*
I


HAROLD MacGRATH
THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Dead, in front of his rifled safe, and
the great Blue Rajah missing . . .
the fabulous diamond that had be-
hind it seven known murders I

GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 1930 PUBLISHED FOR
THE CRIME CLUB, INC.
BY DOUBLED AY, DOR AN a COMPANY, INC.


printed at the Country Life Puss, garden city, n. y., u. s. a.
COPYRIGHT, I929, 1930
BY HAROLD MACGRATH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION


PART I
IMPROMPTU





0,F,Sotlu
I
A billow of reddish dust rolled over the roadster
as it came to a sudden halt. It was not a smart ma-
chine. One had only two guesses about it. Either its
owner had purchased it second-hand or he could
not afford to buy a new one. The rumble seat in the
rear had been thrown back. The foot space held a
suitcase, a tin box, and an aluminum rod case. All
over the great North Woods there would be cars
similar to this in appearance, luggage, and owner-
ship.
The young man at the wheel leaned back and con-
templated the stream. It had everything—white
water, pools smooth and rippled, deadfalls which
reached halfway across the stream, big granite
bowlders and, above all, music. The run had been
chanting lovely symphonies since the beginning of
the new time, and countless trout had died of old
age on the bottoms.
"Lord, what a trout run!" the young man cried
out.
He had caught glimpses of the stream for the past
half hour; but here was a vista. He saw the stream
clearly through an arcade of lordly pines, and it


4 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
drew him irresistibly. The floor of this natural ar-
cade was richly carpeted with reddish-brown needles,
with here and there a pattern in vivid green. An Is-
pahan worthy of Shah Abbas.
A blue jay flickered across the opening. From far
above a crow called. A squirrel peeked from a hole
in an oak. A chipmunk was busily engaged digging
into the pine needles. A hedgehog waddled toward
the stream.
"The Forty Thieves!"
The young man chuckled. Every living thing in
this forest was a thief—a natural-born thief. What I
want, I take. Eternal warfare. And back yonder,
in the great cities of the earth, they were abolishing
war on paper. The chuckle developed into laughter,
not without a quality of irony. The predatory in-
stinct, the dominant human instinct. Roll up the
other way, said the visionist to the Niagara! A man
must live; and so long as he must, to prey upon others
was obligatory. Predatores—a kind of insect which
devoured others and was itself devoured. It was law-
ful that one insect should devour another, because
man hadn't written anything to the contrary.
The pioneer, when confronted by a colossal ob-
stacle, does not laugh, but clamps his teeth grimly
and proceeds to overcome the obstacle. The adven-
turer, confronted by an obstacle, laughs before he
starts to overcome it. There is a sharp cleavage be-
tween the two, for their obstacles are not compar-
able. One dreams of cities where there are none and


IMPROMPTU
5
proceeds to create them. The other must find the
poles, the highest peak, the virgin jungle, go where
no other man has gone, do what no other man has
done, just for the fun of it.
"Thieves on land and cannibals in the water!
Life!" j
"Caw, caw, caw!" answered the crows.
The young man glanced upward. "No doubt you
are perfectly correct. But you must admit that
people are more likely to accept me as a bird of para-
dise than as your brother."
His wrist watch informed the young man that it
was five o'clock in the afternoon. The sky was cloud-
less, but that did not matter, since there was no
sunlight on the stream or on the forest floor. Only
the tops of the pines were in the waning sunshine,
resembling points of flame. The air was delicious
with the perfumes of the saps. Just the right time.
Plus-fours, golf stockings, and sport shoes. The
young man laughed again. Why not! Who the devil
cared if he did what probably no one had done be-
fore—wade this stream dressed as he was, sartorially
correct for any golf course. A game he did not play
because anybody could play it and nearly every-
body did! Without opening the side door he vaulted
to the road and made a grimace of pain. That shin
of his! Very well.
He sat down at the side of the road and rolled
down his stocking, revealing an ugly bruise along the
shin. In the middle of the bruise was a ragged hori-


