Classic Audiobook Collection - Judith Lee - Pages From Her Life by Richard Marsh ~ Full Audiobook [mystery]

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Judith Lee - Pages From Her Life by Richard Marsh audiobook. Genre: mystery In Judith Lee - Pages From Her Life, Richard Marsh introduces an unconventional sleuth whose sharp eye for human nature is matched only by her refusal to be underestimated. Judith Lee, a young woman of independent means and restless intelligence, keeps careful notes on the odd incidents and private dramas that cross her path - and those pages soon become a record of mysteries no one else can quite explain. From chance encounters in drawing rooms and on city streets to puzzling disappearances and seemingly trivial clues that point to darker designs, Judith follows the thread of each case with calm persistence, practical courage, and a knack for noticing what others overlook. As rumors, misdirection, and social expectations close in, she must navigate a world where appearances are weaponized and where the smallest detail can expose a carefully hidden truth. Blending brisk investigations with the atmosphere of late-Victorian and Edwardian London, Marsh crafts a portrait of a pioneering female detective who turns everyday observation into a quiet form of power - and proves that the most dangerous secrets are often the ones kept in plain sight. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:36:02) Chapter 02 (01:27:23) Chapter 03 (02:10:45) Chapter 04 (02:55:23) Chapter 05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judith Lee, pages from her life by Richard Marsh. Chapter 1. The Man Who Cut Off My Hair My Name is Judith Lee. I am a teacher of the deaf and dumb. I teach them by what it's called the oral system, that is, the lip-reading system. When people pronounce a word correctly, they all make exactly the same movements with their lips, so that without hearing a sound, you only have to watch them very closely to know what they are saying. of course this needs practice and some people do it better and quicker than others i suppose i must have a special knack in that direction because i do not remember a time when by merely watching people speaking at a distance no matter at what distance if i could see them clearly i did not know what they were saying in my case the gift or knack or whatever it is is hereditary my father was a teacher of the deaf and dumb a very successful one his father was a teacher of the deaf and dumb a very successful one his father was a good

was, I believe, one of the originators of the oral system. My mother, when she was first married, had an impediment in her speech which practically made her dumb. Though she was stone deaf, she became so expert at lip-reading that she could not only tell what others were saying, but she could speak herself, audibly, although she could not hear her own voice. So you see, I have lived in the atmosphere of lip-reading all my life. When people, as they often do, think my skill at it borders on the marvelous, I always explain to them that it is nothing of the kind, that mine is simply a case of practice makes perfect. This knack of mine in a way is almost equivalent to another sense. It has led me into the most singular situations, and it has

been the cause of many really extraordinary adventures. I will tell you of one which happened to me when I was quite a child, the details of which have never faded from my memory. My father and mother were abroad, and I was staying with some old and trusted servants in a little cottage which we had in the country. I suppose I must have been between twelve and thirteen years of age. I was returning by train to the cottage from a short visit which I had been paying to some friends. In my compartment there were two persons beside myself, an elderly woman who sat in front of me, and a man who was at the other end of her seat. At a station not very far from my home, the woman got out.

a man got in and placed himself besides the one who was already there i could see they were acquaintances they began to talk to each other they had been talking together for some minutes in such low tones that you could not only not hear their words you could scarcely tell that they were speaking but that made no difference to me though they spoke in the tiniest whisper i had only to look at their faces to know exactly what they were saying as a matter of fact happening to glance up from the magazine i was reading i saw the man who had been there first say to the other something which gave me quite a start what he said was this i only saw the fag end of the sentence myrtle cottage it's got a great old myrtle in the front garden the other man said something but at a very old mertel's the other man said something but at the same thing but it was a very fag end of the sentence myrtle cottage it's got a great old myrtle in the front garden the other man said something but as his face was turned from me i could not see what the tone in which he spoke was so subdued that hearing was out of the question the first man replied whose face was to me his name is colgate he's an old bachelor who uses the place as a summer cottage i know him well all the dealers know him he's got some of the finest old silver in england there is a charles the second salt seller in the place which would fetch twenty pounds an ounce he's a anywhere. The other man sat up erect and shook his head, looking straight in front of him so that I could see what he said, though he spoke only in a whisper. Old silver is no better than new. You can only melt it. The other man seemed to grow quite warm.

Only melt it? Don't be a fool. You don't know what you're talking about. I can get rid of old silver at good prices to collectors all over the world. They don't ask too many questions when they think they're getting a bargain. That stuff at Myrtle Cottage is worth to us well over a thousand. I shall be surprised if I don't get more for it. The other man must have glanced at me while I was watching his companion speak. He was a fair-haired man with a pair of light blue eyes and quite a nice complexion. He whispered to his friend.

That infernal kid is watching us as if she were all eyes. The other said, Let her watch. Much good may ado her she can't hear a word, goggle-eyed brat. what he meant by goggle-eyed i didn't know and it was true that i could not hear but as it happened it was not necessary that i should i think the other must have been suspicious because he replied if possible in a smaller whisper than ever i should like to twist her skinny neck and throw her out on the line he looked as if he could do it too such an unpleasant look came into his eyes that it quite frightened me after all i was alone with him i was quite small it would have been perfectly easy for him for him to have done what he said he would like to do. So I glanced back in my magazine

and left the rest of their conversation unwatched. But I had heard, or rather seen, enough to set me thinking. I knew Myrtle Cottage quite well, and the big Myrtle Tree. It was not very far from our own cottage, and I knew Mr. Colgate and his collection of old silver, particularly that Charles II salt-seller, of which he was so proud. What interest had it for these two men?

Had Mr. Colgate come to the cottage? he was not there when i left or had mr and mrs baines who kept house for him had they come i was so young and so simple that it never occurred to me that there could be anything sinister about these two whispering gentlemen they both got out at the station before ours ours was a little village station with a platform on only one side of the line the one at which they got out served for quite an important place our local market town i thought no more about them but i did think of mr colgate and a myrtle cottage dixon our housekeeper said that she did not believe that any one was at the cottage but she owned that she was not sure so after tea i went for a stroll without saying a word to any one one. Dixon had such a troublesome habit of wanting to know exactly where you were going. My stroll took me to Myrtle Cottage. It stood all by itself in a most secluded situation on the other side of Woodbarrow Common. You could scarcely see the house from the road. It was quite a little house. When I got into the garden and saw that the front room window is open, I jumped to the very

natural conclusion that someone must be there. I quickly went to the window. I was on the most intimate terms with everyone about the place. I should never have dreamt of announcing my presence in any formal manner, and looked in. What I saw did surprise me. In the room was the man of the train, the man who had been in my compartment first. He had what seemed to me, Mr. Colgate's entire collection of old silver spread out, on the table in front of him, and in that very moment he was holding up that gem of the collection, the Charles II salt-seller. I had moved very quietly, meaning to take Mr. Colgate if it was he by surprise. But I doubt, if I had made a noise, that that man would have heard me.

He was so wrapped up in that apple of Mr. Colgate's eye. I did not know what to make of it all. I did not know what to think. What was that man doing there? What was I to do? Should I speak to him? I was just trying to make up my mind, when someone from behind lifted me right off my feet,

and, putting a hand to my throat, squeezed it so tight that it hurt me. If you make a sound, I'll choke the life right out of you. Don't you make any mistake about it, I will. He said that out loudly enough, though it was not so very loud either. He spoke so close to my ear. I could scarcely breathe, but I could still see, and I could see that the man who held me so horribly by the throat

was the second man of the train. The recognition seemed to be mutual. If it isn't that infernal brat, She seemed to be all eyes in the railway carriage, and my word, she seems to have been all ears, too. The first man had come to the window. What's up? he asked. Who's that kid you've got hold of there? My captor twisted my face round for the other to look at. Can't you see for yourself? I felt somehow that she was listening. She couldn't have heard, even if she was. No one could have heard what we were saying.

Hand her in here. I was passed through the window to the other, who can't. kept as tight a grip on my throat as his friend had done. Who are you? he asked. I'll give you a chance to answer, but if you try to scream, I'll twist your head right off you. He loosed his grip just enough to enable me to answer if I wished, but I did not wish. I kept perfectly still.

His companion said, What's the use of wasting time? Slid her throat and get done with it. He took from the table a dreadful looking knife, with a blade eighteen inches long, which I knew very well. Mr. Colgate had it in his collection because of its beautifully chased massive silver handle. It had belonged to one of the old Scottish chieftains.

Mr. Colgate would sometimes make me go all goose flesh by telling me of some of the awful things for which, in the old lawless bloodthirsty days in Scotland, it was supposed to have been used. I knew that he kept it in beautiful condition, with the edge as sharp as a razor, so you can fancy what my feelings were when that man drew the blade across my throat so close to the skin that it all but grazed me before you'd cut her up observed his companion we'll tie her up we'll make short work of her this bit of rope will about do the dodge he had what looked to me like a length of clothes-line in his hand with it between them they tied me to a great oak chair so tight that it would seem to cut right into me and lest i should scream with the pain the man with the blue eyes tied something across my mouth in a way which made it impossible for me to utter a sound then he threatened me with that knife again and just as i made sure he was going to cut my throat he caught hold of my hair which of course was hanging down my back

and with that dreadful knife sawed the whole of it from my head if i could have got within reach of him at that moment i believe that i should have stuck that knife into it rage made me half beside myself he had destroyed what was almost the dearest thing in the world to me not because of my own love for it but on account of my mother's my mother had often quoted to me the glory of a woman is her hair and she would add that mine was very beautiful there was certainly a great deal of it she was so proud of my hair that she had made me proud of it too for her sake and to think that this man could have robbed me of it in so hideous a way i do believe that at the moment i could have killed him i suppose he saw the fury which possessed me because he laughed and struck me across the face of my own hair i've half of mind to cram it down your throat he said it didn't take me long to cut it off but i'll cut your throat even quicker if you so much as try to move my little dear the other man said to him she can't move and she can't make a sound either you leave her alone come over here and attend to business i'll learn her replied the other man and he lifted my hair above my head and let it fall all over me they were seated to wrap up each piece of mr colegate's collection and tissue paper and then to pack the hole into two queer-shaped bags pretty heavy they must have been it was only then that i realized what they were doing they were stealing mr colegate's collection they were going to take it away the fury which possessed me as i sat there helpless and watched them the pain was bad enough but my rage was worse when the man who had cut off my hair moved to the window with one of the bags held in both his hands it was as much as he could carry.

He said to his companion with a glance towards me, hadn't I better cut her throat before I go? You can come and do that presently, replied the other. You'll find her waiting. Then he dropped his voice and I saw him say, Now you quite understand? The other nodded. What is it?

The face of the man who had cut my hair was turned towards me. He put his lips very close to the other, speaking in the tiniest whisper, which he never dreamed would catch my ear. cotterl cloakroom victoria station brighton railway the other whispered that's right you better make a note of it we don't want any bungling no fear i'm not likely to forget then he repeated his previous words cotterl cloakroom victoria station brighton railway he whispered this so earnestly that i felt sure there was something about the words which was most important by the time he had said them a second time they were printed on my brain quite as indelible as they were on his. He got out of the window, and his bag was passed to him. Then he spoke a parting word to me. Sorry I can't take a lock of your hair with me. Perhaps I'll come back for one

presently. Then he went, if he had known the passion which was blazing in my heart, that illusion to my desecrated locks only made it burn still fiercer. His companion left alone paid no attention to me whatever. He continued to secure his bag, searched the room as a little. if for anything which he might have overlooked, then bearing the bag with the other half of Mr. Colgate's collection with him, he went through the door, ignoring my presence as if I had never existed. What he did afterwards, I cannot say. I saw no more of it. I was left alone all through the night. What a night it was. I was not afraid. I can honestly say that I have seldom been afraid of anything. I suppose it is a matter of temperament. But I was most uncomfortable, very

unhappy, and each moment the pain caused me by my bonds seemed to be growing greater. I do believe that the one thing which enabled me to keep my senses all through the night was the constant repetition of those mystic words, cotterill, cloakroom, Victoria Station, Brighton Railway. In the midst of my trouble, I was glad that what some people called my curious gift had enabled me to see what I was quite sure they had never meant should reach my understanding. What the words meant, I had no notion. In themselves, they seemed to be silly words. But that they had some hidden, weighty meaning, I was so sure that I kept seeing them over and over, lest they should slip through my memory. I do not know if I ever closed my eyes. I certainly never

slept. I saw the first gleams of light usher in the dawn of another morning, and I knew the sun had risen. I wondered what they were doing at home, between the repetitions of that cryptic phrase. Was Dixon looking for me? I rather wished I had let her know where I was going, than she might have some idea of where to look. As it was, she had none. I had some acquaintances three or four miles off, with whom I would sometimes go to tea,

and without warning to anyone at home, stay the night. I am afraid that even as a child my habits were erratic. Dixon might think I was staying with them, and if so, she would not even trouble to look for me. In that case, I may have to stay where I was for day, days. I do not know what time it was, but it seemed to me that it had been light for weeks and that the day must be nearly gone, when I heard steps outside the open window. I was very nearly in a state of stupor, but I still had sense enough to wonder if it was that man who had

cut my hair come back again to cut my throat. As I watched the open sash, my heart began to beat more vigorously than it had for a very long time. What then was my relief, when there presently appeared on the other side of it, the face of Mr. Colgate, the owner of Myrtle Cottage. I tried to scream with joy, but that cloth around my mouth prevented my uttering a sound. I shall never forget the look which came on Mr. Colgate's face when he saw me. He rested his hands on the sill as if he wondered how the window had come to be open. Then when he looked in and saw me, what a jump he gave. Judith, he exclaimed, Judith Lee, surely it is Judith Lee.

He was a pretty old man, or so he seemed to me, but I doubt if a boy could have got through that window quicker than he did. He was by my side in less than no time. With a knife which he took from his pocket was severing my bonds. The agony which came over me as they were loosed. It was worse than anything which had gone before. The moment my mouth was free, I exclaimed, even then I was struck by the funny, hoarse voice in which I seemed to be speaking. Cotterle! cloakroom victoria station brighton railway so soon as i had got those mysterious words out of my poor parts throat i fainted the agony i was suffering the strain which i had gone through proving too much for me

i knew dimly that i was tumbling into mr colegate's arms and then i knew no more when i came back to life i was in bed dixon was at my bedside and dr scott and mr colgate and pierced the village policeman in a man who i afterwards knew was a detective who had been sent over post haste from a neighboring town i wondered where i was and then i saw i was in a room in myrtle cottage i sat up in bed put up my hands then it all came back to me he cut off my hair with mr mcgregor's knife mcgregor was the name of the highland chieftain to whom according to mr colgate that dreadful knife had belonged when it did all come back to me and i realized what had happened and felt how strange my head seemed without its accustomed covering nothing would satisfy me but that they should bring me a looking-glass when i saw what i looked like the rage which had possessed me when the outrage first took place surged through me with greater force than ever before they could stop me or even guess what i was going to do i was out of bed and facing them that cryptic utterance came back to me as if of its own initiative it burst from my lips cottero cloakroom victoria station brighton railway where are my clothes that's where the man is who cut off my hair they stared at me i believe that for a moment they thought that what i had endured had turned my brain and that i was mad but i soon made it perfectly clear that i was not that i was mad but i soon made it perfectly clear that i was nothing of the kind. I told them my story as fast as I could speak. I fancy I brought it home to their understanding. Then I told them of the words which I had seen spoken in such a solemn whisper,

and which now I was sure they were pregnant with weighty meaning. Cotterill, cloakroom, Victoria Station, Brighton Railway, that's where the man is who cut off my hair, that's where I'm going to catch him. The detective was pleased to admit that there might be something in my theory, and that it would be worth going up to Victoria Station to see what the words might mean. Nothing would satisfy me, but that we should go at once. I was quite convinced that every moment was of importance, and that if we were not quick, we should be too late. I won Mr. Colgate over, of course, he was almost as anxious to get his collection back as I was to be quits with the miscreant who had shorn me of my locks. So we went up to the town by the first train we could catch.

Mr. Colgate, the detective, and an excited and practically hairless child. When we got to Victoria Station, we marched straight up to the cloakroom, and the detective said to one of the persons on the other side of the counter, is there a parcel here for the name of Cotterill? The person to whom he had spoken did not reply, but another man who was standing by his side. Cotterle, a package for the name of Cotterill has just been taken out, a handbag scarcely more than half a minute ago.

you must have seen him walking off with it as you came up he can hardly be out of sight now leaning over the counter he looked along the platform there he is some one is just going to speak to him i saw the person to whom he referred a shortish man in a light grey suit carrying a brown leather hand-bag i also saw the person who was going to speak to him and thereupon i ceased to have eyes for the man with the bag i broke into exclamation there's the man who cut my hair I cried. I went rushing along the platform as hard as I could go. Whether the man had heard me or not, I cannot say. I dare say I had spoken loudly enough. But he gave one glance in my direction, and when he saw me, I have no doubt that he remembered. He whispered to the man with the bag. I was near enough to see, though not to hear what he said. In spite of the rapidity with which his lips were moving, I saw quite distinctly, Bantick, 13 Hardwood Street, Oxford Street.

that was what he said and no sooner had he said it than he turned and fled from me i knew he was flying from me and he gave me huge satisfaction to know that the mere sight of me had made him run i was conscious that mr colgate and the detective were coming in a pretty smart pace behind me the man with the bag seeing his companion dart off without the slightest warning glanced round to see what had caused his hasty flight i suppose he saw me and the detective and mr hargate and he drew his own conclusions he dropped that hand-bag as if it had been red-hot and off he ran he ran to such purpose that we never caught him neither him nor the man who had cut my hair The station was full of people. A train had just come in. The crowd streaming out covered the platform with a swarm of moving figures. They acted as cover to those two eager gentlemen. They got off clean. But we got the bag, and, one of the station officials coming on the scene, we were shown to an apartment where, after explanations had been made,

the bag and its contents were examined. Of course, we had realized from the very first moment that Mr. Colgate's collection could not possibly be in that bag because it was not nearly large enough. When it was seen what was in it, something like a sensation was created. It was crammed with small articles of feminine clothing. In nearly every garment, jewels were wrapped,

which fell out of them as they were withdrawn from the bag. Such jewels! You should have seen the display they made when they were spread out upon the leather-covered table, and our faces as we stared at them. This does not look like my collection of a little. old silver, observed Mr. Colgate. No, remarked a big broad-shouldered man, who I afterwards learned was a well-known London detective, who had been induced by our detective to join our party.

This does not look like your collection of old silver, sir. It looks, if you'll excuse my saying so, like something very much more worth finding. Unless I am mistaken, these are the Duchess of Datchett's jewels, some of which she wore at the last drawing-room, and which were taken from from her Grace's bedroom after her return. The police all over Europe have been looking for them for more than a month. That bag has been with us nearly a month. The party who took it out paid four and sixpence for cloakroom charges, tuppence a day for twenty-seven days.

The person from the cloak-room had come with us to that apartment. It was he who said this. The London detective replied, paid four and sixpence, did he? Well, it was worth it to us. Now if I could lay my house. hand on the party who put that bag in the cloak room, I might have a word of a kind to say to him. I had been staring wide-eyed, as piece by piece the contents of the bag had been disclosed.

I had been listening, open-eared to what the detective said, when he made that remark about laying his hands on the party who had deposited that bag in the cloak-room, there came into my mind the word which I had seen the man who had cut my hair whisper as he fled to the man with the bag. The cryptic sentence, which I had seen him whisper as I sat tied to the chair, had indeed proved to be full of meaning. The words which, even in the moment of flight, he had felt bound to utter, might just be as full. I ventured on an observation, the first which I had made, speaking with a good deal of diffidence.

I think I know where he might be found. I'm not sure, but I think. All eyes returned to me, the detective exclaimed. You think you know? And we haven't got so far as thinking, if you were to tell us, little lady, what you think it might be as well, mightn't it? I considered. I wanted to get the words exactly right.

Suppose you were to try. I paused so as to make quite sure. Bantock, 13 Hardwood Street, Oxford Street. And who is Bantock? The detective asked. And what do you know about him anyhow? I don't know anything at all about. him but i saw the man who cut my hair whispered to the other man just before he ran banshawk thirteen hardwood street oxford street i saw him quite distinctly

you saw him whisper what does the girl mean by saying she saw him whisper why young lady you must have been quite fifty feet away how at that distance and with all the noise of the traffic could you hear a whisper i didn't say i heard him i said i saw him i don't need to hear to know what a person is saying that-and-a-person is saying i saw him i don't need to hear to know what a person is saying that saying, I just saw you whisper to the other man, the young lady seems to be by way of being a curiosity. The London detective stared at our detective. He seemed to be bewildered. But I, I don't know how you heard that. I scarcely breathed the words. Mr. Colgate explained. When they heard, they all seemed to be bewildered, and they looked at me, as people do at the present day, as if I were some strange and amazing thing. The London detective said, I've never heard the like to that. It seems to me very much like what old-fashioned people call black magic.

