu used to be chief an' the silly old josser got tight an' behaved simply scandalously. On the left, dear young miss, is the island where all these old johnnies are buried… over there's where a perfectly ghastly feller named Oofaba drowned his naughty old self…'
But the 'tourist' with letters of introduction was not really welcome, though he or she had little to complain of in the matter of courtesy and loving-kindness.
'Bones, here's a job for you.' Sanders looked up from the letters he was reading at breakfast. 'We are getting a 'Cook' for a couple of weeks.'
Bones sighed audibly.
'Not me, dear old excellency,' he begged. 'It's Ham's turn.'
'He's an American,' said Sanders.
Bones was interested.
He knew America. There was scarcely a town in the United States to which he had not written for Folder K, for Lieutenant Tibbetts was a most assiduous reader of magazine advertisements, and his touching faith in the efficacy of correspondence schools had produced his most expensive hobbies.
Sanders might not like visitors, but he had a particularly keen admiration for wholesome youth, and Donald Murdock was one of those shy and diffident boys whose appeal was instant.
He came with the most unusual credentials – a letter from the American Ambassador in London, supported by a request from Whitehall, which was a command.
'Yes – you can go as far as you like, Mr. Murdock – which I hope will be as far as
Youth cleaves to youth: Donald took up his quarters in Bones' hut. Within five hours of their meeting (the visitor arrived by the mail boat in the afternoon) they were swopping love affairs.
'…not like any other girl, you understand, Bones. If she'd been one of those gosh-awful creatures that take up spiritualism, it wouldn't have mattered.'
'I knew a girl once,' mused Bones. 'She was fearfully fond of me, but she played bridge. I said to her: 'My