6 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
zontal cut, fresh. A horse could not have landed a
more effective kick, save that the iron shoe of a
horse would have broken the shin bone. He liberally-
daubed the wound with an aromatic salve, then
pulled up the stocking carefully. He was going fish-
ing. He was a fool, he had always been one, but
nevertheless it was a great business, so long as you
were no man's fool.
He stood up and listened. Such sounds as he heard
were native to the woods. He had perhaps twelve
hours' leeway; that would be enough. He was going
fishing. He had brought along rod and tackle for that
very purpose. He would have been a fool if he hadn't.
Good camouflage.
He strapped his wrist watch to the broad ribbon
which ran around his pearl-gray fedora. From his
hip pocket he brought forth a small automatic pis-
tol. This he transferred to the left upper pocket of
his Norfolk jacket. Keep your watch and your pow-
der dry. Next, from the little pocket at the top of his
trousers, he took out a small rubber pouch. Now,
where the devil would he put this? For if water got
to it he was done. Good. He would hang it around his
neck. But first, a reassuring look. Presently upon his
palm lay a crystal, perfectly transparent, yet vaguely
blue as the sky. Lovely and mysterious fires leaped
forth. It was the size of a pecan nut and of similar
shape. A stone which, it was evident, had never
known any metal setting.
"Clever," thought the young man grimly. "As


IMPROMPTU
7
clever a job, probably, as ever was conceived and
executed."
He shook his head as if there were something in all
this perplexing beyond measure. Knots came into
his jaws, and his handsome blue eyes grew hard and
bitter and relentless.
Things began to happen to the diamond. It disap-
peared magically and reappeared. Intelligence would
know what was happening to the stone—remark-
able legerdemain—but no human eye could fix upon
the point where the stone disappeared or reappeared.
Lean strong hands they were, well kept, with nails
cut almost to the quick; a fighting hand or a musi-
cianly hand, or both.
The music of the water began to call him away
from his somber thoughts. He returned the diamond
to its waterproof casing. Then he got out his fishing
tackle. But first he snipped off enough line to make
a loop around his neck. With this he secured the
rubber casing and drew the loop over his head. It
took him about ten minutes to rig a beautiful five-
ounce rod, with backbone enough to handle a mod-
erate salmon or muskellunge.
"Now, then, Mr. Salvelinus Fontinalis!"
"Caw, caw!" cried the crows.
They were always about—crows. He had seen
them in Darjeeling, in the Sudan, all over Europe
and Asia. In drawing rooms too—not so raucous but
just as thievish.
"Hang it all!"—with a reckless laugh.


8 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Carrying the rod carefully extended before him,
he made his way to the water and stepped boldly
into it. His shin stung for a moment, followed by
cool relief. He began to whip the air to limber up.
When he concluded that his wrist was acting properly
he launched the flies upon that part of the stream
which ran darkly under the bending alders on the
far side. Three casts convinced him that there was
nothing in that inviting spot. Above him was a
large bowlder. He cast upstream just beyond the
bowlder, skittering the flies. There was a splash.
The line flew into the air behind him.
"Not so good," he murmured.
The next cast, however, rewarded him. He reeled
the captive to his side, stooped and, with his hand
under water, freed the trout, which was small.
He moved downstream, whipping this spot and
that, wherever instinct told him there would be trout.
Twice he got caught in the alders, but each time he
laughed. He nearly went under, however, as he freed
the flies the second time. Fun! Up to his vest pockets
once. He had a good deal of difficulty with his feet
—the rubber soles would not grip substantially the
moss-covered stones. All in the game, though. This
was fishing.
He was reminded of an episode in the Ardennes
two years ago. On a wager he had waded a stream in
his dinner clothes, ten o'clock at night, in the rain.
Fool, yes; but it was fun being that kind of fool.
All he wanted was a three-pounder; a fight, chances