Although he was a detective, he could not have been a very intelligent person, after all, or he would not have talked such nonsense. Then he added, with an accent on the saw, What was it you said you saw him, whisper? I bargained before I told him. I will tell you if you let me come with you. Let you come with me? He stared still more.

What does the girl mean? Her presence, stuck in Mr. Colgate, may be useful for purposes of recognition. She won't be in the way. You can do no harm by letting her come. If you don't promise to let me come, I shan't tell you. The big man laughed. He seemed to find me amusing. I do not know why.

If he had only understood my feeling on the subject of my hair, and how I yearned to be even with the man who had wrought me what seemed to me such an irreparable injury. I dare say it sounds as if I were very revengeful. I do not think it was a question of vengeance only. I wanted justice. The detective took out a fat notebook. Very well, it's a bargain. Tell me what you saw him whisper, and you shall come.

So I told him again, and he wrote it down. Bantock, 13 Hardwood Street, Oxford Street. I know Harwood Street, though I don't know Mr. Bantock. But he seems to be residing at what is generally understood. to be an unlucky number. Let me get a message through to the yard. We may want assistance. Then we'll pay a visit to Mr. Bantock, if there is such a person. It sounds like a very tall story to me. I believe that even then he doubted if I had seen what I said I saw. When we did start, I was feeling pretty nervous, because I realized that if we were going on a fool's errand, and there did

turn out to be no Bantock, that London detective would doubt me more than ever. And of course, I could not be sure that there was such a person, though it was some comfort to know that there was a Harwood Street. We went four in a cab, the two detectives Mr. Colgate and I. We had gone some distance before the cab stopped. The London detective said, This is Hardwood Street.

I told the driver to stop at this corner. We will walk the rest of the way. A cab might arouse suspicion, you never know. It was a street full of shops. Number 13 proved to be a sort of curiosity shop and jewelers combined, quite a respectable looking place, and sure enough, over the top of the window was the name Bantock. That looks as if at any rate there were a Bantock, the big man said. It was quite a weight off my own mind when I saw the name. Just as we reached the shop,

a cab drew up and five men got out, whom the London detective seemed to recognize with mingled feelings. That's queered the show, he exclaimed. I did not know what he meant. They roused suspicion, if they do nothing else, so in we go. And in we went, the detective first, and eye close on his heels. There were two young men standing close together behind the counter. The instant we appeared, I saw one whisper to the other, Give them the office, ring the alarm bell, they're techs. I did not know what he meant either, but I guessed enough to make me cry out.

Don't let him move, he's going to ring the alarm bell and give them the office. Those young men were so startled, they must have been quite sure that I could not have heard, that they both stood still and stared. Before they had got over there surprise, a detective, they were detectives who had come in the second cab, had each by the shoulder. There was a door at the end of the shop which the London detective opened. There's a staircase here. We'd better go up and see who's above.

You chaps keep yourselves handy. You may be wanted. When I call you come. He mounted the stairs. As before, I was as close to him as I could very well get. On the top of the staircase was a landing, onto which two doors opened. We paused to listen. I could distinctly hear voices coming through one of them.

I think this is ours, the London detective said. He opened the one through which the voices were coming. He marched in. I was still as close to him as I could get. In it were several men. I did not know how many, and I did not care. I had eyes for only one. i walked right past the detective up to the table round which some of them were sitting some standing and stretching out on an accusatory arm i pointed at one that's the man who cut off my hair

it was and he well knew it his conscience must have smitten him i should not have thought that a grown man could be so frightened at the sight of a child he caught hold with both hands of the side of the table he glared at me as if i were some dreadful apparition and no doubt to him i was It was only with an effort that he seemed to be able to use his voice. Good night, he exclaimed. It's that infernal kid. On the table right in front of me, I saw something with which I was only too familiar. I snatched it up. And this is the knife, I cried, with which he did it. It was, the historical blade which had once belonged to the sanguinary and, I sincerely trust, more or less apocryphal McGregor.

I held it out toward the gaping man. you know that this is the knife with which you cut off my hair i said you know it is i dare say i looked a nice young termagant with my short hair rage in my eyes and that frightful weapon in my hand apparently i did not impress him quite as i intended at least his demeanor did not suggest it by the living jingo he shouted i wish i had cut her throat with it as well it was fortunate for him that he did not probably in the long run he would have suffered for it more than he did, though he suffered pretty badly as it was. It was his cutting my hair that did it. Had he not done that, I have little doubt that I should have been too conscious of the pains caused me by my bonds, the marks caused by the cord were on my skin for weeks after, to pay such close attention to their proceedings as I did under the spur of anger. Quite possibly that tell-tale whisper would have gone unnoticed. Absorbed by my own suffering, I should have paid

very little heed to the cryptic sentence, which really proved to be their undoing. It was the outrage to my locks, which caused me to strain every faculty of observation I had. He had much better have left them alone. That was the greatest capture the police had made for years. In one hall, they captured practically every member of a gang of cosmopolitan thieves who were wanted by the police all over the world. The robbery of Mr. Colgate's collection of old silver shrank into insignificance before the rest of their misdeeds. And not only were the thieves themselves taken, but the proceeds of no end of robberies.

It seemed that they had met there for a sort of annual division of the common spoil. There was an immense quantity of valuable property before them on the table, and lots more about the house. Those jewels which were in the bag, which had been deposited at the cloakroom at Victoria Station, were to have been added to the common fund, to say nothing of Mr. Colgate's collection of old silver. The man who called himself Bantock, and who owned the premises at 13 Hardwood Street,

proved to be a well-known dealer in precious stones and jewelry and bric-a-brac and all sorts of valuables. He was immensely rich. It was shown that a great deal of his money had been made by buying and selling valuable stolen property of every sort and kind. Before the police had done with him, it was made abundantly clear that, under various aliases, in half the countries of the world,

he had been a wholesale dealer in stolen goods. He was sentenced to a long term of penal servitude. I am not quite sure, but I believe that he died in jail. All the men who were in that room were sent to prison for different terms, including the man who cut my hair, to say nothing of his companion. So far as the proceedings at the court were concerned, I never appeared at all. Compared to some of the crimes of which they had been guilty,

the robbery of Mr. Colgate Silver was held to be a mere nothing. They were not charged with it at all, so my evidence was not required. But every time I looked at my scanty locks, which took years to grow to anything like a decent length, they had reached to my knees, but they never did that again. Each time I stood before a looking-glass, and saw what a curious spectacle I presented with my closely-cropped pole, something of that old rage came back to me, which had been during that first month, moment in my heart, and I felt what I felt when I was tied to that chair in Myrtle Cottage. I endeavored to console myself in the spirit of the old world rather than the new,

that, owing to the gift which was mine, I had been able to cry something like quits with the man who, in a moment of mere wanton savagery, had deprived me of what ought to be the glory of a woman. End of Chapter 2 of Judith Lee, pages from her life by Richard Marsh. this livervox recording is in the public domain ease-dropping at interlocking i have sometimes thought that this gift of mine for reading words as they issue from people's lips places me with or without my will in the position of the ease-dropper there have been occasions on which before i knew it i have been made cognizant of conversations of confidences which were meant to be sacred and though such knowledge has been acquired through no fault of mine i have felt ashamed just as if i had been listening at a keyhole and i have almost wished that the power which nature gave me and which years of practice have made perfect was not mine at all on the other hand there have been times when i was very glad indeed that i was able to play the part of eavesdropping of eavesdropper. As to the very strict purists, this may not sound a pleasant confession to make, I will give an instance of the kind of thing I mean. I suppose I was about seventeen. I know I had

just put my hair up, which had grown to something like a decent length, since it had come in contact with the edge of that doughty Scottish chieftain's McGregor's knife. My mother was not very well. My father was reluctant to leave her. It looked as if the summer holiday, which was a lot of who had been promised to me was in peril, when two acquaintances, Mr. and Mrs. Travers, rather than that I should lose it altogether, offered to take me under their wing. They were going for a little tour in Switzerland, proposing to spend most of their time at Interlaken, and my parents, feeling that I should be perfectly safe with them, accepted their proffered chaperonage. Everything went well, until we got to Interlaken. There we met some friends who were going on a climbing expedition,

and as Mr. and Mrs. Travers were both keen mountaineers, they were very eager to join them. I was the only difficulty in their way. They could not say exactly how long they would be absent, but probably a week, and what was to become of me in that great hotel there all alone? They protested that it would be quite impossible to leave me. They would have to give up that climb, and I believe they would have done so if what seemed to be a solution of the difficulty had not turned up. The people in the hotel were, for the most part, very sociable folk, as people in such places are apt to be. Among other persons, whose acquaintance we had made was a middle-aged widow, a Mrs. Hawthorne. When she heard of what Mr. and Mrs. Travers wanted to do,

and how they could not do it because of me, she volunteered during their absence to occupy their place as my chaperone, assuring them that every possible care should be taken of me. In the hotel, were stopping a brother and sister, a Mr. and Miss Sterndale. With them I had grown quite friendly. Mr. Sterndale I should have set down as 25 or 26, and his sister as a year or two younger. From the day on which I had first seen them, they had shown an inclination for my society, and to speak quite frankly, on different occasions Mr. Sterndale had paid me what seemed to me to be delicate little attentions which were very dear to my maiden heart. I had some difficult in inducing people to treat me as if I were grown up.

After a few minutes' conversation, even perfect strangers would ask me how old I was, and when I told them they were apt to assume an attitude towards me as if I were the merest child, of which I disapproved. What attracted me to Mr. Sterndale was that, from the very first, he treated me with deference, as if I were at least as old as he was. On the third day after Mr. and Mrs. Travers had left, mrs hawthorne came to me with a long face and a letter in her hand my dear i cannot tell you how annoyed i am but i shall have to go to england at once to-day and whatever will become of you it seemed that her only sister was dangerously ill and that she was implored to go to her as soon as she could of course she would have to go i told her that it did not matter in the least about me mr and mrs travers would be back a day or two and now that i knew so many people in the people in the first of the least about me mr and mrs travers would be back a day or two and now that i knew so many people in the people in the people in

hotel, who were all of them disposed to be friendly, I should be perfectly all right until they came. She must not allow any consideration for me to keep her for a moment from obeying her sister's call. She left for London that afternoon, but so far from everything being perfectly all right with me after she had gone, the very next day my troubles began. They began in the morning. I was sitting on the terrace with a book. Mr. Sturndale had been talking to me. Presently his sister came through an open French window from the lounge. Her brother went up to her, I sat still. She was at the other end of the terrace, and when she saw me, she nodded and smiled. When her brother came up to her, he said something which, as his back was towards me, of course I did not catch.

But her answer to him, which was very gently uttered, I saw quite distinctly. All the while she was speaking, she was smiling at me. She has a red Morocco jewel case, sort of a thing on the corner of her mantle shelf. I put it under the bottom tray. With the exception of that gold locket, which she is always wearing, it's the only decent thing in it. It's full of childish trumpery. That was what Miss Sturndale said to her brother, and I saw her say it with rather curious feelings. What had he asked her? To what could she be referring? I had a red Morocco jewel case sort of thing, and it stood on a corner of my mantle shelf. I also had a gold locket which, if I was not, as she put it always wearing, I did wear pretty often.

Certainly it was the only article in my jewel case, which was worth very much. With a horrid sort of qualm, I owned to myself that the rest of the contents might come under the definition of childish trumpery. She said she had put something under the bottom tray. What bottom tray? Whose bottom tray? There were trays in my jewel case. She could not possibly have meant that she put something under one of them. the idea was too preposterous.

And yet, if we had not been going to St. Beatenburg, I think I should have gone straight up to my bedroom to see. I do not know how it was, the moment before I had been perfectly happy. There was not a grain of suspicion in the air nor in my mind. Then all of a sudden I felt quite curious. Could there be two persons in the house possessed of a red Morocco jewel case sort of a thing? Which stood on a corner of the mantel shelf, in which was a gold locket and a rather mixed collection of childish trumpery, I wondered.

The evening before, we had arranged to make an excursion to St. Beatenburg on the Lake of Thune, five or six of us. I was dressed ready to start when Miss Sturndale came through that French window. She also was ready, and her brother. Presently the others appeared. I was feeling a little confused. I could not think of an excuse which would give me an opportunity of examining my jewel case. anyhow i kept trying to tell myself it was absurd i wished i could not see what people were saying merely by watching their lips my day at st beatenburg was spoiled though i kept telling myself that it was all my own fault and nobody else's everyone was gay and full of fun and laughter everyone but me my mood was so obviously out of tune with theirs that they commented on it what is the matter with you miss lee asked mrs dalton you look as if you are not enjoying yourself one little bit I did not like to say that I was not. As a matter of fact, when they rallied me, I said that I was, but it was not true.

When I got back to the hotel and was in my bedroom, I went straight up to that red Morocco jewel case sort of thing, and looked at it. It was locked just as I had left it. Clearly I'd been worrying myself all day long about nothing at all. Still I got my keys and opened it. There was nothing to show that the contents had been touched. I lifted the two trays, and I got it.

gasped. I do not know how else to describe it. Something seemed all at once to be choking me, so that it was with an effort that I breathed. In the jewel case, under the bottom tray was a pendant, a beautiful circular diamond pendant of the size, perhaps, of a five-shilling piece. It was not mine. I never had anything so beautiful in my life. Where did it come from? Could Miss Sturndale have put it there? Was that the meaning of her words? I took the pendant out. I took the pendant out. I was. I took the it was a beauty it could not be a present from sterndale's from either the sister or the brother they must have known that i could not accept such a gift as that from strangers and then what a queer way of making a present and such a present as i looked at it i began to have a very uncomfortable feeling that i had seen it before or one very like it on someone in the house my head or my brain or something seemed to be so muddled that at the moment i could not think who that someone was. I had washed, tidied myself before I decided that I would go down with

the pendant in my hand, and, at the risk of no matter what misunderstanding, ask Miss Sturndale what she meant by putting it there. So when I had gotten my unruly hair into something like order, downstairs I went, and rushed into the lounge, with so much impetuosity, that I all but canoned against Miss Goodridge, who was coming out. Good gracious, child, she exclaimed, do look where you were going. You almost knocked me over. The instant I saw her, and she said that I remembered, I knew whom I had seen wearing that diamond pendant, which I was holding tightly clasped in the palm of my hand.

It was the person whom I had almost knocked over, Miss Goodridge herself, of course. One of the persons in the hotel whom, so far as I knew anything of them, I liked least. Miss Goodridge was a tall, angular person of perhaps quite 35. who dressed and carried herself as if she were still a girl. She had been most unpleasant to me. I had no idea what I had done or said to cause her annoyance, but I had a feeling that she disliked me, and was at no pains to conceal the fact.

The sight of her, and the thought that I had nearly knocked her over, quite drove the sense out of my head. Oh, Miss Goodridge, I exclaimed, rather fatuously, You look as if something had happened. Something has happened, she replied, There's a thief in the house. I have been robbed. Someone has stolen my pendant, my diamond pendant. Someone had stolen her diamond pendant. I do not know if the temperature changed all at once, but I do know that a chill went all over me. Was that the explanation? Could it possibly be?

I did not care to carry even my thought to a logical finish. I stood there as if I were moonsruck, with Miss Goodridge looking at me with angry eyes. What is the matter with the child? she asked. I did not know you dark-skinned girls could blush, but I declare you've gone as red as a lobster. I do not know if she thought that lobsters were red before they were boiled. I tried to explain, to say what I wanted to say, but I appeared to be tongue-tied. Can't you speak? she demanded. Don't glare at me as if you'd committed a murder. Anyone would think that you have been robbed instead of me. I suppose you haven't stolen my pendant. She drew her bow at a venture, but her arrow hit the mark. "'Oh, Miss Goodridge,' I repeated.

"'It seemed to be all I could say. "'She put her hand upon my shoulder. "'What is the matter with the girl? "'You young wretch, have you been playing any tricks with that pendant of mine?' "'I found it,' I stammered. "'I held out to her my open hand with the pendant on the palm. "'You found it? "'Found what?'

"'She looked at me, and then at my outstretched hand. "'My pendant! She's got my pendant!' "'She snatched it from me. you you young thief and you have the insolence to pretend you found it i did find it i found it in my bedroom oh did you really of all the assurance i've always felt that you were the kind of creature with whom the less one had to do the better but i never credited you with a taste for this sort of thing get out of my way don't you ever dare to speak to me again she did not wait for me to get out of her way she gave me a violent push and rushed right past me It was a polished floor. If I had not come in contact with a big armchair, I should have tumbled onto it. My feelings when I was left alone in the lounge were not enviable.

At 17, even if one thinks oneself grown up, one is still only a child, and I was a stranger in a strange land, without a friend in all that great hotel, without a soul to advise me. Still as I knew that I was absolutely and entirely innocent, I did not intend to behave as if I were guilty. I went up to my room again and dressed for dinner. i told myself over and over again as i performed my simple toilette that i would make miss goodridge eat her words before she had done though at that moment i had not the faintest notion how i was going to do it that was a horrid dinner not from the culinary but from my point of view if the dinner was horrid in the lounge afterwards it was worse miss sterndale actually had the audacity to come up to me and pretend to play the part of sympathetic friend

you seem to be all alone she began i was all alone i had never thought that any one could feel so utterly alone as i did in that crowded lounge miss lee why do you look at me like that i was looking at her as if i wished her to understand that i was looking into her very soul if she had one her smiling serenity of countenance was incredible to me knowing what i knew have you bad news from home or from mr and mrs travers or are you unhappy because mrs hawthorne is gone you seem so different what has been the matter with you the whole of the day i was on the point of giving an explanation which i think might have startled her when i happened to glance across the room at a table near the open window mr sterndale was sitting with miss goodridge they were having coffee although miss goodridge was sitting sideways she continually turned her head to watch me Mr. Sterndale was sitting directly facing me. He had a cigarette in one hand, and every now and then he sipped his coffee, but most of the time he talked.

But although I could not even hear the sound of his voice, I saw what he said as distinctly as if he had been shouting in my ear. It was the sentence he was uttering, which caused me to defer the explanation which I had it in my mind to give to his sister. Of course the girl's a thief. I'm afraid that goes without saying. It was that sentence which was issuing from his lips at the moment when I chanced a glance in his direction,

which caused the explanation I had been about to make to his sister to be deferred. Miss Goodridge had her coffee cup up to her mouth, so I could not see what she said, but if I had been put to it, I might have made a very shrewd guest by the reply he made. He took his cigarette from his lips, blew out a thin column of smoke, leaned back in his chair, and all the time he was looking smilingly. at me with what he meant me to think were the eyes of a friend. It's all very well for you to talk. I may have had my suspicions, but it is only within the last hour or two that they have been confirmed. She said something which again I could not see. His reply suggested that she must

have asked a question. I'll tell you what I mean by saying that my doubts have been confirmed. A man was passing through this afternoon with whom I have had some acquaintance, the rector of Leeds. I wonder he did not say the Bishop of London. He saw our friend. He made a slight inclination of his head towards me. At sight of her he exclaimed, Hello, there's that Burnett girl. For a parson, he has rather a free and easy way of speaking.

He's one of your modern kind. I believed him. Burnett girl, I said, but her name's Lee, Judith Lee. Oh, she calls herself Lee now, does she? That settles it. Settles what, I asked? because I saw there was something in his tone. My dear Reggie, he said.

He always calls me Reggie. I've known him for years. At the beginning of the season, that girl whom you called Judith Lee was at Pontresina, staying in the same hotel as I was. She called herself Burnett then. Robberies were going on all the time. People were continually missing things. At last, a Russian woman lost a valuable lot of jewelry. That settled it, Miss Burnett went.

Miss Goodrich turned so that her face was hidden, but as before his reply gave me a pretty good clue as to the question she had asked. Of course I mean it. Do you think I'd say a thing like that if I didn't mean it? I won't tell you all, he said. It wouldn't be quite fair. But it came to this. He said that the young lady whom we have all thought was so sweet and innocent, Miss Goodrich interposed with a remark which, in a guessing competition, I think I could have come pretty near to. He replied, Well, I've sometimes felt That you were rather hard on her, That perhaps you were a trifle prejudice.