IMPROMPTU
9
in favor of the trout, and no moral problem to vin-
dicate. Over three pounds, trout were generally logy.
Only the salmon or the muskellunge knew the fighting
worth of each pound he possessed.
He waded perhaps three quarters of a mile down
the stream, hunting for the spot. Occasionally he
sighed aloud as some lovely vista opened unex-
pectedly before him! Ha! There it was—the delec-
table spot. If there wasn't an old golliwhopper in that
pool, there wouldn't be one in the stream anywhere
else. A regular Bastille of a place!
The young man had by now forgotten time and
place, the brilliant, the loaded pistol, the desperate
project which had brought him into this paradisai-
cal wilderness. By the color of the water he judged
the pool to be anywhere from six to ten feet deep
and fast. You could not cast a fly from the shore, for
the height and thickness of the alders; you had to
stand in water which tried to buckle your knees.
Across the stream, touching both sides, lay a giant
pine, storm-riven, bleakly gray—a natural bridge.
But that wasn't all. Many gaunt limbs reached into
the water, draped with dead grass and branches
from other trees; in one place the stream was clogged
by a fence post in a snarl of barbed wire. You might
hook your trout, but to keep him in the clear—that
would be a real fisherman's job.
The young man fiddled about for a substantial foot-
ing and, having found it, made a cast. Nothing hap-
pened. Fussing over flies would be useless; the


10 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
trout in this stream would take anything, provided
they were hungry. And it was evident that they
weren't hungry, for he had had indifferent luck so
far. He would give the pool ten minutes' time; then
he would toddle back to the car.
Snugging the rod under his arm, he got out his pipe,
primed and fired it. Then he made his second cast,
lightly skittering the flies against the current. There
followed a mighty upheaval of water, a living silver
arch, and a plop which sounded like a stone striking
the water. The line zoomed and the rod bent. The
young man's teeth clicked against his pipestem. The
gorgeous moment of which every fisherman dreams
had arrived.
Of course there were exceptions to all rules. Once
in a while you hooked a monster who was still pull-
ing down a million in gate money. The young man
understood perfectly that he was in the ring with the
Gene Tunney of this neck of the woods. Lord!
As one prize fighter outthinks the other, so the
absorbed fisherman outthought the trout, who
straightway made for the entanglements. No go.
He crossed to the middle of the stream and shot at
the fence post. No. He whirled, leaped, returned to
the bottom of the pool, rose and darted toward the
fisherman's legs. No go.
Now then on the right bank of the stream there ap-
peared a girl. Perhaps it would be more exact to say
a young woman. She wore laced boots to her knees,
which were partly hidden under a cream-colored


IMPROMPTU II
linen skirt. She wore a coat of the same material, a
white silk shirt, and a flowing green tie. She was hat-
less, and her wind-tossed hair was as ruddily brown
as the pine needles under her boots. To get on, it is
necessary for some women to be beautiful. This
young woman had no need of beauty—beauty of the
Bouguereau type. Some women are born queens
who never come to thrones. Her hands stuffed in her
pockets, she stood imperially. She would think and
act imperially, naturally. Her lips were vividly red.
Her eyes were deep blue and calm. But both lips
and eyes gave testimony of interest and amusement.
Beautiful women and imperial women are not gen-
erally humorous, but when they are, watch out.
She had been on the point of calling out to the
fisherman, when she observed that he carried neither
net nor creel. She decided to see the play through
because she was normally curious. She knew this
pool, the very best in a fifteen-mile run. And he had
discovered it instinctively. Fishing in a golf suit,
without net or creel! A real sportsman; he would
be worth watching. There wasn't the least doubt of
it; he had hooked Old-Timer, whom she had lost
ten times if once. True, she had never let him make
the entanglements. But when he had turned and
rushed at her I
No ordinary poacher, this; almost handsome,
though a bit lantern-jawed. Nonchalant. Poacher
though he was, she liked the way he kept his pipe
going, with a battle of this caliber on his hands. He