Miss Goodridge turned her face towards me, And then I saw her words, I'm a better judge of feminine human nature than you suppose. The first moment I saw her, I knew she was a young cat, Though I admit, I didn't take her to be as bad as she is. What did your clerical friend say of her? Of the Miss Burnett, whom we now know as Miss Lee?

i did not wait to learn his answer i had learnt enough what his sister thought of my demeanour i did not care i had been dimly conscious that she had been talking to me all the while but what she was saying i do not know my attention had been wholly taken up with what i did not hear before he began his reply to miss goodridge's genial inquiry i got up from my chair and marched out of the lounge without saying a word to miss sterndale when i had gone a little way i remembered that i had left my handkerchief my best lace handkerchief on the table by which i had been sitting even in the midst of my agitation i was conscious that i could not afford to lose it so i went back for it miss sterndale had joined her brother and miss goodridge two or three other people were standing by them evidently interested in what was being said i found my handkerchief as i was going off with it miss sterndale turned round in my direction without however thinking it was worth her while to break off the remark she was making taking it for granted of course that it was inaudible to me i came in as it were for the tail end of it i am so disappointed in her i have tried to like her and now i fear it is only too certain that she is one of those creatures of whom the less said the better that these words referred to me i had not the slightest doubt yet while they were still on her lips presuming on her conviction that they were hidden from me she nodded and smiled as if she were wishing me a friendly good-night the treachery of it now that i am able to look back calmly i think it was that which galled me most her brother with his gratuitous horrible lies had actually been pretending to make love to me i am sure that was what he wished me to think he was doing what a fool he must have thought me that was a sleepless night it was hours before i got between the sheets and when i did it was not to slumber the feeling that i was so entirely alone and that there was not a soul within miles and miles to whom i could turn for help

coupled with the consciousness that i had scarcely even money to pay the hotel bill and what was even worse that mr and mrs travers had gone off with the return half of my ticket to london so that i could not go back home however much i might want to these things were hard enough to bear but they seemed to be nothing as compared to that man and woman's treachery what was their motive what could have induced them was beyond my comprehension it was a problem which i strove all night to solve but the solution came on the morrow i soon knew what had happened when i went downstairs miss goodridge had told her story of the pendant and mr sterndale had circulated his lie about his clerical friend everybody shunned me some persons had the grace to pretend not to see me others looked me full in the face and cut me dead the only persons who were disposed to show any perception of my presence were the stern dales as entering the breakfast-room i passed their table they both smiled and nodded but i showed no consciousness of them as i took a seat at my own table i saw him say to his sister our young friend seems to have got her back up little idiot little idiot was i only yesterday he had called me something else the feeling that he was saying such things behind my back hurt me more than if he had shouted them into my face i averted my gaze keeping my eyes fixed on my plate i would learn no more of what he said about me or of what any one said i was conscious that life might become unendurable if i were made acquainted with the comments which people were making on me then yet as i sat there with downcast face might not they construe that as the bearing of a conscience-stricken and guilty wretch i felt sure that that was what they were doing but i could not help it i would not see what they were saying

later in the morning matters turned out so that i did see so that practically i had to see what the sterns said to each other and perhaps on the whole it was fortunate for me that i did i had spent the morning out of doors on the terrace the stern-dales are standing close together talking so engrossed were they by what they were saying that they did not notice me while though i did not wish to look at them something made me that may seem to be an exaggeration it is not it is the truth my wish was to have nothing more to do with them for ever and ever but some instinct which came i know not whence made me turn my eyes in their direction and see what they were saying and as i have already said it was well for me that i did they both seemed to be rather excited he was speaking quickly and with emphasis i tell you he was saying as i paused to watch we will do it to-day his sister said something which as she was standing sideways was lost to me he replied the little idiot has cooked her own goose there's no need for us to waste time in cooking it any more she's done i tell you we can strip the house of all it contains and they'd lock her up for doing it again his sister spoke without because of her position giving herself away to me. He went on again. There are only two things in the house worth having. I could give you a catalog of what everyone has got. Mrs. Anne Struthers' diamonds, the necklace's first rate,

and the rest of them aren't bad, and that American woman's pearls. Those five ropes of pearls are worth, I hope they'll be worth a great deal to us. The rest of the things you may make a present of to our young friend. The odium will fall on her, you'll see. We shall be able to. We shall be to depart with the only things worth having at our distinguished leisure without a stain upon our characters he smiled some people might have thought it a pleasant smile to me it seemed a horrid one that smile finished me it reminded me of the traitor's kiss i passed into the house still unnoticed though i do not suppose that if i had been noticed it would have made any difference to them what he meant by what he had said i did not clearly understand the only thing i had quite realized was that he was still making sport of me i also gathered that that was an amusement which he proposed to continue though just how i did not see nor did i grasp the inner meaning of his allusion to mrs anstruthers's diamonds and mrs newball's pearls no doubt it was mrs newball he meant when he spoke of the american woman the jewels of those two ladies which they erred at every opportunity were as i knew perfectly well the talk of the whole hotel probably that was what they meant they should be when mrs anstruther had diamonds round her neck and on her bosom and in her ears and hair and round her wrists and on her fingers

I myself had seen her wear diamond rings on all the fingers of both hands and two diamond bracelets on each wrist. She was a sight to be remembered. While Mrs. Newball, with her five strings of splendid pearls, which she sometimes wore altogether as a necklace and sometimes twisted as bracelets round her wrists, together with a heterogeneous collection of ornaments of all sorts and kinds, made a pretty good second. Not a person spoke to me the whole of that day. Everyone avoided me in a most ostentatious manner, and everyone, or nearly everyone, had been so friendly.

It was dreadful. If I had had enough money to pay the hotel bill, as well as the return half of my ticket home, I believe I should have left Interlachan there and then, but the choice of whether I would stay or go, as it turned out, was not to be left to me. Depressed, miserable, homesick, devoutly wishing that I had never left home, almost resolved that I would never leave, leave it again, I was about to go up to my room to dress for what I very well knew would only be the ghastly farce of dinner, when, as I reached the lift, a waiter came up to me and said that the manager wished to see me in his office. I did not like the man's manner. It is quite easy for a Swiss waiter to be rude, and I was on the point of telling him that at the moment I was engaged

and that the manager would have to wait, when something which I thought I saw in his eye caused me to changed my mind, and with an indefinable sense of discomfort, I allowed him to show me to the managerial sanctum. I never had liked the look of that manager. I liked it less than ever when I found myself alone in his room with him. He was a youngish man, with a mustache and hair parted mathematically in the center. In general, his bearing was too saccharine to be pleasant. He did not err in that respect just then. It was most offensive. He looked me up and down, as if I were one of his employees who had done something wrong, and without waiting for me to speak, he said,

You are Miss Judith Lee, or you pretend that is your name? He spoke English very well, as most of the Swiss one meets in hotels seem to do. Nothing could have been more impertinent than his tone, unless it was the look which accompanied it. I stared at him. I am Miss Lee, I do not pretend that is my name, it is. Very well, that is your affair, not mine.

You will no longer be allowed to occupy a room in this hotel. You can go at once. What do you mean? I asked. The man was incredible. You know very well what I mean. Don't you try that sort of thing with me. You have stolen an article of jewelry belonging to a guest in my hotel. She is a very kind-hearted lady, and she is not willing to hand you over to the police.

You owe me some money. Here's your bill. Are you going to pay it? He handed me a long strip of paper, which was, covered in figures. One glance at the total was enough to tell me that I had not enough money. Mrs. Travers was acting as my banker. She had left me with ample funds to serve as pocket money till she returned, but with nothing like enough money to pay that bill. Miss Travers will pay you when she comes back, either tomorrow or the day after. Will she? The sneer with which she said it,

how am I to know that you're not at the same game together? The same game? What do you mean? How dare you look at me like that and talk to me as if I were one of your servants? I'm not going to talk to you at all, my girl. I'm going to do. I'm not going to allow a person who robs my guests to remain in my house under any pretext whatever. Your luggage, such as it is, will remain here until my bill is paid. He rang a bell which was on the table by which he was standing. The waiter entered, who had showed me there. He was a big man with a square dark, face. This young woman must go at once. If she won't leave of her own accord, we must put her out by the back door. Now, my girl, out you go. The waiter approached me. He spoke to me as he might

have done to a dog. Now then, come along. He actually put his hand upon my shoulder. Another second, and I believe he would have swung me round and out of the room. But just as he touched me, the door was opened, and someone came rushing in, Mrs. Anstrother, in a state of the greatest excitement. My diamonds have been stolen, she cried. Someone has stolen my diamonds. Your diamonds. The manager looked at her and then at me. I trust, madam, you are mistaken? I'm not mistaken. She sank onto a chair. She was a big woman of about 50, and at the best of times was scant of breath. Such was her agitation that just then she could scarcely breathe at all. As if I could be mistaken about a thing like that. I went up to my bedroom to dress for dinner, and I unlocked my trunk.

I always keep it locked. I took out my jewel case and unlocked that, and my diamonds were gone. They've been stolen, stolen, stolen! She repeated the word stolen three times over, as if the heinousness of the fact required to be emphasized by repetition. The manager was evidently uneasy, which even I felt was not to be wondered at. This is a very serious matter, Mrs. Anstrother. She cut him short. Serious? Do you think I need you to tell me that it's serious?

You don't know how serious. Those diamonds are worth thousands and thousands of pounds, more than the whole of your two-penny half-penny hotel. And they've been stolen. From my trunk, in my bedroom, in your hotel, they've been stolen. The way she hurled the words at him. He looked at me, and he asked, What do you know about this?

What did I know? In the midst of my confusion and distress, I was asking myself what I did know. Before I could speak, the door was opened again, and Mrs. Newball came in. And not Mrs. Newball only, but six or seven other women, some of them accompanied by men, their husbands, and their brothers. And they all told the same tale.

Something had been stolen from each, from Mrs. Newball, her five string of pearls. from Mrs. This and Missed That, the article of jewelry which was valued most. I am convinced that the manager, or his room, or probably his hotel, had never witnessed such a scene before. They were all as excited as could be, and they were all talking at once, and every second or two someone else kept coming in with some fresh tale of a dreadful loss. How that man kept his head at all was, and is a mystery to me. at last he reduced them to something like silence and in the presence of them all he said to me

pointing at me with his finger as if I were a thing to be pointed at it is you who have done this you someone exclaimed in the crowd I saw her coming out of Mrs. Amstrader's room the manager demanded who spoke who was it said that a slight faded fair-haired woman came out into the public gaze I am Mrs. Anstruthers' maid. I was going along to her room when I saw this young lady come out of the door. Whether she saw me or not, I can't say, she might have done, because she ran off as fast as ever she could. I wondered what she was doing there. When my mistress came, I told her what I had seen, and that's what made her open her trunk.

What Perkins says is quite true, corroborated Mrs. Anstrother. She did tell me, and that made me uneasy. I have heard something about a diamond pendant having been stolen last night, so I opened my jewel case and my diamonds were gone. Mine was the diamond pendant which was stolen by this creature last night, interposed Mitch Goodridge. She came into my room and took it out of my trunk. Since she did that, it seems not impossible that she has played the same trick on other people today. If she has, she must have had a pretty good hall,

because I don't believe there is a person in the hotel who hasn't lost something. the manager spoke to an understrapper have this young woman's luggage searched at once in the presence of witnesses and let me know the result as soon as you possibly can as the understrapper went out i noticed for the first time that mr sterndale was present with the rest and almost at that same instant his sister came in she looked about her as if wondering what was the cause of all the fuss then she went up to her brother and he whispered something to her and she whispered something to him Only three or four words in each case, but my heart gave a leap in my bosom. I mean that, really, because it did feel as if it actually had jumped. Courage came into me and strength and something better than hope, certainty, because they had delivered themselves into my hands. I was never more thankful that I had the power of eavesdropping,

you can call it eavesdropping if you like, than I was at that moment. Only a second before I had been fearing that I was in a tight place, from which there was no way out, which would mean something for me from which my very soul seemed to shrink. But God had given me a gift, a talent, which I had striven with all my might to improve ten, twentyfold, and that would deliver me from the wiles of these two people, even when hope of deliverance there seemed none. I feel confident that I held myself straighter, that trouble went from my face as it had done from my heart, and that, though each moment the case against me seemed to be growing blacker and black,

lacquer, I grew calmer and more self-possessed. I knew I had only to wait till the proper moment came, and the toils in which they thought they had caught me would prove to be mere nothings. They would be caught, and I should be free. All the same, until that moment for which I was waiting came, it was not nice for me, standing there amidst all those excited people, between two porters who kept close to either side of me, as if I were a prisoner, and they had me in charge, though I dare say it was well that they did keep as close to me as they did, because I fancy that some of the injured guests at that hotel would have liked to give me a practical demonstration of what their feelings towards me were.

The understrapper came back in a surprisingly short space of time with a handbag, a brown bag which I recognized to be my own. The agitated guests crowded round him like a swarm of bees. He had difficulty in forcing his way through them. the manager did his best to keep them in something like order first with a show of mildness ladies gentlemen gently gently if you please then with a sudden ferocity stand back there if you will not stand back if you will not make room how can anything be done keep those people back to whom this order was addressed was not quite clear thus admonished the people kept themselves back at least sufficiently to enable the understrapper to pass with my bag to the table. The manager said to him, Go to the other side. What have you in that bag? When, as he said this, the guest's events and inclination to press forward, he threw out his

arms on either side of him and positively shouted, will you not keep back? If you will keep back, everything shall be done in order before you all. I ask you only to be a little sensible. If there is so much confusion, we shall not know what we are doing. I beg of you that you will be calm. If they were not precisely calm, the people did show some slight inclination to behave with an approach to common sense. They permitted the bag to be placed on the table, and the manager to open it, having first put some questions to the young man who brought it in. Where did you find this bag? In her room. I was the her, which he made clear by pointing his fingers straight at me. Was anyone else present in the room at the time you found it?

did you find anything else there were three other persons present in the room that bag was the first thing i touched when i opened it and saw what was inside i thought that for the present that would be enough i think you will also be of my opinion when you see what it contains then the manager opened the bag he looked inside then he turned it upside down and allowed the whole contents to fall out on to the table of all the extraordinary collections i believe there were articles belonging to every person in the hotel when you came to think of it it was amazing how they had been gathered together in what could only have been a short space of time without the gatherer being detected as for the behaviour of the guests of the hotel it was like bedlam broken loose they pressed forward altogether ejaculating exclaiming snatching at this and that as each saw some personal belonging keep back keep back shouted the manager will you not keep back as he positively roared at them they did shrink back as if a trifle startled if you will only have a little patience each lady shall have what belongs to her if it is here Mrs. Anstruthers' voice was heard above the hubbub, Are my diamonds there? Then Mrs. Newballs, and my pearls!

The understrapper was examining the miscellaneous collection which my bag had contained, with all those women breaking into continual exclamations, watching him with hungry eyes. He announced the result of his examination. No, Mrs. Anstruthers' diamonds do not appear to be here, nor Mrs. Newball's pearls. There is nothing here which it all resembles them. The manager held out towards me a minatory finger.

Everyone seemed to have developed a sudden mania for pointing, particularly at me. You, where have you put Mrs. Newball's pearls and Mrs. And Struthers' diamonds? Better make a clean breast of it, and no longer play the hypocrite. We will find them if you do not tell us where they are. Be sure of it. Now tell us at once. How he thundered at me. it was most embarrassing, or it would have been if I had not been conscious that I held the key of the situation in my hand. As it was, I minded his thunder scarcely a little bit, though I've always hated being shouted at.

I was very calm, certainly the calmest person there, which of course was not saying very much. I can tell you where they are if that is what you mean. You know that is what I mean. Tell us at once, at once. He banged his fist upon the table. so that the miscellaneous collection trembled. I did not tremble, though perhaps it was his intention that I should. I was growing calmer and calmer. In the first place, let me inform you that if you suppose I put those things in my bag,

the bag is certainly mine, or had anything to do with their getting there, you are mistaken. My words, and perhaps my manner, created a small diversion. What impudence! What assurance! Have you ever seen anything like that? it so young and so brazen the impudent baggage those were some of the things which they said which were very nice for me to have to listen to but i was sure from a glimpse i had caught of mr and miss sterndale that they were not quite at their ease and that was such a comfort no lies thundered the manager whose english became a little vulgar no foolery no stuck-up rubbish tell us the truth where are these ladies jewels i propose to tell you the truth if you will have a little patience i returned him look for look i was not the least afraid of him

i am going to give you a little surprise i was so conscious of that that i was beginning to feel almost amused i have a power of which i think none of you have any conception especially two of you i know what people are saying although i do not hear them like the deaf and dumb who know what a person is saying by merely watching his lips there were some very rude interruptions to which i paid no notice whatever an elderly gentleman who i had never seen before and who spoke with a very rude interruptions to which i had never seen before and who spoke with a very rude interruptions to which i had never seen before and who spoke with with an air of authority advised them to give me a hearing. They did let me go on. I told them what I had seen Miss Sturndale say to her brother on the balcony the morning before. It was some satisfaction to see the startled look which came upon the faces of both the brother and the sister. They made some very noisy and uncivil comments, but as I could see how uncomfortable they were feeling, I let them make them. I went on. I told them how unhappy I had been all day and how when I returned, I found under the bottom tray of my jewel case the diamond pendant. How,

astounded, I went down to ask Miss Sturndale why she had put it there, and how, encountering Miss Goodridge bewailing her loss, utterly taken aback, I held out to her pendant in a manner which I admitted might very easily have seemed suspicious. By this time the manager's room was in a delightful state of din. Mr. and Miss Sturndale were both of them shouting together, declaring that it was shocking that such a creature as I was should be allowed to make such monstrous insinuations. I believe if it had not been for that gray-haired man who had suddenly assumed a position of authority, that Miss Sturndale would have made a personal assault upon me. She seemed half beside herself with rage, and I was quite sure with something else as well.

I continued in spite of the Sturndale's. I could see that I was creating a state of perplexity in the minds of my hearers, which might very shortly induce them to take up an entirely different attitude towards me. I told of the brief dialogue, which had taken place between the sister and brother that very morning, and then you should have seen how the Sturndale stormed and raged. It seems to me, observed the grey-haired man to Mr. Sturndale, that you protest too much, sir. If this young lady is all the things you say she is, presently you will have every other opportunity of proving it. Since she is one young girl among all us grown-ups, it is only right and decent that we should hear what she has to say for herself. We can condemn her afterwards,

that part will be easy. So I went on again. There was very little to add. They knew almost as much of the rest as I did. Someone had affected a wholesale clearance of pretty nearly every valuable which the house contained. I did not pretend to be certain, but I thought it extremely probable that it was Miss Stearndale who had done this, while her brother kept the owners occupied in other directions. At this point, glances were exchanged. I afterwards learned that Mr. Sterndale had organized a party for an excursion on the Lake of Brins, which had been joined by nearly everyone in the place, with the exception of Miss Sturndale, who was supposed to have gone for a solitary explanation up the Shinnish plot. When Miss Sturndale saw those glances, as I have noted,

doubt she did, she commenced to storm and rage again, and continued to the end. I do not think even then she guessed what was coming, but she was already more uncomfortable than she had expected to be, and I could see that her brother felt the same. His face was white and set. He looked like a man who was trying to think of the best way in which to confront a desperate situation. I went on to explain, quite calmly, that, as owing to the machinations of Mr. Sterndale and his sister, everyone in the house had come to look upon me as a thief. Their evident intention was to allow suspicion to be centered on me, and that was why they had put those things in my bag. But what were they going to gain by that? asked the grey-haired man, rather pertinently.

His question was echoed in a chorus by the rest, particularly I noticed by the Stearnedales, who laid emphasis on the transparent absurdity of what I was saying. If you will allow me to continue, you, I will soon make it perfectly clear to you what they were going to gain. If you remember, when Mr. Sterndale was talking to his sister on the balcony this morning, I saw him say to her that there were only two things in the house worth having. Here Mr. Sterndale burst into a very hurricane of adjectives. The grey-haired man addressed him with rather unlooked-for vigor. Silence, sir.

Allow Miss Lee to continue. Mr. Sterndale was silent. I fancy he was rather cowed by what he saw in the speaker's eyes. I did continue. The only two things which, according to Mr. Sterndale, were worth having, were Mrs. Anstruthers' diamonds and Mrs. Newball's pearls. If they put the whole of the rest of the stolen things into my bag, you would be taken for granted that I was the thief,

and they would be able to continue in unsuspected possession of the two things which were worth much more than all the rest put together. The moment I stopped the clamour began again. And where do you suggest, young lady? asked the grey-haired man, that those two articles are. I will tell you. I looked at Miss Sturndale and then in her brother. I believe they would both have liked to have killed and eaten me. They can scarcely have been sure even then of what I was going to say,

but I could see that they were devoured by anxiety and fear. I have told you that I can see what people are saying by merely watching their lips. When Miss Sturndale came into the room, she whispered something to her brother, and so faint a whisper that her words could have been scarcely audible even to themselves. But I saw their faces, and I knew what they had said as plainly as if they had shouted it. He told her that he had Mrs. Anstruthers' diamonds in the pocket of the jacket he has on. I paused. The first expression on Mr. Sturndale's face was one of blank astonishment. Then he broke into Billingsgate's abuse of me.

You infernal liar! You two-faced cat! You dirty little witch, I'm not going to stay in this room to be insulted by a miserable creature. He made for the door. Stop him, I cried. As he reached the door, it was thrown back almost in his face. And who should come into the room, but Mr. and Mrs. Travers. How glad I was to see them! Stop him, I cried to Mr. Travers.

Stop that man. And Mr. Travers stopped him. him. Put your hand into the pocket of his jacket and take out what he has there. Mr. Travers, knowing nothing of what had been taken place, must have been rather at a loss as to what I might mean by such a request, but he did as I told him all the same. Mr. Sterndale struggled. He did his best to protect himself and his pocket. But he was rather a small man, and Mr. Travers was a giant, both in stature and in strength. In a very few seconds,

he was staring at the contents of his hands. From the look of things, this gentleman's pocket seems to be stuffed with diamonds. Here's a diamond necklace. He held one up in the air. Heavy weight, though she was, I believe that Mrs. Amstrader sprang several inches from the floor. It's my necklace, she screamed.

And where are my pearls? demanded Mrs. Newball. Miss Sturndale whispered to her brother that your pearls were inside the bodice of her dress. The words were scarcely out of my lips before Mrs. Newball sprang at Miss Sturndale, and there ensued a really painful scene. Had she not been restrained, I dare say she would have turned Miss Sturndale's clothes right off her. As it was, someone opened her bodice and the pearls were produced. The scene which followed was like pandemonium on a small scale.

It seemed as if everyone had grown. on stark staring mad. Guests, managers, and staff were all shouting together. I know that Mrs. Travers had her arm around me, and I was happier than, only a few minutes before, I thought that I should ever feel again. We did not prosecute the Sturndales, which turned out not to be their name, and they were proved not to be brother and sister. Law in Switzerland does not move too quickly. The formalities to be observed are numerous. I did not very much want to have to remain in Switzerland, for an indefinite period at my own expense, to give evidence in a case in which I was not in the faintest degree interested. The others, the guest in the hotel, did not want to do that

any more than I did. Their property was restored to them. That was what they wanted. They would have liked to punish the thieves, but not at the cost of so much inconvenience to themselves. So far as we were concerned, the criminals got off scot-free. But nonetheless, they did not escape the vengeance of the law. That night they were arrested at Interlochen on another charge. It seemed that they were perpetrators of that robbery in the hotel at Pontresena, which, according to Mr. Sterndale, his apocryphal clerical friend had laid at my door. They had passed there as Mr. and Mrs. Burnett, and were found guilty and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. I have not seen or heard anything of that pseudonymous brother and sister since.

I hope I never shall. To find out what people are saying to each other in confidence when they suppose themselves to be out of the reach of curious ears may be very like eavesdropping. If it is, I am very glad that, on various occasions in my life, I have been enabled to be an eavesdropper in that sense. Had I not at Interlocken, had the power which made of me an eavesdropper, I might have been branded as a criminal,

and my happiness, my whole life, had been destroyed forever. end of chapter two chapter three of judith lee pages from her life by richard marsh this livervox recording is in the public domain conscience i had been spending a few days at brighton and was sitting one morning on the balcony of the west pier pavilion listening to the fine band of the gordon highlanders the weather was beautiful the kind one sometimes does get at brighton blue skies a warm sun and just that touch in the soft breeze which serves as a pick-me-up there were crowds of people i sat on one end of a bench in a corner within a few feet of me a man was standing leaning with his back against the railing an odd-looking man tall slender with something almost mongolian in his clean-shaven round face i had noticed him on that particular spot each time i had been on the pier he was well tailored and that morning for the first time he wore a flower in his button-hole as one sometimes does when one sees an unusual-looking stranger i wondered hazily what kind of person he might be i did not like the look of him presently another man came along the bowed the bough balcony and paused close to him. They took no notice of each other. The newcomer looked attentively at the crowd promenading on the deck below, almost ostentatiously disregarding the other's

neighborhood. All the same, the man in the corner whispered something which probably reached his ears alone, and my perception, which seemed to be a few disconnected words. Move dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume, 430 train. that was all he said i do not suppose that any one there except the man who had paused and the lazy-looking girl whose eyes had chanced for a moment to wander towards his lips had any notion that he had spoken at all the newcomer remained for a few moments idly watching the promenaders then turning without vouchsafing the other the slightest sign of recognition strolled carelessly on it struck me as rather an odd little scene i was constantly being made an unintentional of what were meant to be secrets. But about that brief sentence which the one had whispered to the other, there was a piquant something which struck me as amusing, the more especially, as I believed I had seen the lady to whom the words referred. As I came on the pier, I had been struck by her

gorgeous appearance, as being a person who probably had more money than taste. Some minutes passed. The Mongolian-looking man remained perfectly quiescent in his corner. Then another man came strolling along, big and burly, in a reddish-brown suit, a green felt hat worn slightly on one side of his head. He paused on the same spot on which the first man had brought his stroll to a close, and he paid no attention to the gentleman in the corner, who looked right away from him, even while I could see his lips framing precisely the same sentence. Moved dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume, 4.30 train. The big man showed no sign that he had heard a sound.

He continued to do, as his predecessor had done, stared at the promenaders, then strode carelessly on. The second episode struck me as being rather odder than the first. Why were such commonplace words uttered in so mysterious a manner? Would a third man come along? I waited to see and waited in vain. The band played God Save the King, the people rose, but no third man had appeared.

I left the Mongolian-looking gentleman still in his corner and went to the other side of the balcony to watch the people going down the pier. I saw the gorgeous lady in the mauve dress and big black picture hat with a fine ostrich plume, and I wondered what interest she might have for the round-faced man in the corner and what she had to do with the 430 train. She was with two or three equally gorgeous ladies and one or two wonderfully attired men. They seemed to be quite a party. The next day I left Brighton by an early train. In the compartment I was reading the Sussex Daily News when a paragraph caught my eye. Tragic occurrence on the Brighton line.

Late the night before the body of a woman had been found lying on the ballast as if she might have fallen out of a passing train. It described her costume, she was attired in a pale-move dress, and a big black picture hat in which it was an ostrich-feather plume. There were other details, plenty of them, but that was enough for me. When I read that, and thought of the man leaning against the railing, I rather caught my breath. Two young men who were facing each other at the other end of the compartment began to talk about the paragraph in tones which were audible to all.

Do you see that about the lady in the mauve dress who was found on the line? Do you know I shouldn't wonder a bit if it was Mrs. Farningham. That's her rig out to a tea, and I know she was going up to town yesterday afternoon. She did go, replied the other, and I'm told that when she started she'd had about enough cold tea. The other grinned, a grin of comprehension. If that's so, I shouldn't wonder if the poor deer opened the carriage door, thinking it was some other door, and stepped out onto the line. From all I hear, it seems that she was quite capable of doing that sort of thing when she was like that. Oh quite, not a doubt of it, and she was capable of some pretty queer things when she

wasn't like that. I wondered. These young men might be right. Still, the more I thought, the more I wondered. I was very much occupied just then. It was because I had nearly broken down in my work that I had gone for a few days to Brighton. I doubt if I even glanced at a newspaper for some considerable time after that. I cannot say that the episode wholly faded from my memory, but I've never heard what was the sequel of the lady who was found on the line, or indeed, anything more about her. I accepted an engagement with a deaf and dumb girl who was about to travel with her parents on a long journey pretty nearly round the world. I was to meet them in Paris and then go on with them to Marseille where the real journey commenced. The night before I started, some friends

gave me sort of a send-off at the Embankment Hotel. We were about halfway through the meal when a man came in and sat by himself at a small round table nearly facing me. I could not think where I had seen him before. I was puzzling my brain when a second man came across the room and strolled slowly by his table. He did not pause, nor did either allow a sign to escape him to show that they were acquaintances. Yet I distinctly saw the lips of the man who was seated at the table frame about a dozen words. White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast, tonight the stroller went carelessly on and for a moment my heart seemed to stand still it all came back to me the pier the band of the gordon highlanders the man with his back against the railings the words whispered to the two men who had paused beside him the diner in front of me was the mongolian-looking man i should have recognized him at once had not evening dress wrought such a change in him that whispered sentence made assurance doubly sure

the party with whom i was dining had themselves been struck by the appearance of a lady in the white frock with a diamond star in her hair and the pink roses arranged so daintily in the corsage of her dress there had been a laughing discussion about who was the nicest looking person in the room more than one opinion had supported the claim of the lady with the diamond star in the middle of that dinner i found myself all at once in a quandary owing to that very inconvenient gift of mine i recalled the whisper about the lady in the mauve dress and how the very next day the body of a lady so attired had been found on the brighton line was the whispered allusion to the lady in the white dress to have a similar unpleasant sequel if there was fear of anything of the kind what was i to do my friends noticing my abstraction rallied me on my inattention may i point out to you observed my neighbour that the waiter is offering you asparagus and has been doing so for about five minutes. Looking round, I found that the waiter was standing patiently at my side. I allowed him to help me. I was about to eat what he had given me when I saw someone advancing across the room whom I knew at once, in spite of the alteration which evening dress made in him. It was the big, burly man in the red-brown suit. The comedy, if it were a comedy, was repeated. The big man,

not apparently acknowledging the existence of the solitary diner, passed his table, and, seemingly by the merest chance, in the course of his passage towards another on the other side of the room. With a morsel of food on his fork, poised midway between the plate and his mouth, the diner moved his lips to repeat his former words. White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast, tonight. The big man had passed, the morsel of food had entered the diner's mouth. Nothing seemed to have happened, yet I was on the point of springing to my feet, and electrifying the gaily dressed crowd by crying murder.

More than once afterwards, I wished I had done so. I do not know what would have happened if I had. I have sometimes asked myself if I could say what would not have happened. As a matter of fact, I did nothing at all. I do not say it to excuse myself nor to blame anyone, but it seemed to me at the moment that to do anything was impossible, because those with whom I was dining made it so. I was their guest, they took the same,

care to make me understand that I owe them something as my hosts. They were in the merriest mood themselves. They seemed to regard it as of the first importance that I should be married to. To the best of my ability, I was outwardly as gay as the rest of them. The lady in the white dress with her party left early. I should have liked to give her some hint, some warning. I did neither. I just let her go. As she went across the room, one or two members of our party toasted her under their breath. The solitary diner took no heed of her whatever. I had been furtively watching him the whole time, and he never once glanced in her direction. So far as I saw, he was so absorbed in his meal that he scarcely raised his eyes from the table. I knew,

unfortunately, that I could not have mistaken the word which I had seen his lips forming. I tried to comfort myself with the reflection that they could not have referred to the vision of feminine loveliness which had just passed from the room. The following morning I traveled by the early boat train to Dover. When the train had left the station, I looked at my telegraph. I read a good deal of it. Then at the top of the column on one of the inside pages, I came across the paragraph headed,

Mysterious Affair, at the Embarkment Hotel. Not very long after midnight, in time it seemed, to reach the paper before it went to press, the body of a young woman had been found in the courtyard of the hotel. She was in her night attire, she was recognized as one of the guests who had been staying in the hotel she had either fallen or been thrown out of her bedroom window something happened to my brain so that i was unconscious of the train in which i was a passenger as it sped onward what did that paragraph mean could the woman who had been found in her night attire in the courtyard of the embankment hotel be the woman who had worn the white dress and a diamond star in her pretty brown hair there was nothing to show that she was there was nothing to connect that lightly clothed body with the whispered words of the solitary diner with a touch of the mongle in his face yet i wondered if it were not my duty to return at once to london and tell my story

but after all it was such a silly story it amounted to nothing it proved nothing those people were waiting for me in paris i could not desert them at the last moment with all our passages booked for what might turn out to be something even more fantastic than a will of the wisp so i went on to paris and with them nearly round the world and i can say without exaggeration that more than once that curious-looking gentleman's face seemed to have gone with me once in an english paper which i picked up after we had landed at hong kong i read about the body of a woman which had been found on the great western railway line near exeter station and i wondered when i went out into the streets and saw in the faces of the people who thronged them something which are called the solitary diner at the embarkment hotel i wondered still more more than two years elapsed in the summer of the third i went to buxton as i had gone to brighton for a rest i was seated one morning in the public gardens with my thoughts on the other side of the world we had not long returned from the sandwich islands and i was comparing that land of perpetual summer with the crisp freshness of the buxton air with my thoughts still far away my eyes passed idly from face to face of those around me until presently i became aware that under the shade of a tree on my left a man was sitting down when i saw his face my thoughts came back with a rush it was the man who had been on the pier at brighton and at the embarkment hotel and who had travelled with me round the world the consciousness of his near neighbourhood gave me a nasty jar as at the embarkment hotel there was an impulsive moment when i felt like jumping on to my feet and denouncing him to the assembled crowd he was dressed in a cool gray suit as a brighton he had a flower in his button-hole

he sat upright and impassive glancing neither to the left nor right as if nothing was of interest to him then the familiar comedy which i believe i had rehearsed in my dreams began again a man came down the path from behind me passing before i had seen his face and under the shady tree paused for an instant to light a cigarette and i saw the lips of the man on the chair forming words gray dress lace scarf pantomama hat five-five train his lips framed those nine words only then the man with the cigarette passed on and i really do believe that my heart stood still comedy i had an uncomfortable conviction that this was a attractive which was being played, in the midst of that light-hearted crowd, in that pleasant garden under those laughing skies. I waited for the action to continue, not very long. In the distance I saw a big burly person threading his way among the people towards that shady tree, and I knew what was coming. He did not pause even for a single instant. He just went slowly by within a foot of the chair, and the thin lips shaped themselves into words. gray dress lace scarf Panama hat five-five train the big man sauntered on leaving me with the most uncomfortable feeling that I had seen sentence of death pronounced on an innocent helpless fellow creature I did not propose to sit still this time and allow those three uncanny beings undisturbed to work their evil wills as at the hotel the question recurred to me what was I to do was I to go up and denounce this creature to his face?

suppose he chose to regard me as some ill-conducted person what evidence had i to adduce that any statements i might make were true i decided in the first place to leave him severely alone i had thought of another plan getting up from my chair i began to walk about the gardens as had not been the case on two previous occasions there was no person in sight who answered to the description grey dress lace scarf panama hat i was just about to conclude that this time the victim was not in plain view when i saw a panama hat in the crowd on the other side of the band i moved quickly forward it was certainly on a woman's head there was a lace scarf spread out upon her shoulders a frock of a very light shade in gray was this the woman whose doom had been pronounced i went more forward still and with an unpleasant sense of shock recognized the wearer i was staying at the empire hotel on the previous afternoon at tea-time the lounge had been very full i saw a tall lady who seemed to be alone glancing about as if looking for an empty table as she seemed to have some difficulty in finding one and as i had a table all to myself i suggested as she came near that she should have a seat at mine the manner in which she received my suggestion took me aback i suppose there are no ruder more ill-bred creatures in the world than some english women whether she thought i wished to force my company upon her and somehow scrape an acquaintance i cannot say she could not have treated my suggestion with more contemptuous scorn had i tried to pick her pocket she just looked down at me as if wondering what kind of person i could be that i had dared to speak to her at all and then without condescending to reply went on

I almost felt as if she had given me a slap across my face. After dinner, I saw her again in the lounge. She wore some very fine jewelry. She was a very striking woman beautifully gowned. A diamond brooch was pinned to her bodice. As she approached, I saw it was unfastened. It fell within a foot of where I was sitting. I picked it up and offered it to her with the usual formula.

I think this is your brooch. You have just dropped it. How do you think she thanked me? She hesitated a second to take the brooch, as if she thought I might be playing her some trick. Then when she saw that it was hers, she took it and looked it over carefully, and what do you suppose she said? You are very insistent. That was all. Every word in such ineffable tones. She was apparently under the impression that I had engineered the dropping of that diamond brooch

as a further step in my nefarious scheme to force on her the dishonour of my acquaintance. This was the lady who in the public gardens was wearing a light grey dress, a lace scarf, and a Panama hat. What would she say to me if I told her about the man under the shady tree and his two friends? Yet if I did not tell her, should I not feel responsible for whatever might ensue? That she went in danger of her life, I was as sure as that I was standing there. She might be a very unpleasant, a very foolish woman, yet I could not stand by and allow her quite possibly to be done to death, without at least warning her of the danger which she ran.

The sooner the warning was given, the better. As she turned into a side road, I turned into another, meaning to meet her in the center of hers, and warn her there and then. The meeting took place, and as I had more than half expected, I entirely failed to do what I had intended. The glance she fixed on me when she saw me coming and recognized who I was conveyed sufficient information. It said, as plainly as if in so many words, that if I dared to insult her by attempting to address her it would be at my own proper peril. Nonetheless, I did dare. I remembered the woman in the mauve dress, and the woman in the white, and the feeling I had had that by the utterance of a few words I might have saved their lives. I was going to do my best to save hers,

even though she tried to freeze me while I was in the act of doing so. We met. As if scenting my design, as we neared each other, she quickened her pace to stride right past. But I was too quick for her. I barred the way. The expression with which, as she recognized my intention, she regarded me. But I was not to be frightened into dumbness. There is something I have to say to you, which is important, of the first importance,

which is essential that I should say and you should hear. I have not the least intention of forcing on you my acquaintance, but with your sanction, I got as far as that, but I got no farther. As I still continued to bar her path, she turned right round and marched in the other direction. I might have gone after her, I might have stopped her. I did move a step or two, but when I did, she spoke to me over her shoulder as she was moving. If you dare to speak to me again, I shall claim the protection of the police, so be advised. I was advised.

Whether the woman suffered from some obscure form of mental disease or not, I could not say, or with what majesty she supposed herself to be hedged around, which made at the height of presumption for a mere outsider to venture to address her. That also was a mystery to me. As I had no wish to have a scene in the public gardens, and as it appeared that there would be a scene if I did more to try to help her, I let her go. I saw her leave the gardens, and when I had seen her,

that I strolled back. There under the shady tree still sat the man with a touch of the mongle in his face. After luncheon, which I took at the hotel, I had a surprise. There, in the hall, was my gentleman going through the front door. I spoke to the hall porter. Is that gentleman staying in the house? The porter intimated that he was. Can you tell me what his name is? The porter answered promptly, perhaps because it was such an unusual name. Mr. John Tongue. Then he added with a smile. I used to be in the Navy.