12 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
knew what had happened to him; he recognized the
surrounding perils. Nonchalant outwardly, yes; but
she knew very well that he was boiling with excite-
ment inside. He wouldn't have been human else.
Of course in the end he would lose; not even Saint
Peter himself could have landed Old-Timer without
a net. Already she had learned something—the way
to hold the rod when Old-Timer lunged toward
you: arm's length above the head. But could she
maintain her balance at the same time? More than
once her knees had buckled and she had had to turn
and wade to save herself from a good ducking.
There was a swarm of black flies, but the fisher-
man seemed to be immune.
She sighed with envy. No use lying to herself. It
took more than skill; it took muscles of iron; and no
woman had any right to be as strong as this good-
looking poacher. What queer streak of impatience
had impelled him to wade the stream in a golf suit?
Every lunge and leap and twist of Old-Timer was
adroitly met. By and by he turned on his side, beaten.
"He's done it," whispered the lone spectator.
Slowly the young man began to reel in. He knew
these big game fish; they generally had second wind,
and if you weren't exceedingly careful you lost out.
He was in the act of reaching for the trout when she
spoke:
"Beautifully done! But for all that, this is private
property, and I must ask you to let the trout go."
The fisherman all but lost his balance, so greatly


IMPROMPTU
13
was he surprised. His jaws opened and his pipe fell
into the water. He made a desperate but futile effort
to save it, but it bobbed under the pine and vanished.
"Hang it all," he said whimsically; "that was the
best pipe I ever had!"


II
Her face remained grave, but laughter bubbled into
her throat perilously. For a poacher, the young man
had marked peculiarities. He had been surprised, but
there was no evidence of abashment. He coolly
reached down to the trout and freed it from the hook
with a flip of the wrist.
A barbless hook! He had caught and beaten Old-
Timer with a barbless hook. Insult to injury! She had
been witness to the unbelievable!
She felt compelled to ask, "Was that a barbless
hook?"
"Yes. What's the use of killing things if you don't
want them to eat? I did not mean to poach," he
declared. "I saw no posted signs."
She pointed to the pine near which she stood.
He laughed. "Never saw it. Big as all outdoors,
and I never saw it! I saw only the pool. There he
goes!" he added as the trout slowly righted himself
majestically, then sank. "He's tired; not particularly
hurt."
"You came from the road?"
"Yes. I had my tackle and simply had to_give the
stream a try. I'm sorry."
14


IMPROMPTU
15
Sorry, indeed! She knew that he wasn't the least bit
sorry. In fact, he seemed to be very well pleased with
himself.
"The trail to the highway is just beyond that
posted sign on the other side."
He followed the direction of her finger and again
burst into laughter. "Two of them!"
"I advise you to hurry," she said. "You will find
it very cold presently."
"Thanks. How far is this stream posted?" he
wanted to know.
"Five miles above this pine and ten miles below."
"The King of Belgium cannot boast of such a
trout run."
"Do you know the King of Belgium ?" she could not
resist asking. His nonchalance was a trifle over the
line of her patience. A dig or two wouldn't hurt him.
But he did not respond. He loosed the leader and
wound it around his hat. He reeled in the line, dis-
jointed the rod, waded to shore, stamped and shook
himself and turned. The black flies still swarmed
about his head indignantly.
"You've been very sporting about it," he said,
lifting his hat. "But I would do the same thing over
again, under like circumstances. Evidently you're a
fisherman too. You know how it is. When you beat
a big fellow like that you like witnesses. I can always
tell the story now, knowing that there is, somewhere
on earth, a reliable witness who can vouch for my
truthfulness. But who never will."