When we were on the China Station, I was always meeting people with names like that. This gentleman is the first I've met since. An idea occurred to me. I felt responsible for that woman in spite of her stupidity. If anything happened to her, it would lie at my door. For my own sake, I did not propose to run the risk. I went to the post office,

and send a telegram to john tongue empire hotel the clerk on the other side of the counter seemed rather surprised as he read the words which i wished him to wire i suppose this is all right he questioned as if in doubt perfectly all right i replied please send that telegram at once i quitted the office leaving that telegraph clerk scanning my message as if he were still in doubt if it was in order in the course of the afternoon i had another idea i wrote what follows on a sheet of paper you threw the woman in the mauve dress on to the brighton line you were responsible for the death of the woman in the white dress at the embankment hotel you killed the woman who was found on the great western line near exeter station but you are going to do no mischief to the woman in the gray dress and the lace scarf in the panama hat who is going up to town by the five five be sure of that also you may be sure that the day of reckoning is at hand when you and your turn to the day of reckoning is at hand when you and your accomplices will be called to strict account. In that hour you will be shown no more mercy than you have shown. That is as certain as that at the present moment you are still alive, but the messengers of justice are drawing near. There was no beginning and no ending, no date, no address. I just wrote that and left it so. It was wild language in which I took a good deal for granted that I had

no right to take, and it savored a good deal of melodrama and highfalutin. But then my whole scheme was a wildcat scheme. If it succeeded, it would be because of that, as it were, the very wildcat property. I put my sheet of paper into an envelope, and I wrote outside it in very large, plain letters, Mr. John Tong. Then I went into the lounge of the hotel for tea, and I waited. And I kept on waiting for quite a considerable time. It was rather early for tea, but as time passed and people began to gather together, and there were still no signs of the persons whose presence I particularly desired, I began to fidget. If none of them appeared, I should have to reconsider my plan of campaign. I was just on the point of concluding that the moment had come when I had better

think of something else, when I saw Mr. John Tong standing in the doorway and with him his two acquaintances. This was better than I had expected. Their appearance together in the public room of the hotel suggested all sorts of possibilities to my mind. I had that missive prepared. i waited until i had some notion of the quarter of the room in which they proposed to establish themselves then i rose from my chair and crossing to the other side of the lounge left on a table close to that at which they were about to sit i hope unnoticed the envelope on which mr john tongue was so plainly written then i watched for the march of events what i had hoped would occur did happen a waiter bustling towards the newcomers saw the envelope lying on a vacant table picked it up perceived that it was addressed to mr john tongue and bore it to that gentleman i could not hear but i saw what was said the waiter began is this your letter sir mr tongue glanced as if surprised at the envelope which the man was holding then took it from between his fingers and stared at it hard where did you get this he asked it was on that table what table the one over there sir mr tongue looked in the direction in which the man was pointing as if not quite certain what he meant how came it to be there who put it there can't say sir i saw an envelope lying on the table as i was coming to you and when i saw your name on it i thought it might be yours tea sir

tea for three and bring some buttered toast the waiter went on mr tongue remained staring at the envelope as if there were something on its appearance which he found a little puzzling one of his companions spoke to him but as his back was towards me i could not see what he said i could guess from the owner's answer some rubbish a circular i suppose the sort of thing one does get in hotels then he opened the envelope and i had rather a funny feeling i was perfectly conscious that from the point of view of the court of law i had not the slightest right to pin a single one of those words which were on the sheet of paper inside that envelope for all i could prove mr tongue and his friends might be the most innocent of men i might find it pretty hard to prove that the mongolian-looking gentleman had whispered either of the brief dricky sentences which i had seen in whisper and even if i could get as far as that there still remained the difficulty of showing that they bore anything like the construction which i had put upon them if i had misjudged him if my deductions had been wrong then mr tongue when he found what was in that envelope would be more than justified in making a fine to do it was quite possible since i could not have eyes at the back of my head that some one had seen me leave that envelope on the table in which case my authorship might be traced and i should be in a pretty awkward situation that woman in the grey dress would be shown to have had right on her side when she declined with such a show of scorn to allow me even to speak to her so mr tongue was tearing open the envelope and taking out the sheet of paper i had some distinctly uncomfortable moment Suppose I had wronged him. What was I to do? Own up, make a clean breast of it, or run away. I had not yet found an answer when I became perfectly certain that none was acquired. My chance shot had struck him like a bombshell. The change which took place in his countenance when he began to read what was written on that piece of paper was really curious. I should have said he had a visage over whose muscles he exercised great control, Mongols have as a rule.

but those words of mine were so wholly unexpected that when he first saw them his expression was on the instant one of stunned amazement he glanced at the opening words then dropping his hands to his sides gazed round the room as if he were wondering if there were any one there who could have written them then he raised a sheet of paper again and read farther and as he read his breath seemed to come quicker his eyes dilated the color left his cheeks his jaw dropped open he presented a unique picture of the surprise which was born of terror his companions looking at him were affected as he was without knowing why the big burly man lead toward him i saw him mutter you look as if you've had a stroke what's the matter what's that you've got there don't look like that every one is staring at you what's up mr tongue did not reply he looked at the speaker then at the sheet of paper that time i am sure he did not see what was on it then he crumpled the sheet of paper up in his hand and without a word strode across the lounge into the hall beyond his two companions looked after him in bewildered amazement then they went also not quite so fast as he had done but fast enough and all the people in the lounge looked at each other the manner of the exit of these three gentlemen had created a small sensation my little experiment had succeeded altogether beyond my anticipation it was plain that i had not misjudged this gentleman it would be difficult to find a more striking illustration than that presented by mr john tongue of the awful accusing conscience which strikes terror into a man's soul i could not afford to let my acquaintance with those three interesting gentlemen cease at this moment the woman in the grey dress must still not be left to their tender mercies after what seemed to me to be a sufficient interval i left my tea and went after them into the hall i was just in time

the three men were in the act of leaving the hotel as they were moving towards the door a page came up an official envelope in his hand mr john tongue a telegram for you sir mr tongue took it as if it were some dangerous thing hesitated glanced at the men beside him tore it open read what was on the flimsy sheet of pink paper and walked so quickly out of the building that his gate almost approached to run his companions went after him as if they were giving chase my wire had finished what those few plain words on the sheet of paper had begun i was lingering in the hall rather at a loss as to what was the next step that i had better take when the woman in the gray dress came out of the lift which had just descended. A cab was at the door on which was luggage. Although she must have seen me very clearly, she did not recognize my presence, but passed straight out to the cab.

She was going up to London by the 5-5 train. I no longer hesitated what to do. I too quitted the hotel and got into a cab. I still wanted ten minutes to five when I reached the station. The train was standing by the platform, the gray-frocked lady was superintending the labeling of her luggage. Apparently she had no maid. She was escorted by a porter who had her luggage in charge to a first-class carriage.

On the top of her luggage was the telltale thing which had probably done more harm than good, the dressing bag which is so dear to the hearts of many women, which ostentatiously proclaims the fact that it contains their jewels, probably their money, all that they are traveling with which they value most. one has only to get hold of the average travelling woman's dressing-bag to become possessed of all that she has from the practical thief's point of view worth taking all contained in one portable and convenient package at the open door of the compartment next to the one to which the porter ushered her the big burly man was standing rather to my surprise i thought i had startled him more than that presently who should come strolling up but his more slightly build acquaintance apparently he did not know him now he passed into the compartment at whose door he was standing without a nod or a sign of greeting my glance travelled down the platform i saw that standing outside a compartment only a few doors off was mr john tongue this did not suit me at all i did not propose that those three gentlemen should travel with a grey-frock lady by the five-five train to town rather than that i would have called in the aid of the police though it would have been very queer to tale that i should have had to tell them

perhaps fortunately i hit upon what the old-time cookery books used to call another way i had done so well with one unexpected message that i thought i would try another there were ten minutes before the train started still time i rushed in a lady's waiting-room i begged a sheet of paper and an envelope from the attendant in charge it was a queer sheet of paper which she gave me and on it i scribbled you are watched your intentions are known the police are travelling by the five-five train to london in attendance on the lady in the grey dress if they do not take you on the road they will arrest you when you reach town then hi-ho for the gallows i was in doubt whether or not to add that last line i dare say if i had had a second or two to think i should not have added it but i had not i just scrawled it off as fast as i could folded the sheet of paper slipped it into the envelope which i addressed in big bald letters to mr john tongue the attendant had a little girl with her of perhaps twelve or thirteen years old who is acting as her assistant i took her to the waiting-room door pointed out mr tongue and told her that if she would slip that envelope into the gentleman's hand and come back to me without having told him where he got it from i would give her a shilling officials were examining tickets doors were being closed preparations were being made to start when that long-legged young person ran off on her errand she gave mr tongue the envelope as he was stepping into the carriage he had not time even to realize that he had got it before she was off again i saw him glance with a startled face at the envelope open it hurriedly scan what was within then make a dart into the compartment by which he was standing emerged with a bag in his hand and hurry from the station conscience had been too much for him again

the big burly man seeing him going when hurrying after him as the train was in the very act of starting as it moved along the platform the face of the third man appeared at the window of his compartment gazing in apparent astonishment after the other two he might go to london by the five-five if he chose i did not think it mattered if he went alone i scanned the newspapers very carefully the next day as there was no record of anything unusual having happened during the journey for afterwards i concluded that my feeling that nothing was to be feared from that solitary gentleman had been well founded and that the lady in the grey dress had reached her destination in comfort and safety what became a mr tongue when he left the station i do not know i can only say he did not return to the hotel that buxton episode was in august about a month afterwards toward the close of september i was going north i started from euston station i had secured my seat and as there were still several minutes before the train went off i strolled up and down the platform outside the open door of one of the compartments just as he had done at buxton station mr tongue was standing the sight of him inspired me with a feeling of actual rage that such a dreadful creature as i was convinced he was should go through life like some beast of prey seeking for helpless victims whom it would be safe to destroy that he should be standing there so well dressed so well fed so seemingly prosperous with all the appearance about him of one with whom the world went very well the sight of him made me positively furious it might be impossible for various reasons to bring his crimes home to him but i could still be a thorn in his side and might punish him in a fashion of my own i had been the occasion to him of one moment in which conscience had mastered him and terror held him by the throat

i might render him a similar service a second time i was seized with a sudden desire to give him a shock which would at least destroy his pleasure for the rest of the day recalling what i had done at buxton i went to the bookstall and purchased for the sum of one penny an envelope and a sheet of paper i took these to the waiting-room and on the sheet of paper i wrote three lines without even a moment's consideration you are about to be arrested justice is going to be done your time has come prepare for the end i put the sheet of paper containing these words into the envelope and waylaying a small boy who appeared to have been delivering a parcel to some one in the station i instructed him to hand my gentleman the envelope and then make off he did his part very well tongue was standing sideways looking down the platform so he did not see my messenger approaching from behind the envelope was slipped into his hand almost before he knew it and the boy was off he found himself with an envelope in his hand without i believe clearly realizing whence it had come my messenger was lost in the crowd before he had turned it might have tumbled from the skies for all that he could say with certainty for him the recurrence of the episode of the mysterious envelope was in itself a shop i could see that from where i stood he stared at it as he had done before as if it had been a bomb which at any moment might explode when he saw his own name written on the face of the envelope and the fashion of the writing he looked frantically around as if eagerly seeking for some explanation of this strange thing i should say for all his appearance of sleek prosperity that his nerves were in a state of jumps his lips twitched he seemed to be shaking he looked as if it would need very little to make him run with fingers which i am sure were trembling he opened the envelope he took out a sheet of paper and he read when he had read he seemed to be striving to keep himself from playing the cur he looked across the platform with such an expression on his face and in his eyes

a constable was advancing towards him with another man by his side the probability is that scared half out of his sentence conscious having come into its own he misinterpreted the intention of the advancing couple those three lines warning him that he was about to be arrested that his time had come to prepare for the end synchronized so perfectly with the appearance of the constable and his companion who turned out to be a plains clothes man engaged on the company's business that in his suddenly unnerved state he jumped to the conclusion that the warning and its fulfilment had come together that those two officers of the law were coming to arrest him there and then having arrived at that conclusion he seemed to have passed quickly to another that he would not be taken alive he put his hand into his jacket pocket took out a revolver which he had no doubt been kept there for quite another purpose put the muzzle to his brow and while the two men thinking of him not at all were still a few yards off he blew his brains out he was dead before they reached him killed by conscience they found his luggage in the compartment in which he had been about to travel the contents of his various belongings supplied sufficient explanation of his tragic end he lived in a small flat off the marlebone road alone the address was contained in his bag when the police went there they found a miscellaneous collection of articles which had certainly in the original instance never belonged to him there were feminine belongings of all sorts and kinds some of them were traced that former owners, and in each case the owner was found to have died in circumstances which had never

been adequately explained. The man seemed to have been carrying on for years, with perfect impunity, a hideous traffic and robbery and murder, and the victim was always a woman. His true name was never ascertained. It was clear from certain papers which were found at his flat that he had spent several years of his youth in the east. He seemed to have been a solitary creature, a savage beast alone in its lair. Nothing was found out about his parents or his friends, nor about two acquaintances of whom I might have supplied some particulars. Personally, I never saw nor heard anything of either of them again.

I went on from Euston Station by that train to the north. Just as we were about to start, a girl came bundling into my compartment who I knew very well. That was a close shave, she said, as she took her seat. I thought I should have missed it. My taxi cab burst a tire. What's this I hear them saying about someone having committed suicide on the platform? Is it true? I believe there was something of the kind. In fact, I know there was. It has quite upset me. Poor dear, you do look out of sorts. A thing like that would upset anyone. She glanced at me with sympathetic eyes. I was talking about you only yesterday.

I was saying that a person with your power of what practically amounts to reading people's thoughts ought to be able to do a great deal of good in the world. Do you think you ever do any good? The question was asked half laughingly. We were in a corridor carriage. Two women at the other end of it suddenly got up and went, apparently in search of another. I had been in no state to notice anything when I had got in. Now I realized that one of the women who had risen was the one who had worn the gray dress at Buxton. She had evidently recognized me on the instant. I saw her whisper to her companion in the corridor before they moved off. I couldn't possibly remain in the same compartment with that half-bred gypsy-looking creature.

I've had experience of her before. I was the half-bred gypsy-looking creature. The experience she had had of me was when I saved her life at Buxton. That I did save her life, I am pretty sure. I said to my friend, when they had gone, I hope that sometimes I do do a little good, but even when I do, for the most part it's done by stealth. and not known to fame and sometimes even it's not recognized as good at all is that so replied my friend what a very curious world it is when i thought of what had happened on the platform which we were leaving so rapidly behind i agreed with her with all my heart and soul end of chapter three chapter four of judith lee pages from her life by richard marsh this livervox recording is in the public domain chapter four matched

this gift of mine of entering into people's confidence even against their will has occasionally placed me in the most uncomfortable situations take for instance what i will call the affair of the pleasure cruise or matched the story began at charing cross station i had just entered the station and was looking about for the platform from which my train was going to start when i saw one man hurrying up to another i do not know what it was that caused him to catch my eye unless it was that he was in such desperate haste and was so covered with freckles and had such a very red moustache but i distinctly saw him say to the other what he meant i had not the dimmest notion some of the language he used was strange she's done a bunk all right and is away with the best of the swag here's her brief he handed to the other man what looked to me like a continental railway ticket i don't fancy the bloke is going you'll have to go on and get the lot out the other end it's worth having you know we'll be able to plant it easily you understand move yourself the train's just starting the man addressed did move himself tearing through a gate over which was aboard inscribed folkstone harbor and continent his doing so made me think of mr brooks i had been to his wedding that morning and had indeed only just come away from the first-and-auburned he had been to his wedding that morning and had indeed only just come away from the the reception which followed. I had gathered that he and his bride were to travel by that boat train. Thinking thus about the bride and bridegroom, who, since the train had started, I took it for

granted were already on their way. What was my surprise to see coming through the wicket onto the platform which the boat train had just quitted Mr. Everett Brooks? He had discarded the orthodox frocker in which he had been married, and in which I had seen him last for a gray tweed suit. But it was he, and he seemed to be in a state of great disturbance, as if he were looking for someone he could not find. A railway official was on either side of him, each of whom seemed doing his best to calm his obvious agitation. What struck me as the strangest part of it was that he was alone. An idea occurred to me as I walked toward him. Mr. Brooks, I asked.

Have you missed your train? You haven't let your wife go off alone. She hasn't gone on alone, he rejoined. She isn't in the train at all. She might have been in the train, you know, sir, struck in one of the officials. It's not easy to make out everyone who's traveling in a long train like that. Mr. Brooks turned on him with a show of anger, which I knew was quite foreign to his character. I tell you I saw her go through the gates as clearly as I see you now.

But though I watched for her to come back, she never returned, although I never once took my eyes. eyes off the gate. That I am prepared to swear. He turned to me with an explanation of his discomposure which filled me with surprise. We were standing, my wife and I, outside the compartment in which I had reserved our seats. When, about ten minutes before the train was due to start, she said to me, Everard, I've forgotten something. I must go and see about it at once. I'll be back in a moment. She got into the compartment, took her traveling bag off the seat, and was about to hurry down the platform. I asked her what she had thought of so suddenly. If it was something she wanted, I offered to go and get it for her. She laughed at me. You stay where you are, and let no one

get into our carriage. I'll be back in less than a minute. She was off before I could stop her. I thought it rather odd that she had thought of something so very pressing at the last minute, and had actually taken her bag with her, which contained all her belongings. I saw her go down the platform and through the gate. Then when I had waited two minutes, I strolled down the platform to see if I could discover her. I could see nothing. I was afraid to go through the gate lest we should miss each other. So I stood close to the gate and I'll swear that no one the least like her came through it. Mr. Brooke took off his bowler hat and passed his handkerchief across his brow. I had never seen him so disturbed. It occurred to me after I had been waiting some little time and the train

was due to start that, at her suggestion, I had put the tickets in her bag and practically all my money. I did not know what to do. I had never been in such a position in my life. I had not dreamt that I could be in such a position. They were calling out, take your seats, and were shutting the doors. What had become of Claire? I could not imagine. I could not go without her. Our luggage was in the train. I could not ask the officials to delay the train on our account. And while I was in a state bordering on distraction, the issue was taken out of my hands, the train started, and now, turning to one of the officials, this man wants me to believe that she was in the train after all. I am perfectly certain that she was nothing of the kind. What has become of her I don't know,

but I'll swear she wasn't in that train. The amazing part of it was that he never did know what had become of her. The bride had left the bridegroom on the eve of their wedding journey and vanished into space. Unfortunately, there were one or two suspicious circumstances about that vanishing. She had taken her brand-new dressing case with her, a present from him, which contained all their portable property which was worth having, besides two hundred pounds in English money, which was to have been spent upon the honeymoon. Mr. Brooks never saw any of that again.

The heavy luggage which had gone on by the train was claimed at the Gardiner by an individual who produced the checks for it, as well as the keys, which permitted of the customs examination, and that vanished. The wedding reception had been held at a South Kensington Hotel, at which the presence had been exhibited. Before Mr. Brooke got back to it, someone called for the presents, armed with a letter from Mrs. Brooks. It seemed that she had made arrangements with the hotel people before she left to hand over the presents to someone who was to call for them, and they were never seen again. The thing was very well done. Mr. Brooks found that he had been robbed,

in almost every direction in which he could have been robbed. To an onlooker it had a comical side, but that was a tragedy to him. He told me afterward that, in one way or another, he reckoned he had been done out of more than a thousand pounds to say nothing of his wife. He had gone on one of those cruises, which are so in vogue today, to the Norwegian fjords. On the boat was a most charming lady, a Miss Clare Percival. He was a well-to-do bachelor about forty years of The lady struck him as being the wife he had been looking for for years. Affairs of that sort on yachts, I believe, grow rapidly. Air long she owned that she liked him when he asked her.

Before they reached England, I think it was a 28-day cruise. The liking had turned to love, or so she said. Three weeks after they were back in London they were married, that episode at Charing Cross Station was the result. The whole affair was decidedly funny, except for the morning bridegroom. about eighteen months afterwards i went for a yachting cruise mine was to the morocco coast and all sorts of pleasant-sounding places our party we were called a party consisted of about fifty persons we had not been two days at sea when i had become impressed by two facts one was that we had on board the proprietor of ebenezer's gray-blue pills and samples of his large and a boulient family and the other was that among the passengers was a lady whose appearance was a lady whose appearance of the passengers was a lady whose appearance had the most singular effect on me.

The moment I saw her, I had a feeling that I had seen her somewhere before, but for the life of me I could not think where and when. She was a delightful person, full of resource, skilled in all sorts of what are known as parlor tricks. She could sing and recite, tell funny tales, perform conjuring tricks and play on the piano and the banjo and the fiddle, and what was then the latest craze in musical instruments, the Balalaika. She was good at Bridge, some of the people said she was the best lady player they had seen, and her knowledge of the sort of games which are calculated to amuse a general company was simply abnormal. She seemed to have lots of money, and some pretty dresses,

and some nice jewels. Before we were out of the Bay of Viscay, she was the most prominent and popular person on board. By that time she had given people to understand, in a casual sort of way, that she had been an actress, and that she had been a singer, and that she had been an entertainer, and that she had written things and painted things, but I was commencing to wonder if she had ever been Mrs. Everard Brooks. I frankly admit that the idea first came into my head because of the similarity of the cases. Mrs. Brooks had once been a single lady on a yachting cruise, and here was Marianne Tracy, she took pains to explain exactly how Marianne ought to be spelled, occupying precisely the same position. Of course, that was merely a coincidence,

lots of single ladies go on yachting cruises, and they are all of them charming and respectable, and beyond that coincidence there was nothing, absolutely nothing. She bore no physical resemblance from what I remembered to Mrs. Brooks. I had only seen that lady once, and that was at her wedding, and I had a more or less vague recollection that she had fair hair, which matched her complexion, and that she was tall and slender, and, to my mind, uncomfortably prim. Just the colorless sort of person one would expect Mr. Brooks to marry. Miss Tracy was black as night, black hair, black eyes, black eyebrows, and even the faintest shadow of what might be a black mustache. She was no taller than I was, but she was much

plumber, and she was full of vivacity and high spirits, and as for prim, I do not wish to do the lady in injustice, but even by abuse of language one could not call her prim. She was hale-fellow with everyone on board, the officers, the passengers, the stewards, the crew, and, I dare say, the stokers down below. She had a knack of making friends with everyone whom she came in contact. Seeing, as I do, a great deal more than many people suppose, i was not a little tickled by some of the conversations in which i saw her take a very active part she was a flirt before we were out of the bay i believe that most of the male creatures on board of all sorts and kinds were under the impression that she was in love with them it was that faculty which i possessed of seeing so much more than many folks guess which caused my vague suspicion to take by degrees a very concrete form it was the evening on which we were leaving gibraltar where we had spent to-day most gorgeous weather the sky was ablaze with stars i was prowling about the ship when in a corner on the lower deck i came upon an individual the sight of whom gave me quite a start

he was in a steward's uniform but i had certainly never seen him on board before whatever his duties might be they had never brought him into the passengers saloons i should have recognized him on the instant if they had his was a face which once seen by an observant pair of eyes like mine was not likely to be forgotten even after a lapse of eighteen months and that period of time had passed since i had seen him the last and first time i had beheld that gentleman was at charing cross railway station on the afternoon on which mrs everard brooks had disappointed her husband by vanishing on the eve of their honeymoon he was the individual who had hurried up to a masculine acquaintance and told him right in front of me that some one feminine had done a bunk all right and was away with the best of the swag and had handed him what he called her brief and which had seemed to me to be a continental railway ticket it. There was no mistaking those freckles and that flaming mustache, or indeed the man as a whole. My surprise at seeing him there was so great that for some seconds I did not realize whom he was talking to. Then I saw that it was Miss Marianne Tracy, and, as I watched what they were saying, I began to understand. He said to her,

The best of the old girl's things he takes care of. Those diamonds and pearls which we got the office about, which the old girl flashes around, are in a bag which he keeps in his locker some of the girls things are in it too i dropped into the cabin as if by accident the other morning and saw him put them into his bag the man winked at her when he said by accident i have no doubt that miss tracy grasped his meaning i had had no intention of playing the spy i had made no attempt to conceal myself so that when miss tracy looked round as she did just at that moment she saw me at once with perfect presence of mind she came straight up to me taking a stroll around the ship miss lee i do not know what possessed me i do sometimes yield to impulse and i did then this person did seem to me to be such an impudent piece of goods that without counting the cost i felt bound to have a shot at her and i did then and there i looked her very straight in the face and with what i am sure was the most perfect civility i asked her a question aren't you mrs everard brooks she did not change countenance the baggage she must have had a front of brass she just looked at me inquiringly and she smiled and she said so we have met before miss lee She put her lips together, and she gave a tiny little whistle.

It was scarcely audible, but I fancy was heard by someone, because without a moment's warning, someone, stealing on me from behind, had put something over my head which blocked out all the light and made it difficult for me to breathe, and I was dragged down backwards onto the deck. I would have screamed when I got there, only a hand was pressed against my mouth, on the outside of the stuff which covered my face,

and I could not utter a sound. The same hand held me down tight. Another took me by the throat and almost choked me, while a second pair of hands took hold of my wrists and tied them together, and then did the same to my ankles. I could not struggle because the pressure on my mouth and throat seemed to be driving the scents all out of me. Then two hands were slipped under the cloth,

my jaw was forced open, something was thrust into it, and there I was, as helpless as a trust foul, and incapable of uttering a sound. i am free to admit that it was very well done evidently by persons who had done that sort of thing before i had not the use of my eyes but if i could not trust my ears not a word was spoken nor an instant wasted presently two pairs of hands lifted me by the head and heels i was carried a few feet and deposited under what i have no doubt was cover and there i remain for i have not the faintest notion how long and in the cabin as i was perfectly aware they were waiting for me to make four at Bridge. I could picture Miss Tracy explaining how I had been overcome by a sudden headache, and how I had asked her with their permission to take my place. And as I continued to lie in that ignominious position, I have no doubt that the creature who had been chiefly instrumental in

putting me there was playing my hands. Time passed. The hours went by. They seemed to be years. And as I was wondering if I had become an old woman, and my hair had turned gray, I was lifted it again by two pairs of hands, though I heard not a sound of anyone approaching. I was carried this time some distance. A rope was tied round my waist, and immediately afterwards, I became pleasantly conscious that I was being lowered over the side of the ship. I took it for granted that my two friends, desirous of avoiding the noise of a splash, had adopted this method of dropping me into the sea. I feared my end had come, I was momentarily expecting to come in contact with the water,

when I went plump against something solid instead, and on what I had bumped against, I stayed. The tension of the rope ceased. I was being lowered no longer, apparently I was on or in something. I suppose I was there some minutes before I discovered that the ligature which had bound my wrist together was not so taught as it had been, and it did not take me very long after that discovery was made to wriggle both my hands loose. Then I put them up and pulled that covering off my head and face. I found it was a canvas bag which it contained something undesirable because my eyes and nostrils and mouth were full of grits, and something gritty was worrying my hair and skin. I took the gag out of my mouth they had actually used a piece of cotton waste. Then I sat up and I learned that I was in a small boat,

which was all alone on what literally to me was a trackless ocean. My sensations on making this discovery were of the most exhilarating kind. I would have cried if I had thought it would do any good. As a matter of fact, I was consumed with rage. My one craving was to get that freckled man and that false woman by their throats, one hand at the throat of each, and knock, knock, knock their heads together. There would not have been much left of them if I had had a chance of knocking them together then. I would have just smashed them up like eggshells. I nursed my pleasant dreams of being revenged on them for quite a while. Then I untied my ankles, got on the one seat in the boat, and looked around.

There was nothing to see except water, and there was too much of that. I must have been lying for hours with that disgusting bag over my head, because it was clear from the appearance of the heavens that the dawn was on the point of breaking. It did break. I floated on and on and on. All of a sudden I saw something straight in front of me, which caused me to get onto my feet and stare with all my might. It was land. I believed it was land. I was sure it was land. It was ever so far away, but if I only had, then I realized, there was a pair of oars on board that boat. Whether that pretty couple had put them there on purpose was the intention of giving me a chance to save my life, I have never known, but there they were. Presently I put them in the rowlocks, and I was pulling for dear life. I can row, but never before or since have I rowed as I rode then.

i sincerely hope i shall never have such a long pole again i reached land or i should not be telling the story when i did i just lay down and felt as if i were as good as dead if there had been so much as a ripple on the sea i doubt if i should ever have gained the shore at all my strength was utterly spent but not only was the sea as calm as a mill-pond but i have been told since that there is a strong current in that part of the world which sets towards the land no doubt that helped to carry me in as much as my straining at the oars i want to get over this part of the story as fast as possible i don't like to think of it even now after a while i became conscious that people were standing by and looking down at me i never knew quite who they were but i suppose they were moors because i had got ashore in morocco they could not speak english and i could not speak what they spoke so neither side understood a word of what the other side said but i followed them because a man took me by the wrist and made me go to a disreputable looking sort of village which i dare say an artist would have called picturesque but i like my villages to be clean and wholesome and that certainly was not there i met an old man who had some english of rather a curious kind he must have acquired it in some strange company because every third or fourth word was an oath still it was better than nothing i knew of course that the yacht was making for tangier and i asked him how far that was as far as i could gather from what he said it was about six months journey but i did not believe it was anything of the kind because i knew that the yacht expected to get there early that day and in that cockle-shell of a boat i could not possibly have gone very far out of its course as a matter of fact it was four days before i reached tangier the sight i must have presented when i got there i walked nearly all the way i had never had a wash or been able to brush or comb my hair

considering when i was lowered into that small boat i was in full evening dress i had on a costume of sky-blue satin covered with chiffon the corsage cut low no sleeves a pair of blue silk stockings to match and the flimsyest of shoes when you have got those details clearly in your mind and remember that i had spent the night at sea rowing in a small boat and then afterwards i walked for four days on the roads of morocco without once coming within sight of soap or water and i had spent the night of sea rowing in a small boat and then afterwards i walked for four days on the roads of morocco without once coming within sight of soap or water brush or comb, I don't think I need say any more of what I looked like when I reached Tangier. I created a sensation when I did get there, for that matter, I created a sensation all along the road. I was the center of a highly amused mob of the inhabitants of the place, when of all people in the world, who should I encounter but the proprietor of Ebenezer's gray-blue pills, his wife, his son, and his two daughters, together with other passengers from the yacht, which I had so unintentionally quitted. And they fell on me at once, not with sympathy, but with accusations

of robbery and theft. We all adjourned to the House of the British Consul, and half the population of the town seemed to be waiting in the street without. There I was informed that jewels and other valuables belonging to John T. Stebbings have been taken out of his cabin on the night I had gone, and every one took it for granted that they had gone with me so there i was charged with leaving that yacht of set purpose and intention with no indiv valuables belonging to other people looking back i find that i have omitted something it comes back to my mind at this moment just as it did then it is not very much just a trifle but one of those trifles which turned the scale as on that eventful night miss marianne tracy looked round and beheld me she was in the very act of saying something to her freckled friend i only saw her lips form part of the sentence how it began i do not know and it never ended the words i saw her lips form were only these the villa hortense on the street of the fountain in the excitement of the thrilling moment which immediately ensued i think i scarcely realized that those words had reached my brain anyhow I should not have known to what they referred.

But in that room in the council's house, confronted by my accusers, they came back to me. I even had some inkling of what they might mean. I told my tale. They listened with an amazement which grew. Then, when I had come nearly to an end, and I felt that I had made some sort of impression, I asked the council a question.

Is there in this town a street of the fountain? He said there was. He ventured on a statement, eyeing me sharply. you have been here before this is not your first visit to tangier i told him not only that it was but that i hoped it would be my last i explained the circumstances in which i had seen the words uttered how he stared and how they all stared as if i were some wonderful creature it is a continual source of amusement to me how many people think i am doing something wonderful when i am merely putting into practice the principles by the teaching of which i make my living i understand i added that miss tracy left the yacht the night before last to spend a day or two ashore i think it possible that you will find she prefers to remain ashore when the yacht goes i put another question to the consul do you happen to know sir if in the street of the fountain there is a house called the Villa Hortense? By repute I know it very well. It is a house which, at various times, has had some curious occupants, persons of whom somewhat queer tales have been told.

I believe that at the present moment it is without a tenant. I venture in spite of your belief, sir, to express my belief that if Mr. John T. Stebbins would like to learn something about the jewels belonging to Mrs. Stebings, and the Mrs. Stebings, he cannot do better than making quaying. He cannot do better the making quarries at the Villa Hortense in the street of the fountain. They all trooped off to that poetically named street. I tried to get it into their heads that that was not the most desirable way of making what ought to have been a discreet approach. Each was willing that someone else should stay behind, but was bent on going him or herself.

So they all of them went together. Someone, I do not know who, had lent me an Aboriginal sort of rap, which I believe was called a Bernouz. that covered the worst of me, but there was still enough of me visible to make me one of the most striking figures in that singular procession. The street of the fountain proved to be very narrow, so the procession had to tail off whether it wished to or not. From the outside, the villa Hortense seemed to be quite a good-sized home. While people were wondering how we were going to get in, I turned the handle and opened the door. The door led directly into a room.

As I entered, I saw a feminine figure passing through a door, which was on the other side. Although she looked quite different, I knew that she was Miss Mary Ann Tracy. As I made a dash at her, she shut the door the bang. I heard a key turned in the lock and bolt shot home. As the door was a solid construction, apparently six inches thick, my desire to get through it had to be postponed. Others had come in after me, and they were eyeing with surprise the contents of the room, which certainly were rather amazing. There were articles of clothing which had undoubtedly belonged to Miss Tracy, and what is known as a transformation, which had probably belonged to her too, to say nothing of some odds and ends of an extremely intimate kind. The great discovery was made by Mrs. Stebings and her two daughters.

They dashed forward with a chorus cry, Father's bag! There on a sort of stool was the bag which Mr. Stebbings had kept in his locker, and which had contained the most valuable possessions of the, the feminine part of the family. There were some of them left still, what the family seemed regard as unconsidered trifles. The articles really worth having were there no more. They had probably gone with a lady who had locked and bolted on the other side that extremely solid door. While we were assimilating this interesting fact, a person garbed as a sailor appeared in the doorway and informed us at the top of his voice that if we wanted to continue our yachting crews,

we had better get on board at once as the boat was on the point of starting. There was a nice to do. Everyone seemed to be strongly of the opinion that the captain was an exceptionally unreasonable person. But as no one wished to be left behind, a common inclination was shown to rush to the shore. As nobody was more eager to get on board than I was, for diverse reasons, I kept well to the front. We reached the quay just as the ship's boat was about to put off, and I was the first one in. they all came tumbling after me we discussed the captain's conduct on the way to the ship and we kept on discussing it to the end of the voyage he was tried by a sort of court-martial no two members of which agreed mr mrs the missus and master stebbings were of opinion that the captain ought to have kept the ship at tangier while search was made for that disreputable woman and at least endeavoured to recover their valuable property as the ship had stayed there already much longer than she ought to have done the captain made it quite clear that his first duty was to the owners and that if the stevings family had wished to remain they might have done so and come by another ship

but as their remaining property was on board and they had only a few pounds on their persons it was not strange that they had not seen their way to act on the captain's suggestion mrs stevings asked him pointedly if he thought she could live for a fortnight in the clothes she stood up in and the young ladies hinted that he was not the kind of person they had taken him for. So the captain retired, and I should not be surprised if he bullied the crew. I believe efforts were made by wireless to ascertain the woman's whereabouts and to regain the Stebbings' gyms, and that directions were given to leave no stone unturned which should bring those things about, but so far as I know, nothing ever came of what was done. The yachting crews went on under a sort of blight. everything seemed different without miss tracy and the stebbings's gems the numerous inquisitions which were held on me and the myriad questions which i had to answer caused me seriously to consider whether it would not be desirable to remain at one of the ports at which we touched and continued my journey later but the truth was that i had had enough of yachting and the one thing for which i craved was to have done with that pleasure trip and get back home i did get back home we all got back home and i thought that-i thought

think that most of us parted from each other in the hope that we might never meet again. This story is episodical, with an interval between each episode. There was another interval of about 18 months, during which I managed to keep myself a lot, though for the most part I was badly overworked. And one afternoon I went to call upon a friend who was staying at the Hotel Metropole in town. I stayed in the lounge while she went to write some letters. Right on the other side was a party of Americans. They seemed to be so much amused by what they were talking about that I could not help watching them, and I saw one of them tell this story. He struck me as a man who had been in this world about sixty years, and had lived them every one. Have I told you about Alexander King?

He asked the question, and with one accord his listener said that he had not. So he told them then. last fall alexander went on a pleasure cruise to the coast of florida on board there was a lady i don't mean there weren't other ladies on the ship but she was the only one for alexander alexander had had three wives already and he told me himself that he thought enough was as good as a feast but the sight of her made him think he'd try again all the way there and back he made hay of that young female's heart to such an extent that when he got back to new york nothing would suit him but he should rush off to the first-handy place and make her the fourth mrs king but she was not taking any she was a modest creature and wanted time to prepare her mind so he gave her time as little as she would let him give her and he spent most of it in buying such articles as new york had to sell so that when they had the wedding he had quite a nice collection to pour into the lap of his bride they were going to tennessee for the honeymoon and they went down to the depot and they boarded the train and just before the train was going to start she remembered that she had forgotten something somewhere, and she caught up a bag which contained all he had worth having, as well as some trifles of her own, and she started off to get it, and she left Alexander alone in the train, and he's been alone ever since. Yes, boys, he has. That train started with Alexander

alone in it, without even his bag. She had recommended him, like a good and thoughtful wife, careful of her husband's interest, to put all his cash into that bag, and everything he had, had worth taking, and he had acted on her advice, and now the bag was gone and she with it. That's the last he's ever seen of either. Yes, boys, that's a fact. What honeymoon he had he spent all alone, which didn't amount to much, and from what I have heard it, it would seem that he has been spending most of the money he had left on telegraphic descriptions of the bag and the lady to every part of the world. He has met with no success so far, and I take it that his money will give out before he does, so he's a widower once more. His hearers laughed, and I had to laugh.

He had such a comical way of telling a story. But I laughed with a rather wry face. I had no doubt that Mrs. Everard Brooks and Miss Marianne Tracy and Mrs. Alexander King were one and the same person. The audacity of the creature was almost incredible. I believe I should have gone across to them and told them so, only just then my friend came up and insisted, upon bearing me off without giving me a chance to explain. A few days afterwards I was in Bond Street, when a beautifully attired lady came out of a shop and stopped to stare at me. I could not believe my eyes. It was Mary Ann Tracy, though transformed into quite another being. Her coolness was almost supernatural.

It is Miss Lee, isn't it? I thought it was. I'm so glad to have met you. That was all she said, in the sweetest tone of voice. then she got into a gorgeous motor-car which i had been conscious had been standing at the curb and as she pulled the door to she leaned over and said by the way how did you enjoy that little trip to see before i could answer the car was off what was i to do i could not run after it it was lost in the traffic before i had got my wits about me i could not give a description of the car i had scarcely noticed it i was not sure either of the shape or colour that woman had slipped through my fingers merely because her presence of mine was greater than mine if i had only kept my head enough to take her by the throat in the middle of bond street a week afterwards i had a call from mr everard brooks he began to talk about his wife he still called her his wife the man struck me as being more than half a lunatic he told me that he had more than once thought of going into mourning the very notion i thought of what her feelings would have been if she had seen him in widower's weeds he said that he felt that in the first flush of his agitation he had misjudged her he was sure that she had cared for him he had proof of it i wonder what they were he was nearly convinced that she had been the victim of one of those tragedies of which one reads in the newspapers she might have been run over by a motor-bus he had a morbid feeling that he himself would one day be run over by a vehicle of that description

something had happened to her he believed one day it would be made known what it was i hope that it never would for his sake he was one of those men who because nothing ever has happened to them like to think that something has happened to them at last something wonderful altogether out of the common way that they have been the victim of some supreme tragedy i doubt if he would have made much of a husband anyhow he was actually happy under the delusion that some strange mysterious fate had in some altogether incomprehensible way robbed him of what might have been his life's bright star his existence might have been so blissful had destiny only stayed its hand it is my belief that he endeavoured to make this clear to everybody he met after five minutes acquaintance so that he had destiny only stayed its hand it is my belief that he endeavoured to make this clear to everybody he met after five minutes acquaintance so that he had been so that he had been so that his own that if he lost his wife before she was really his, at least he had an object in life. The next morning I met William B. Stebbings, the son of Ebenezer's gray-blue pills, and as soon as he had made up his mind who I was, the very first words he said to me were, I say, Miss Lee, I'm going to be married, yes I am, and I hope to see you there. You must have a card. It's on Tuesday week. Then, though we were out in the open street, he closed his left eye and winked.

You ever heard anything of Miss Tracy? She was a dandy of a girl she was. And between ourselves, I believe that she didn't object to me. If it hadn't been for that little upset, matters between us might have gone farther than, well, strict between ourselves. I don't mind telling you that she told me herself that she would like to be my wife. She meant it, too. She was fond of me, that girl was.

Pity she made such a mistake. I did not know to which mistake he alluded, and I did not ask. asked him i did not want to know he was an extremely plain clumsily built stupid young man and i was half inclined to wish that she had married him where women are concerned men are the most amazing things what all these men of different ages different tastes different altogether saw in her was beyond my comprehension the proof that she had a fatal fascination for the male animal came to me in still stranger shape only a few days later i was standing in one of the tube stations when a decently dressed young man came up to me and took his cap off. Excuse me, but aren't you Miss Lee? I don't suppose you know who I am, but I remember you because of Miss Balfour. Miss who? I asked. I was quite certain I had never seen him before.

He was almost a gentleman and quite nice looking, about 23 or four. Miss Balfour spoke to you in Bond Street, now rather more than a fortnight since. You were passing when she came out of a shop. and spoke to you, and then she got into the motor-car. I was the chauffeur. She told me afterwards who you were. So she calls herself Miss Balfour now, does she? A light was beginning to dawn on me. I shall be very much obliged if you can tell me where Miss Balfour is to be found at the present moment. He pulled rather a long face. I wish I could. That is what I hoped you would be able to tell me. No one is less likely to be able to tell you about the movements of the woman who,

according to you, now calls herself Miss Balfour than I am. Are you no longer in her employ? He shifted his cap a little to one side and scratched his head. I thought what a rueful looking object he was all at once. Well, it's rather a long story, it's like this. He paused as if to try back to the beginning. I wasn't exactly in her employ. The fact is, an uncle of mine left me a legacy, and I laid it out in buying a motor car,

meaning to hire it out to people who wanted one. It's a first-rate car, and I wanted to get at people of better class. Miss Balfour hired it, first by the day, then by the week, and then by the month. We used to go off together for tours in the country, and... He began to look sheepish. She made herself very pleasant to me. Of course she paid my expenses, and nothing would suit her but that we should take our meals together. Late dinner and all that, and, well, he looked more sheepish.