l6 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Oh, I shall tell the story"—icily.
"You will? Well, that will be sporting of you."
"And I shall add that I never in all my life met a
more coolly impudent poacher."
"Impudent? Why, I thought I was very polite. I
might have lost that fish, and then you would have
heard something."
What a stunning young woman! She looked like
the Winged Victory restored. Who had been the
sculptor? He had forgotten. But if the shade of Prax-
iteles None of that! No woman in this picture.
He plunged inland in search of the trail, which he
found readily enough, being versed in all lores of the
open.
Fool. But this bit of tomfoolery had turned out
beautifully. He had beaten the biggest trout in the
stream under the very eyes of Diana herself. But
what would they think of him when they saw that
he was wet to his vest pockets? He chuckled. He
took off his hat and looked at the dial of the watch.
Quarter after six. An hour and three quarters to
reach his destination and change for dinner. Well,
there wouldn't be any women about, only men; so
his condition was nothing to worry about.
The girl was right, though—he would be infernally
cold and uncomfortable by the time he reached the
Hood camp. He strode over the padded trail, no
longer mindful of atmospheric effects but of the
purpose which had brought him into this wilderness.
He had waded the stream primarily because it had


IMPROMPTU
17
called to him irresistibly; secondarily, to cool his
blood. There must be no sudden impulses to-night;
he must follow his schedule absolutely. He would
be among men who would be watching one another
after the manner of strange but well-bred dogs. He
himself would be a fox in dog's clothing; and if they
scented him out Well, there would always be
that thunderbolt up his sleeve. But he was deter-
mined never to use this except in dire necessity.
None of them knew him personally, only by repu-
tation. There was always the possibility of nothing
being done to-night. It was on the knees of the gods.
Step by step he had built up to this day; yet he
knew that, because he was no superman, he had
erred somewhere along the line. Where the weak
link in the chain lay he could not guess. This hidden
menace bothered him. If the gods denied him luck
the game was up.
Why the devil must he meet such a girl at such
a time? The picture of her would stick because the
frame had been so unusual. Yet he was frank enough
to admit that her face would have stood out in a
crowd of feminine faces. It was beautiful, but its
beauty was the antithesis of the accepted type. Ver-
bally he could not have explained what he meant.
She was beautiful; but he, a man never at loss for
phrases, found himself inarticulate and beggared in
words. A kind of beauty he couldn't find terms for.
He found his car where he had left it. There was
gas enough to carry him two hundred miles. He


l8 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
climbed in lumbersomely, growling. He was cold and
presently the wind would make him a good deal
colder. The girl might laugh over the thought of his
sartorial predicament, but she would always remem-
ber that he could have thrust his finger through the
trout's gill.
All aboard! He started the car and went humming
up the road in a cloud of dust. Presently the road
veered north, then east.
There would be Van Cleve from Amsterdam, Mac-
Farlane from London, Descamps from Paris, Morgan
and himself from New York. Middle-aged men, who
knew the history of every known gem. Great adven-
turers whose integrity was as impregnable as the
Gibraltar—with the exception of Berks (himself)
whose reputation was somewhat speckled by ru-
mor; who would sell out a client if there would be
profit and security in the act. Unscrupulous, but,
all the same, a great adventurer. And he would have
to lay these rumors in the dust by his impeccable
manners, his knowledge of the lore, his clear con-
ception of what man was made of. The wheel turned
upon the fact that they had never met him and had
no proof that, from time to time, he had played a
hand unethically.
There was a droll side to it. Like going to some
lodge meeting; you had to have a passport, a secret
sign. Proper credentials, or you wouldn't get intp
the Hood camp. Bidding for the Blue Rajah would
take place in the morning. Perhaps.


IMPROMPTU
19
But somewhere along the line he had made a
mistake, being human and fallible. But there was
this in his favor—the men he was soon to meet
were, like himself, human and fallible. The mistake
might never be discovered.
i-^Why hadn't she laughed when his pipe had dropped
into the water? The picture must have been funny—
shoutingly funny. Did he know the King of Bel-
gium? She knew how to set a barb stinging, suavely.
He sighed. He would have liked to know her, and
under other circumstances he would have gone
toward this desire boldly. The high road and the
low road. She on the bank and he in the stream.
He wondered if Hood owned any of the stream.
Hood. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The old-
est law. On and on he rode with reckless sped.
"Ha!" he cried aloud; for suddenly he observed
twinkling lights in the distance. That would be the
camp. And yonder was a byroad.
They called them camps, he mused. Hot and cold
water, porcelain tubs. Persian rugs, all the comforts
of a Park Avenue residence. When all a man needed
was a war blanket, a pup tent, a gun, a rod and
a hatchet.
He turned into the byroad and shortly rolled under
the wooden porte-cochere and struck his horn. At
once the door opened and the butler came down the
steps. A gaunt man with a stony face.
"The name, please."
"I'm Berks—Roger Berks."