She began to make out that she had taken a liking to me, and of course I liked her, so that I gave her the motor-car. You did what? I almost shouted in that tube station. You see, we were going to be married. Oh, you were going to be married. Of course, I knew she'd got lots of money, and that it would be a first-rate thing for me, and so I thought there being only one thing I could give her worth having,

that was the least I could give her. so i gave her the motor-car thinking he quickly added that as what was hers would be mine it would make no difference and that it would be as much mine as ever only the mischief was i gave it her before witnesses and that very same night if she didn't get up in the middle of the night and go down to the garage and take the car out and drive off with it and i've seen nothing of either of them since this was such an astounding story that if it had not been for the sincere air of depression which marked the man I should have thought that he was having a joke at my expense, but he was serious enough, as he had good reason to be. It was no use my going after her, even if I had known where she was, because, of course, she hadn't stolen the motor-car,

seeing that I had given it to her in the presence of witnesses, and that's how it was. Do you mean to say, you've lost your motor-car? It looks as if I had. I did hear by a sort of side-wind that she's taken it to front. but seeing that it's hers i don't see what i can do to her if she has she had me fairly it was one of the best motor-cars that money could buy i didn't grudge anything in the way of fittings he sighed my train came up and i left the youth lamenting he was only another example of what absolute idiots all sorts and conditions of men old and young can make themselves over a woman it was not very long afterwards that a letter reached me which bore the paris post

As a specimen of, I will call it courage, I give it verbatim. There was no date and there was no address. My dear Miss Lee, may I call you Judith? It was at this point that I realized that the letter was from that woman. Might she call me Judith? I read on with my teeth set pretty close together. When I saw you the other day in Regent Street, I don't know if you saw me, I was in a motor car and you were walking,

quite a wave of emotion passed over me. It was so sweet to see again one of whom one has such sunny memories, and you were looking so well, a little older perhaps, but a few years more or less would make no difference to your appearance. I should have liked to stop my motor-car and begged you to have a cup of tea. I cannot help sending you just a line to say so, if only to recall to your recollection, one who I hope you look upon as an old friend. a great change is about to take place in my life i am shortly to be married to a russian merchant of immense wealth one has to be married sometime i wonder if you will ever be there are men who will marry anything who knows

i had no idea until the other day that you were the famous judith lee it was a surprise i had heard so much about you about how wise and clever and wonderful you were and you are not the least like what i expected and yet how beautiful it must be to be able to read people's thoughts even the secrets of their hearts as i am told you can who would have thought it i shall look forward to meeting you again some day in order that you may teach me some of the strange magic i am bound to call it magic of which you are such a mistress you will find in me an apt pupil don't you think you will you must be able to do a great deal of good in the world with such a gift as yours i love doing good don't you it must be so nice to detect an improper person directly you see one your friendship for me was almost a certificate of character if only it had not been so brief but the night was fine and the boat was handy and we did not tie you very tight your affectionate friend marianne tracy pray remember me to the gentleman whose name you want to mention to me mr everard brooks is he married the audacity of the woman in writing to me at all and such a letter with such innuendoes i could hardly contain myself till i got to the end for quite two days after i had received that effusion i could hardly bring myself to speak civilly to a single person i came across and even now sometimes i tingle all over when i think of it and that was ages ago and i have never heard nor seen the woman since end of chapter four chapter five of judith lee pages from her life by richard marsh This Libervox recording is in the public domain.

The miracle. People sometimes say that they envy me because, with my power of reading thoughts, that they say is what it comes to, I must have so many opportunities of doing people good. It must be so sweet, they add, with what I occasionally feel to be an irritating smirk, to be able with very little trouble to oneself to benefit one's fellow creatures. That sort of remark is very easy. easy to make, but it is not easy to benefit one's fellow creatures. And as for doing people good,

it is surprising how many people would rather not be done good, too. Take the case of what happened at Dieppe. I was spending my summer holidays at Dieppe. I had been there about a fortnight. One evening I was sitting, all alone by myself, on the terrace outside the casino. I had been dancing, my partner had gone to fulfill another engagement, and as I was not engaged for that dance, I had asked him to leave me where I was. I was taking my ease in a long chair close to the seawall. In front of me in the glow of the electric light, people were seated at little tables, having refreshments.

At one of these was a gentleman whose name I knew, talking to one who was to me a complete stranger. The first gentleman's name was Armitage. Cessal Armitage. He was an amazingly handsome young man, perhaps in the late twenties. He was staying in my hotel, and he was the cause of no little amusement to some of the other visitors. He, a young man of seven or eight and twenty, evidently of birth and breeding, was paying the most marked attention to a woman who was one of the greatest jokes in Dieppe, Miss

Drawbridge. Miss Drawbridge, commonly known as Gertrude, to people who had never spoken to her in their lives, was a sort of standing dish at Dieppe. She was supposed to have been there longer than the oldest inhabitant. She had certainly been a frequenter for quite a number of years. What I had seen of her I rather liked. She was staying at my hotel, and there was a time when she had asked me to share her table, and although that time had passed, and she never asked me to share it now, we were still on quite good terms. She was certainly a curious person. People who haunt the same foreign watering place year after year generally are, and what an extremely presentable young man

like Cecil Armitage could see in her was a mystery, unless it was her money. Imagine the sensation which stirred the air when it became known that this perfect Adonis was engaged to Gertrude. Had not Miss Drawbridge announced the fact herself, I fancy few people would have believed it, and the things which were said of Miss Drawbridge, especially by some of the women, the men just sneered. There was I on the terrace in my long chair. I could say things about men, but I think I had better get on with my story. And there was Mr. Armitage, drinking what looked to me very like absent, fancy drinking absinthe at that time of night, or so far as that goes at any time, and talking to a perfect stranger. Of course, the man was quite entitled to be a

stranger, but I have seldom seen a man whose looks I liked less. The contrast between him and Mr. Armagedage was amazing. He was a sallow hatchet-faced man with an upturned mustache, which I hate, and something the matter with one of his eyes which made him seem to be looking in two directions at once. Nor did I like his manner towards Mr. Armadage. He seemed to be positively bullying him. That was one reason why I watched what they said, and some very surprising observations, I cannot say I heard, I saw, and as always is the case on such occasion. I could not have gained a more intimate acquaintance with them had they bawled them in my ear. The first thing I saw was the stranger's thin lips contorting themselves as,

in what I imagined to be an angry undertone, they formed these words, which I have no doubt, judging from the expression of his face, he snapped out at Mr. Armitage as if he were an angry terrier. Don't you make any mistake about it, my boy. I've not come over to Dieppe to be fooled with. I'm either going to have you or the money, in four-and-twenty hours. If I have to have you, it will be penal servitude, and then the

smile will come off that pretty face of yours. Mr. Armitage was not smiling at that particular moment, as anyone could see. On the contrary, he looked very much disturbed. The way in which he leaned across the table helped me to realize the earnestness which I felt sure was in his voice, as he replied to the other's threat, in words which, as I saw each fresh one shaped on his lips, surprise me more and more. Don't be absurd, Clark. I can't perform the impossible. I can't get it in four and twenty hours, but you shall have your money with a thumping interest if you'll only give me reasonable time.

And pray, what do you call reasonable time, my beautiful forger? It won't take very much to make me break this glass against your face, Clark. You may have the whip hand of me, but I'll break your neck before you get a chance of laying the lash across my back. I held my breath, expecting every moment to see something dreadful happen. The way Mr. Clark snarled back at him, That's the tone you take, is it? You talk to me like that again, and I'll have you jailed tonight.

Do you think you can both rob and murder me? I say you're a forger. Forger, forger! Now you touch me with a glass or anything else if you dare. This will be the last time that you ever show yourself in a decent place if you do. There was a pause. Mr. Armage leaned so far forward that I quite expected that he would take the other by the throat and strike him with his glass. I was just on the point of jumping up and doing something which would divert his attention when he seemed all at once to change his purpose and leaning right back positively laughed.

What nonsense it is, Clark, our talking like this. You'll do no more good by calling me names than I should by knocking you down. I tell you, you shall have your money with thumping interest. if you'll wait. I know a good deal about you, my lad, about all there is to learn, but I don't know where you're going to get anything like that amount of money from, unless you found someone else to rob. I thought Mr. Armitage would resent this remark as he had done the others, and I believe that for a moment it was his intention to do so. But again, he changed his purpose, and I saw these remarkable words come from his lips instead.

I found, I found a woman. it was not strange that mr clark looked at him as if he wondered if he was in earnest then he asked with a smile which made him an even more unpleasant-looking person than before what woman have you found this time if you are suggesting as you appear to be that i have ever robbed a woman up to now i can only inform you clark with all possible courtesy that you are a liar i have not always treated women well few men have but no woman has ever suffered in pocket because of me up to the present time of speaking. That's between you and your conscience. Who is the woman you propose, according to your own statement, to rob at the 11th hour? It is the woman I intend to make my wife. Oh, so there's a woman you're going to make your wife at last.

What about? I do not know what he was going to say. Mr. Armitage stopped him so suddenly and positively shook his fist in his face. Stop that, Clark. Don't you mention any names. You keep your tongue between your teeth. I'm going to marry the woman I'm going to marry because I'm a thief, because I'm such a cur that I shrink from paying the penalty.

She's a wretched old fool who comes all to pieces. Heaven knows what's left of her when the various aides of beauty are put away for the night, but she's got money and she's willing to give me money enough to be rid of you and save myself from the treadmill. That's why I'm going to enter the bonds of holy matrimony, and that's a perfectly frank confession, franker, I dare say, than most men make in similar circumstances.

This sounds as if it were going to be a marriage of real affection, a genuine love match, the sneer which was on Mr. Clark's face as he said this, the indescribable look which was on Mr. Armitages as he replied. If you only knew how I hate the woman, how every pulse throbs with loathing when she comes near me, he gave what seemed to me to be a great sigh. As I live, it's a comfort to say that to someone.

It makes me ill to be in the same room with her. Got to that stage already. Heaven knows how far it will go by the time we're married. I shouldn't wonder if I were to murder her on our wedding night. Is that so really? What a honeymoon you'll have if you do. Is the lady young? Young?

I shouldn't care to ask her age for fear of the depth of the lies she'd tell me. She's at least old enough to be my mother, my grandmother, for all the woman that's left. in her. What a very charming couple you will make, full of vivacity. Has the lady physical charm? She never had. I tell you she takes all to pieces nowadays. She is one of those women the lady's papers always suggest to the masculine mind. She gets her hair from one of the persons advertised in the back pages, her complexion from some wretched herodon whose advertisement is to be found a page or two in front. Her figure from a person the editor specially recommended.

at so much a time, and her teeth from the Lord knows who. She's a regular specimen of Love's young dream. Is she really? She must be a walking nightmare. What is the fortunate lady's name? I take it she has tons of money. Her name is Drawbridge, and she has, at any rate, enough money to pay you, Clark. I hope there will be a little left for you when I am paid. I do really, my dear boy. Well, there may be or they're mant, but I'm marrying her to get the money to pay you, and that's the whole plain truth. Mr. Armitage was about to rise from his chair, when the other leaned right over the table and stopped him. One moment, Armitage, one moment. When are you going to touch that money, eh? I can't tell you the exact day now, can I?

I only proposed to her yesterday. It was your telegram that brought me to the sticking point. I'm afraid I shall have to push you a little beyond the sticking point. I'm in a hole myself. I'm pressed for money. I've got to find at least 500 pounds in four and 20 hours. Is that true? Perfectly true. I shall be in a very inconvenient position if I don't, and it's got to come from you.

You'll be in a more inconvenient position than I shall if it doesn't, so that's plain. I've come all the way to Dieppe to make it clear to you that it is plain. Can you get me 500 pounds out of your fair lady between this and tomorrow night? If you can, I'll wait a few days for the rest, but 500 I've got to have before I go to bed tomorrow night. Or, you know the alternative if I don't. The engagement will be off. I don't suppose even she will want to marry you after you've done a term of penal servitude.

There's something else. I should like a hundred tonight. I haven't ten pounds left in the world. I'm practically broke. I've been losing steadily ever since I've been at this place. Then it looks as if you'll have to get a hundred for me and a bit over for yourself. I've got to have my hundred and the other four tomorrow. Mr. Armitage looks steadily at the other,

seemed to see something in his face, which made it clear that he meant what he said. A grim look came on his own face as I saw him say, I'll see what I can do. You'd better. Where's the lady? Punting in the club, playing. Baccarat. Then you better cut off to the club as fast as ever you can, and take her by the scruff of the neck and squeeze that hundred out of her while she's got it to squeeze. After you're married,

you're not going to let her play Baccarat with your money, are you? She'll make a pauper of you if you don't take care. You mind your own business and leave me to manage my matrimonial affairs after my own fashion. Mr. Armitage got up from his chair. Where shall I find you? At the hotel or here. You'll find me all over the place, my lad. Don't you make any mistake. I'm not going to lose sight of you till I've got my money, or got you in jail. You can go, but just you understand, I shall be close behind, and I'm not the only one who will be close behind you either. If you keep looking over your shoulder, you'll see two or three friends of mine. Mr. Armitage took himself off, with an air of indifference which was very well done. He could not have had a very careless feeling in his

cart. Almost immediately Mr. Clark followed with the evident attention of dogging his steps, and I was left alone, nearly overcome by feelings which were altogether indescribable. What on earth was I to do? It was no business of mind, this affair of the old maid and the young bachelor. She must have known what a risk she was running when she agreed to his preposterous proposal. If, by what I will call an accident, I had become acquainted with facts which made the gentleman's position in the matter abundantly clear, still it was no concern of mine. It was no use my talking to myself like that. I could not allow a person of my own sex to enter into what I knew would be a hideous marriage

without making some attempt to lay before her the facts upon which my knowledge was based. In other words, here was one of those opportunities for doing good of which people were so fond of talking, and if the thing was in my power, good should be done. i got up from my seat and went in search of miss drawbridge finding her as i expected in that part of the building which is found in every french casino and which i presume ironically is called as if it ever is in any sense of the word a club or has anything private about it she was seated at one of the baccarat tables and i could see at a glance that she was winning she had quite a quantity of bank-notes in front of her and kept adding to the store presently the bank was closed and the players rose miss drawbridge rose too with her spoils and a white satin handbag as she moved toward the door mr armadage came into the room with mr clark not very far behind him when he accosted her i thought as i suppose every one else did in the room what an extraordinary couple they were to think that they were ever going to be married i saw him ask her with an attempt at a smile well what luck how many banks have you broken her back was towards me so that i could not see her answer but i guessed what it was from his rejoinder that's great news i fancy he hesitated would he have the assurance to ask for that hundred pounds from mr clark

without a moment's warning he approached the subject by what i suppose he meant to be a delicate way i'm awfully glad you've had a bit of luck because the fact is it's all the other way with me i can't do anything right and between ourselves i saw him hesitate again i imagine that the decent man which was in him made it difficult for him to ask a woman for money when it came to the pinch what she said i could not see but i conceive of her as saying struck by his hesitation, well, and what is it, between ourselves? He made a stumbling effort to explain what it was he wanted. You know, it's like this. I'm awfully pushed for coin. If you could manage to lend me, say, a hundred out of those winnings of yours. She cut him short. I could not tell with what words, but her hand dived into her white satin bag just as they passed through the swing door out of sight. Two or three minutes afterwards, when I returned to the casino, I saw in the crowd round the little horses, Mr. Clark sidled up to Mr. Armitage. Both their faces were in plain sight.

I could see Mr. Clark asked, well, have you got it? Has the sweet young thing been kind? Mr. Armitage turned away, as if the other's jive had roused him to sudden anger. But I saw him hand his companion something as he moved away, and I knew what it was. A few minutes later, I saw Mr. Armitage again going toward the club. He was addressed by a fat, florid-looking man with an exaggerated moustache. A mustache sometimes screams a man's mouth almost completely, but his was so formed that, despite the absurd dimensions of that hirsute adornment, I could see his lips distinctly. He said to the man he had stopped, with what I fancy was an evil gleam in his bold bloodshot eyes, I'm sure Mr. Armitage has a five-pound note,

which you can spare for an old friend who's a little on his uppers. Mr. Armitage, recognized him with what was evidently not a start of satisfaction. So it's you, Morgan, is it? What on earth are you doing here? I thought you were. Mr. Morgan raised his finger to his lips, to prevent the other bringing his sentence to a close. Quite so. We won't say where. How about a five-pound note, Mr. Armitage, for a very old friend? Mr. Armitage looked at him angrily for a few seconds, then grabbed something out of the pocket of his dinner jacket, which might have been a hundred-franc note. He thrust it into the other's hand, and without waiting for a word of thanks, went quickly on. Mr. Morgan looked at what he had been given,

then he looked after the door. The expression on his face was not that of a grateful man. I found this drawbridge sitting at the very table on the terrace, which had been lately occupied by Mr. Armitage and his friend. As I took the chair in front of her, she said to me, That's right. Come and talk to me and have something. She herself was having some curious concoction in a big glass. For me, she ordered a lemon squash. I've had a good night, my dear. It seems as if I can't lose a Bacara lately, as if my luck had turned. I'm sure it's about time it should. You look a little moped, what's been troubling you. I considered for a second or two, then I approached by degrees to make the plunge. I approach the subject by what I meant to be roundtable fashion of my own.

I've just heard something rather disagreeable. Have you? That's easy. The difficulty is to learn anything else. Is it private or for publication? I've just learned that a man who I thought was rather a decent sort is a thief and a rogue and two or three other things which are rather worse. When you've had my experience of life, my dear, which heaven forbid you ever will, You'll know that that sort of thing is quite common with a man. You must take a man at his own valuation, my dear. We should never get one at all if we took them at ours. This man is not only going to marry a woman for her money,

but because he doesn't know where he will get the money from if he can't from her. And if he doesn't get her money at the earliest possible moment, he'll be sent to jail. He's a thoroughly all-around bad lot, the man is, though he doesn't look it. Miss Drawbridge had her fish-like eyes. they always looked as if they had been boiled fixed on me with a watery stare what's the gentleman's name i knew from her manner that as the children have it in their game she was getting warm does it begin with the first letter of the alphabet i'm afraid it does what have you found out about mr armatage stay before you speak i ought to tell you that what you say will in all probability be repeated to him and while i'm about it i ought perhaps to tell you something else and that is not a very easy thing to say she sipped at her glass then she took a cigarette out of a gold case and began to smoke i thought what an extremely unprepossessing woman she seemed

i wondered by what process of evolution a sweet simple fresh clean young girl had become transformed into such a being rather to my surprise and a good deal to my confusion she showed an unexpected capacity to read my thoughts You don't think I'm very much to look at, do you? I'm not. I never was. Time has not improved me, either outside or in. When I was young, I was very poor. For seven years, I was governess at sometimes 20, sometimes 30 pounds a year, and lived upon my earnings, if you know what that means.

I couldn't expect to get married on that, could I? And no one wanted me anyhow, though I wanted to marry very badly. I never remember the time when the one thing of which I dreamed was not to become some decent man's wife. It sounds funny, doesn't it? Isn't it a shocking confession to make? I wonder how many women would make it if they told the truth. She flicked the ash from her cigarette.

I was beginning to wish that I had left her alone, that I had not embraced an opportunity of doing her good. When I was about 38, I came into a lot of money from an uncle, whom I don't remember to ever have seen. scene. It turned to my head. I thought that money could do anything. I decided that now I would marry, and that I would marry just the sort of man I had always hoped I would do. You see, I had practically no knowledge of the world at all. How can a woman have, who has lived a life like mine? It took seven or eight years to make it clear that, in thinking because I had got money, I could marry the sort of man I wanted to, I was a fool. She smiled, and the whole of her face seemed to be dislocated to enable her to do so, and she beckoned the waiter to fill her glass.

Men wanted to marry me, oh yes, but they were the kind of men whom I would not, as the saying is, have touched with the end of a barge-pole. I sent them about their business. Whenever I saw a masculine creature, to whose appearance I particularly objected, I knew that sooner or later he would ask me to be his wife, which was nice. No one ever did, so I made a fool of myself, by every way of seeking consolation. I know they call me Gertrude here, and some equally silly name at other places which I favor regularly with my society.

As a matter of fact, my name is Elizabeth. Since my mother died, when I was a girl, no one has ever called me by my Christian name. Think of that! The waiter brought her a fresh edition of that curious concoction. She put the glass to her lips. Don't suppose that my desire to marry grew less as my years grew more. That's a silly notion which some young girls seem to have.

If I have to advertise for a husband, I'm going to have one before I die. So you can imagine what it means to me that Cecil Armitage has asked me to be his wife. I don't know that I'm particularly fond of him. I'm quite aware that he isn't at all fond of me. But he's so young, you don't know what a young man means to a woman like me. And so handsome, so beautiful, so healthy, so strong, so well shaped. In my most sanguine moments, I never dreamed that I should have such a perfect specimen of a man for my very own. Of course, I shall have to pay for him. You needn't tell me that. My experience is that one always has to pay for anything that's worth having, and generally through the nose. I expect to have to pay through the nose for him. I've got more money than some people think,

or I believe, even that he suspects. I believe he thinks that I've got two or three thousand. I've got two or three thousand a year. I'm a rich woman, my dear. My money has gone on increasing and increasing, and now I don't spend a tenth of my income. I don't mean to let him know how much money I really have. He'd want too much if I did. I don't suppose for a moment that he isn't what I've seen described as shop-soiled. He wouldn't want to get money out of me at the price of making me his wife if he wasn't in a nasty hole. And bless you, I don't mind that. I've grown out of all my illusions. You can tell me all you know against him if you like, though I don't know how you found out. It will give me a pull over him when it comes to talking matters over a little later on.