20
THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Sj "Your letter of introduction?"
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo! Berks piped inwardly.
Hood was a fool. Had he conducted this affair in
New York, he would have been as safe as in a church.
Miles from anybody. What would they do here if
anybody had the toothache? He produced his cre-
dentials—a letter signed by Hood, with a blot of ink
in one corner. All very childish. The blot, anyhow.
Still, Hood had to know who was who.
"Very good, sir. Your luggage?"
"In the rear. Just the bag."
"Yes, sir. Why, you are all wet!"—astonishedly.
"That's true. Had to go fishing. I am unfamiliar
with the habits of the house, but I shouldn't mind a
stiff peg of whisky. Medicinal, of course."
"I'll bring up the peg, sir. Be so good as to follow
me.
As they entered the house, Berks observed that all
the rooms were empty of human beings.
"Have the others arrived?"
"Yes, sir. Came in shortly after luncheon."
"What time is dinner?"
"Eight o'clock, sir. This is your room. You will
find hot water for bath and shaving."
"How about telegrams?"
"We relay them by telephone. Any urgent mes-
sage, sir?"
"No. I might want to get in touch with my client."
"The telegraph office closes at nine and does not (
send or receive again till eight in the morning. But


IMPROMPTU
21
we can get long-distance to New York. The railways
are thirty miles east and west of us."
"Seems to me you're pretty far off."
"We have our own gas station and three cars. Either
way, we can make the railroad in less than an hour,
unless there's been a cloud-burst. I'll have the whisky
up in a jiffy, sir."
Jiffy. Come, come! thought Berks. The old gargoyle
had something human in him despite his looks.
Jiffy. He hadn't heard the word since boyhood.
Evidently up here "Whoop" was still the word;
"Whoopee" hadn't yet arrived. Heaven forfend that
it should! Of the two kinds of American Indians,
Berks preferred the red.
The door closed and Berks stared at the panels
moodily. Long-distance to New York. Would the
unknown mistake lie in that direction? Puddles on
the birch floor. Off with these togs, and also good-bye
to them forever.
Berks stood in his shorts before the shaving mir-
ror, when a tap came on the room door. He hurried
to it, half his face in lather. The saturnine butler
passed in a small decanter and a tall glass.
"Thanks. That will do nicely."
"If you will leave your wet clothes in the hallway,
sir, I'll see to it that they go to the drying room.
Mr. Hood will receive you just before dinner."
"I'll be down as soon as I bathe and dress."
. This time Berks locked the door, completed his
shaving, finished with the tub, then attacked the


22 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
whisky. A hot sling, which threw comfort and well-
being over him at once, but which warned him that
one would be enough. In his condition he responded
too quickly. There were no tailor's labels in any of
his clothes. That would not be the mistake. The bag,
which he had purchased in a second-hand shop, was
unidentifiable.
So then, at five minutes to eight he stood before
the mirror and inspected a presentable young man,
ready for Piccadilly or the Champs filysees or Park
Avenue after dark. In the lapel of his dinner coat
was a bit of red ribbon. In regard to this his con-
science was in good order; he could lawfully wear
the Order of Leopold. It was absolutely necessary to
impress his host and the other guests, to mitigate
such dubiousness as they might hold for him.
"Do you know the King of Belgium?"
Hang the girl! There was no room in his thoughts
for a woman; he must not wander mentally for a
second this night.
He thrust the automatic pistol in the inside pocket
of the dinner coat and the stone loosely in the left
outside pocket. Ironically he glanced into a coat
sleeve—the thunderbolt was there, ready to be
launched. He kneaded his sinewy hands for a minute,
then unlocked the door and proceeded downstairs.
Immediately he was gone, the butler came stealth-
ily out of another rbom and silently entered Berks'.
He deftly went through everything belonging to
Berks, examining even the inside of the collars.


IMPROMPTU
Ready-made, everything. A scowl rippled over the
butler's saturnine face. Quietly he stole out of the
room and down the servants' stairs. A gentleman,
with ready-made clothes, even to his collars, his
military brushes unmarked, and no labels on the worn
suitcase. »
Berks saw a group of men by the fireside, and he
approached with the air of a man who knew his way
about. He recognized Hood instantly, and his body
felt as if the stream was flowing over it: Introductions
were made, perhaps somewhat stiffly. The other
guests had met before.
"Make yourself at home, Mr. Berks," said the
host, a handsome man about sixty, beautifully gray.
"Magazines in the library. Dinner will be twenty
minutes late. To-night you are simply my guest. No
business till to-morrow morning."
The young man smiled, but inwardly grew cold.
No business till to-morrow, when he had staked
everything on to-night!
There was some desultory talk about the condition
of the highways, the stock market, the German
debt. Berks readily understood that they had drawn
into their shells, gravely polite.
"Are you gentlemen armed?" he asked quietly.
The others fell back a step, dumfounded. Van
Cleve was first to recover, and he did so good-
humoredly.
"Yes, I am armed. The man who bids in the Blue


24 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Rajah may have to defend it on the way back to New
York."
"My opinion, too," Morgan admitted, while
MacFarlane and Descamps looked distressed.
"We are all armed, then?" Berks laughed. "The
bootlegger, the dopester, and the bandit ride abroad.
But it strikes me as droll—dining with guns in our
pockets."
Leaving this bomb smoldering, he sauntered into
the library, where he discovered a fine piano. Good.
He had shocked them, now he would enchant them.
He must win the respect of these hard-headed beg-
gars. He was in the mood for Chopin; and he began
the Fantasie Impromptu, C sharp minor. He played
it exquisitely and with fire. When he had done he
dropped his hands and bent his head, searching for
something else to fit his mood.
"Beautifully done! But for all that, this is private
property, and I must ask you"
He leaped to his feet. Across the piano, smiling into
his face, was the young woman of the stream.
"You?"—in a whisper.
"So you do know the King of Belgium?"


Ill
Evidently shocks were running deuces wild. He was
speechless for a moment. He had an instantaneous
picture of his project from a new angle. Detour.
He was like a man driving furiously in the night and
coming, with a shriek of brakes, upon an unlighted
detour sign. He would have to rearrange his plans.
But how? He recovered his mental balance.
"It isn't fair," he said.
"What isn't?"
"To surprise me two times in one day."
"You are Mr. Berks. I am Miss Hetherstone, Mr.
Hood's niece. Why didn't you tell me you were com-
ing here?"
"Word of honor, I didn't know where I was."
"I knew that there was someone playing. The
mechanical touch is never quite the same as the
human. And, oddly enough, that very piece is in the
piano this minute. It is a player. What else do you do
—beautifully?"
There was no irony in her voice now, but there was
mischief. Very well; he would pick up the foil. Mis-
chief for mischief.
"How many times have you lost that trout?"
25!


l6 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Too many times."
"I suppose my skill filled you with envy."
"I was glad to see you lose your pipe."
He laughed, attached the roll, and started the
player. The difference between the human hand and
the automaton was easily distinguishable. Even to
the man peering into the window—a man with bleak
gray eyes.
"Don't!" the girl cried. "It isn't the same at all."
"Nevertheless, it's Paderewski."
"I had the notion that you would be an older
man."
So they had been discussing him? "I am very old,"
he gravely replied.
"You like Chopin. So do I. Are you on the concert
stage?"
"No. I do not sell the gift; I give it away. For the
fun of it."
He had need of some clear thinking, and he could
not accomplish this while engaged conversationally
with a young woman who, if he once let go, would set
a spell upon him. Perhaps he had not committed
any mistake; perhaps he had planned perfectly. But
fate was always stronger than human perfections.
He began one of Bach's lovely chorals.
With folded arms she leaned against the piano.
Poise, he thought. She would have gone to Bucking-
ham Palace with the same unstudied grace. Devil take
it, she was in the way, and he would have to maneu-
ver around her!