Nothing you can tell me, to his discredit will surprise or hurt me in the least. I'm prepared to pay a good lump sum to get him clear of all his messes. Then I'm going to have one of the finest weddings ever seen in town. I've had a special sum set apart for it for years. Won't he make a picture of a bridegroom? I never dreamed that I should marry a man like him. Her cigarette being nearly consumed, she lit another, while I looked at her with, I have no doubt,

amazement in my eyes, and something like terror in my heart. I had never supposed that there were such women as she existing in the world who looked at what, to me, were sacred things from such a point of view. It seemed to me that I was listening to someone in a nightmare when she went on. There will be crowds of people at my wedding. You could always get crowds of people if you don't care what it costs to get them. And the papers will be full of it. The ladies' papers send their own lady reporter to weddings

and give pages and pages and lots of illustrations, if you make it worth their while. It's all a question of making it worth their while. I tell you that with such a bridegroom I'm going to have the wedding of the season, and I do believe you thought you were going to choke me off by telling me that he is what you call a thief. You funny little thing! how many really honest men do you suppose there are if the truth were known i had nightmares because of miss drawbridge that night real nightmares i had a broken and disturbed night absolutely on her account

and i got out of bed with the feeling strong upon me that if i could possibly help it that to my mind impossible marriage should not take place i would do that unfortunate woman good in spite of herself when i got down almost the first person i saw was mr cecil armitage looking so glum so unhappy so desperate and i could not but think so ashamed of himself that my resolution was strengthened particularly when as i was having my coffee and roll the man morgan with the huge moustache came and planted himself at my table and actually began to talk to me i rather fancy miss lee that you are interested shall i say in our mutual friend armadage he seemed to have got my name off pat though where he had got it from i could not think how he dared to address me i could not think either i had never seen the man except the night before in the casino for about thirty seconds, and then at a distance. I did not answer him. I just looked at him. He went on. I may mention that I am Captain Morgan of the fuseliers. I think it was the fuseliers. I know it was some regiment, as if I cared. I'm an old friend of Mr. Armitage, and if you'd like, I can place you in possession of certain facts concerning that gentleman. I did not wait for him to finish.

I got up and walked off, leaving my coffee and roll unfinished. I dare say if I had stopped to finish them, he would have offered to sell me secrets about mr armadage for five pounds apiece i had an instinctive feeling that he was that kind of man it is quite the thing in deyp to go down to the quay to see the boat come in from new haven after dejeney as there was a pretty stormy sea i thought i would go and see what the passengers looked like as i was going i fell in with mrs curtis one of the dearest old ladies i have ever met she was an american and so far as i could make out had been doing europe very much on her own although she had a husband who everybody said was a millionaire it seemed that he was coming to dyip by that very boat i haven't seen him for years she told me for more than six months he's so occupied with business that he hasn't time to spare for such a trifle as a wife except between wiles i understand that he's been making another million dollars i wish he wouldn't every fresh million he makes only seems to fill him with the desire to make more and as we've neither kith nor kin and are just a lonely old couple what we are going to do with all that money i can't think it was a funny thing to say but then people do say funny things and there are such funny people and so much of the world does seem queer a few people have too much money and so many have nothing like enough it's all a jumble when the boat drew up at the quay she began to wave her handkerchief with all her might to an elderly gentleman who stood on the deck and he began to wave his to her so i drew off

in order that they might meet without being worried by a stranger. As I was strolling off the quay after most of the people had gone, a girl who had a small brown bag in her hand looked at me as if she wondered if I were very dreadful, and then as if, thinking that perhaps I was not, summoned up courage to speak to me. Can you tell me, she asked, the name of a cheap and respectable hotel where, where I can go alone? I told her of one which I thought answered that description. I offered to show her where it was. She was quite the prettiest girl I had seen for ages,

with a face, I thought, which had character and strength, as well as being good to look at. I fell in love with her at sight. She did not accept my offer to show her to the hotel, but she thanked me for giving her the name, and then after favoring me with a further inspection, she made her a mark which took me aback. I believe that in these foreign places,

if they have been there any time, English people begin to know each other by names as well as by sight, Will you pardon my asking how long you've been here? I told her. Then came a staggering question. Can you tell me if there is now staying in Dieppe a gentleman named Cecil Armitage? I informed her to the best of my knowledge and belief there certainly was.

I do not know what there was in my tone which she resented, but there seemed to be something, because barely thanking me, she gave me a cold little nod and walked on. That evening after dinner, I was sitting, in the casino gardens when I saw a fragment of conversation between Mrs. Curtis and her newly-returned husband, which both amazed and tickled me. I may say at once that, unless I blindfold myself, whether I want to or not, I cannot help seeing what people are saying whenever I look out of my eyes. I was rather in the shadow, and they were in the full glare of the electric light, so that I could not

help seeing them. The old lady was speaking when I saw them first. So you've been making more money, she said, and as she said it she looked at her husband rather severely. I've been making a pile, Eleanor, a regular pile. I wish money wasn't so easy to make, or that I hadn't the knack of making it. As he said it, he looked to me as if he groaned, in spite of the severe expression on the old lady's face, I dare say there was a twinkle in her eye. And what are you going to do with it now you've made it? I'm hanged if I know, I'll be bothered if I do.

It's no use to me, and I suppose it's no use to you, is it? None whatever. I've all the money I ever likely to need and rather more. It's piling up the bank as it is, so that I'm ashamed to look my bank book in the face. There's such a lot of it. I wonder you can't find some better occupation for your time than making money when you've got more than you want already. The old gentleman bending towards her took her hand in his, and I can see how his face softened as he touched her,

and how her softened too. I tell you what I would like to be doing with some of that last money I've been making. I'd like to do someone a good turn. Do you think it would be easy? I don't mean just give it away to the first Tom or Dick or Harry who thinks he wants it. There are plenty of them. You don't happen to know of a man, woman, or child whom a certain amount of money would mean the difference between heaven and hell?

There must be such people in the world somewhere. Wouldn't you like to set some fellow who wasn't quite a bad one, on his legs or give some woman who was very much in need of it happiness if money could do it she did not answer but i fancy she pressed the hand which was holding hers and i stole off i did not dare to stay longer for fear i really should be intruding i walked as far away from them as i could get to the other end of the terrace where i was a witness of quite a different scene there was mr armadage standing close up against the sea-wall looking out across the night-black sea and somehow his attitude told me that it could not be blacker than his mood. I paused a little distance from him and sat on the wall itself. I wondered how long he would stay. I did not wish to intrude.

I had nearly been intruding at the other end, but I did not wish to go. I had a right to be somewhere. After a while he turned, and I thought he was going, then out of the darkness there came, I knew no more than he did from where, the figure of a woman. When she saw him she stopped, and he stopped also. There was a lamp close to the seawall which let me see their faces, and how at the sight of each other they changed.

Then I saw each pair of lips form at the same moment a Christian name. Cecil, Marjorie. And in an instant they were in each other's arms. I had to stop and look at them, because this was the girl I had met on the quay, to whom I had lost my heart. They were silent for quite a perceptible period, as if each was content to know that the other was there. Then as he held her at arm's length, I saw him ask her,

Marjorie, how did you come to be here? And I saw her answer, with the light of love all over her, I came for you. For me, good God. The hands which had held her fell to his sides. He seemed to stagger as if he had been dealt to blow. Marjorie, you shouldn't have come. I had to come.

I couldn't help coming. I couldn't stay away. I thought you might want me. Want you? As if there's ever likely to be a time when I don't want you, I was half beside myself for want of you then. She moved forward. He put up his hands as if to stop her.

You mustn't, you mustn't. He drew himself a little more erect. Marjorie, I'm going to be married. There was a look on her face as if she were bracing herself to bear. Is that true? Is it quite, quite certain that you're going to be married? it's either that or jail are you sure perfectly sure absolutely clark is here he wants his money he'll take a warrant out if he doesn't get it soon i can only get it from her there was such an accent on the pronoun i knew it from the look which was on his face i could see she winced i know i've heard all about her i don't know what to advise you to do you know you will be committing a great sin if you marry her

i noticed that both parties seem to avoid mentioning her by name i know you cecil your weakness and your strength i do not think you will ever cease to love me i am as sure of that as that you and i are standing here it's the only thing of which i am sure you are part and parcel of my life of my very being that being so do you think you ought to marry her even to save yourself it's not only to save myself it's to save you if i don't marry her i shall be sent to jail there's no alternative then when i come out as likely as not i shall marry you well what then the smile which lighted up her face was one which my instinct told me only comes to the woman who holds the world well lost for love her question made him flame in her face was one which my instinct told me only comes to the woman who holds the world well lost for love her question made inflame anger. What then? Everything then. Marjorie, you shan't marry a jailbird. You shall not. If I'm to be branded as a felon, I'll never carry on the brand to you and to our children. Never, never. As God is my witness, you shall not be a felon's wife. So the thing resolves itself into this. If I don't marry this woman, I shall become a jailbird. Clark will make me one. Then you'll be such a temptation to me, Marjorie. I've been tempted once and I've fallen, but what was that temptation

compared to you? I'll dare not risk it. So it's goodbye, Marjorie. I've no right to kiss you. The mere thought of your lips against mine drives me mad. I'm going to marry that woman, and I'm going to her now. And apparently he went. He positively ran. And the girl never turned even to follow him with her eyes, but remained stock still where he had left her. then did as he had done looked out across the night black sea i sat still and watched her till i could bear it no longer then i went to her and said will you come with me please while i speak to some friends she glanced at me as she might have done at a ghost i do not think she quite realized that i was a creature of flesh and blood so i reached out and took her by the hand and said to her again i-i think i can help you if you'll come with me while i speak to some friends she did not utter a sound or try to i think her heart was broken she'd just let me take her by the hand and lead her where i would she moved as if she were a docile child i saw in the distance that mr and mrs curtis were still where i had left them so i placed her on a chair within sight and i said as if i had been speaking to a child sit there please don't move in a few minutes i hope i'll be able to come to you again with some good news

she sat down with meek and heart-rending obedience she was such a picture of misery i could have cried but i bore up till i got to mr and mrs curtis even though i believed there was something moist in the corner of my eye i got to the heart of my subject without any sort of preamble You know, Mrs. Curtis, I told you I was a teacher of the deaf and dumb, that I could tell what people are saying by watching their lips. Of course you did, my dear. This is my husband who has just come to me from New York City. Fred, this is Miss Judas Lee, of whom I was speaking to you. She's a very wonderful young woman, and I hope she's going to be my very dear friend. I did not wait for Mr. Curtis to speak. I just went on. I could see he was beginning to look at me with a sort of wonder. i just saw you and mr curtis talking and i saw him say to you that with some of the money he had just been making he would like to set some fellow who wasn't quite a bad one on his legs and give some woman who is very much in need of it happiness well i know just a pair and if he meant it i can give him a chance of doing right now exactly what he said he wanted to do they looked at me and they looked at each other which i did not wonder at i was so hot and eager so very much so that he wanted to do they looked at me and they looked at each other which i did not wonder at i was so hot and eager so very much in earnest. With that girl sitting there right in my line of vision, I felt that I had got to

take these people's hearts by storm, and I was not going to stick at a trifle in doing it. Mr. Curtis asked, with something in his voice which made me wonder if he was quizzing me, but I did not care if he was. Who was your deserving couple, Miss Lee? Then I told him all about it, in just as few words as I could, and as close to the point as I could get them. did me good to see how quick he was at getting my meaning. I had heard a deal about American quickness. I saw an example of it then. I believe that before I had finished he understood it all, just got it what I wanted him to get. The quizzical note was still in his voice when he made what from an Englishman would have seemed a simply amazing speech, but which seemed to come quite

naturally from him. If $50,000, that is, 10,000 pound sterling, would do for this lady and gentleman what you want to do, you can have the cash tonight on one condition, Miss Lee, that you don't say from whom it comes. You're to regard that as your secret and mine. In about three minutes, I went tearing off after Mr. Armitage. I found him sitting at a table in a corner of the restaurant, a suspicious-looking glass in front of him and a most dismal expression on his face. Just as I reached him, I saw Mr. Clark coming in at the other end, but I pay no attention to him. Mr. Armitage, I want you to come with me at once on business, which is to you almost a matter of life and death. He looked at me as if amazed, which it was not odd.

I fancy I seemed pretty excited, and my acquaintance with him was of the slightest, but I gave him no chance to talk. almost before he knew it I was sailing down the room with him at my side we encountered mr. Clark who tried to stop us armadage there's something which i've got to say to you i gave him no chance either then you'll have to have something mr. Armitage has business which won't permit of an instant's delay and I bore that young man right past him I dare say they both of them thought i was mad I was conscious that mr. Clark was looking after us as if he would like to bite me but did not dare. He did not even dare to try to speak to Mr. Armitage again. I believe Mr. Armitage did ask some questions, but he got no answers. I took him at such a pace to my hotel that he had not time to ask many. I had arranged with Mrs. Curtis that she should carry off the girl to her private sitting room. As I opened the door with a young gentleman in tow, she came out and she slipped into my hand what I knew to be a wad of notes. Then I showed Mr. Armitage

into the room. And when he saw the girl and the girl saw him, their faces were a study. Off I went without any preamble, as hard as I could to the point. I have no time to waste in explanations, at least not now. I merely want you to understand that, owing to circumstances over which I have practically no control, I know all about you, and that's all, I believe, Mr. Armitage, that you have some regard for this young lady whose name I don't happen to know except that it's Marjorie. Is it correct that you have a regard for her? The bewildered look with which that young man regarded me, as if he wondered if something had happened to the foundations of the world.

I have only the pleasure of knowing you very slightly, Miss Lee. I'm afraid I don't understand. I stopped the flow of his eloquence with a wave of my hand. We shall be able to talk about all that later. In the meanwhile, may I ask you to inform me if you have a regard for this young lady? You'll find it worth your while to just say yes or no. I know you are supposed to be engaged to Miss Drawbridge, but that doesn't matter. Will you please answer my question? I don't know what you intend to make of the information, but I have no objection, since you appear to know already,

to telling you that Miss Stainer is dear to me than anything else in the world. I knew it, but I preferred to get the fact from you. Without thrusting myself too much upon your confidence, may I ask Miss Stainer. I should prefer to call you Marjorie, but as it seems your name is Stainer. But please call me Marjorie, she murmured. Just murmured. I could see the words better than I could hear them. May I ask Marjorie if you have in the least degree any feeling of the same kind for Mr. Armitage?

She did not answer. She looked at me. I don't know what she saw in my face, but she seemed to see something which induced her to draw close and take my right hand in both of hers. and that was all, but I understood, as I immediately made clear. That being the case, it is evidently desirable that you should be married at the earliest possible moment. You should have seen their faces. And a friend has placed funds at my disposal which will enable you to do so.

Please don't speak, not yet. Mr. Armitage, you've been doing something disgraceful. I'm ashamed of you. How much do you owe that man, Clark? That bewilder look on his face was in. increasing. He seemed all eyes. How do you know I owe him anything? Has he been telling you? He has not, and I'm the only one who is to ask questions. You can ask all you like later on, but at present please content yourself with answering mine. How much money do you owe that

objectionable Clark person? It was 800, but now he makes it out to be a thousand. I did not ask what hold that man had over him, not out loud, but I dare say the question was formulated, in my brain. I cannot explain how it was, but he seemed to get the answer in his eyes, or somewhere. He's got a forged acceptance, and he gave me such cold shivers down my back that I went hurrying on. Mr. Clark will be paid his thousand pounds, and you will sit down at that table and write on that sheet of paper a list of the monies you owe. They will all be paid out of the fund which I have at my disposal. Now, do not ask questions, but do as you're told. Yes, it is a miracle if you're, like to think it so, it's the miracle which is going to be the making of you. Now sit down and

write. He sat down and wrote. It took him some minutes. A young gentleman cannot be expected to set down all he owes in an instant. I dare say there were omissions in that list of his when it was finished, though it came to a nice little total as it was. That's a very great deal of money, I told him when I glanced at it. Nearly three thousand pounds. It's dreadful that a young man who is practically penniless should owe all that. If by a miraculous inner position it is paid, is this sort of thing going to recur? Wait before you answer. Will you leave Diep tonight, by the boat which starts at half-past one? Miss Stainer will leave also in charge of a lady who is a very dear friend of mine. You will go to London, there you will obtain a marriage license,

and the day after tomorrow, which we Thursday, you will be married. Oh, Marjorie gasped. I had to put an arm round her waist to hold her steady. You will book two berths by the boat which starts from New York on Sunday. On your arrival there, employment will be found for you, and you will be provided with funds which will enable you to live until your salary falls due. The future will be in your own hands. Live decently, keep out of debt, work like an honest man should do who has given hostages to fortune, and there's no reason I know of why you shouldn't be the happiest couple in the world.

because you are starting with a very valuable capital your love for each other now marjorie you're not to do that the girl having come close to me had laid her head against my breast and was crying i had to comfort her now my dear you must keep your head you mustn't give way there are heaps of things you must do to-morrow you must buy your trousseau and all sorts of things you will have to have and now marjorie if you will keep on crying you'll make me cry too you will and i won't And I did not cry. I never do. I look upon crying as an absurd feminine weakness, and if I did, it was nothing to speak of. Everything happened as I intended. They left by the early morning boat, Mr. Armitage was so shamed face. He was still bewildered, even as the boat was starting. I believe he had a sort of feeling that his brains were addled. Mrs. Curtis shared a cabin with the girl, and Mr. Curtis stayed behind with me. The next morning I interviewed Mr. Clark. I sent for him to Mr. Curtis's waiting room, and he came. Mr. Curtis was present to see

that everything was fair. I began at the visitor before his nose was well inside the door. I did have such an objection to the man. Mr. Clark, I presume you're aware that you have placed yourself in a very serious position. He glared at me as if he wondered who I was. Then he looked at Mr. Curtis, and perhaps that kept him from saying some of the things he would have liked to say. you have in your pocket a forged bill of acceptance which you received knowing well it to be forged and which you have used for the purpose of extorting blackmail i need not tell a person of your experience that by doing so you have placed yourself within the reach of the criminal law he began to bluster who the deuce are you and what do you mean by talking to me like this mr armadage has instructed me to act on his behalf i laid some notes on the table this is the deuce are you and what do you mean by talking to me like this mr armadage has instructed me to act on his behalf i laid some notes on the table this is the money he owes you, you'll give me the bill you hold and a quittance in full of all the claims you have against him. The man made quite a pretty little scene, or rather he tried to,

because a few remarks from Mr. Curtis brought him too before he had really got underway. When he left that room, he had got his money, and I had the bill and the quittance and everything I wanted. Then I interviewed Miss Drawbridge. I found her in the courtyard of the hotel, having what she called her a paratif as always i came to the point with her at once miss drawbridge mr armadage wishes me to tell you that the engagement which he has entered into with you is at an end as you made it clear to me that there was no sentiment about the matter i am sure you'll excuse my treating it as a business proposition which is off she did not seem to mind my talking to her like that in the very least she was a most extraordinary woman Instead of my taking her aback, she took me. That's all right. I've been turning matters over in my mind, and I think myself that it would be better to cut the loss.

Between ourselves, I've almost decided to marry Captain Morgan. He's a gentleman I've known for some considerable period. Every time I meet him, he asked me to marry him, and I think, on the whole, he will suit me better than Cecil Armitage. He's more my sort. I believe my breath failed me. the rapidity with which she adjusted herself through fresh matrimonial prospects was a trifle startling i saw that the person whom she called captain morgan was coming out of the hotel you were so kind as to lend mr armadage a hundred and fifty pounds which he returns and for which he thanks you i think you'll find that correct i laid a hundred and fifty pounds and bank-notes on the table and tore off captain morgan was within a yard or two i left with mr curdie by the afternoon boat for London.

The next day that affectionate pair were married. Mr. Curtis gave the bride away, and I was her bridesmaid. Afterwards we had quite a festive time with Mr. and Mrs. Curtis. On the Saturday, Cecil and Marjorie sailed. I doubt if they had realized a situation even then. I believe they still thought it was a miracle, and it was.

It was a miracle which materialized, and, if I may mix my metaphors, and I shall, if I choose, bore fruit and florist. Mr. Curtis, that miracle worker, gave Cecil a post in his own business, a small one at first, but which rapidly grew in importance. Cessel Armitage proved himself to be an excellent man. Hard-headed, shrewd Mr. Curtis both trusts and likes him. Marjorie wrote me only the other day that she and Cessel were the happiest pair in the United States of America. That seems a tall order. I hope there are lots of couples who are as happy as they are, but they are happy.

the same mail brought me a letter from mrs curtis she said she hoped to see me before very long with a husband of my own she never never will never never never end of chapter five end of judith lee pages from her life by richard marsh