IMPROMPTU
For the fun of it, she thought. Waded streams in
golfing clothes. Threw away a gift which would have
made him rich and famous, for the fun of it. Yet that
wasn't the jaw of an idler. She was quite sure that
there were serious actions in this young man's life.
Gems. To be sure. He carried them across oceans and
continents, at the risk of his life. Caution, alertness,
doggedness, quick thinking—he would apply these
attributes to his work. But when he played, it would
be with whimsical recklessness. And to have a man
like this enter the house when she was at the peak of
her boredom! What intensely blue eyes he had!
He played a mazurka and a nocturne, but during
the performance he did not look at her directly, which
most musicians would have done—male musicians.
Suddenly he saw light. She would be an asset rather
than a liability. A young woman wanting the society
of a young man who was not without attractions, in a
house where all the other men were middle-aged.
She was not the type to select companionship care-
lessly. He would use her interest in him, but not to
her hurt. As a fisherman and a musician he had caught
her fancy. It would raise him considerably in the eyes
of the others.
He would not deviate a hair from the line. He
might be defeated. Aviator, mountain climber, hun-
ter—aye, and gambler—he had known defeat. Yet
he had never retreated in fear of defeat. But unless
the Blue Rajah was brought out to-night, his defeat
would be absolute.


28 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Have you ever climbed mountains?" she asked
irrelevantly when he had done.
"Why, yes! What put that question into your
mind?"
"Up here we are rather informal. We ask questions
frankly. We do not observe the amenities of conven-
tion strictly. You strike me as a man who must al-
ways be extending himself physically, not caring any-
thing about the cost."
"This time you astonish me," he replied."I haven't
thought much about it, but you are quite right. I am
always slam-banging into excitements. I like im-
promptu adventures such as this afternoon's. I al-
ways like to leave something to chance."
"Where angels fear to tread?"
"'There came an angel in the wilderness,"' he
quoted.
"I neither look nor feel like an angel."
"Oh, I don't know how you feel."
"But to you I look like one?" She laughed for the
first time.
"My idea of an angel would be a woman who would
let a poor devil of a poaching fisherman have his
meed of sport before she called him to a halt. Who
would, in the event of a serious injury, have gone in-
stantly to his aid."
"You are a very wise young man."
"You say that with the air of Methuselah's wife.
You are younger than I am, and I am only thirty.
In these thirty years I have met many women."


IMPROMPTU
29
"Yes?"
"They are all different."
She broke into laughter again. "Serves me right!"
"Pardon?"
"I thought I was going to be given a compliment."
"To some women it is not necessary to pay
compliments."
"I'll accept that statement as one. You play beau-
tifully. Under whom did you study?"
"Busoni. At twelve I decided to become a second
Paderewski. At fifteen I gave one concert. I learned
that I hated audiences, hated applause. At eighteen I
decided to take up aviation."
"And you went to war and the King of Belgium
decorated you. Then you became interested in gems,
because there was risk in handling them. But frankly
I do not like this business." Her eyes became troubled.
"You mean our being here?"
"Uncle Mark could have transacted the sale in
New York. Suppose one of you buys the Rajah and
you are robbed between here and New York? Secret?
How can you keep a thing like this secret?"
Aye, how indeed? Did she love thfs uncle of hers?
Was it possible that Hood could inspire love in any-
thing that lived?
She went on: "This cannot be wholly a secret in
your offices. There will be some untrustworthy man
in the secret. The Rajah represents a fortune. It is
one of the most beautiful diamonds in existence.
Whenever it is in the house—in any of the houses


30 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
we live in—I feel an oppression. I don't like it."
"Your uncle is a very rich man. Why should he
wish to sell it?" The young man's nostrils dilated
slightly.
"He has become superstitious about it."
"Superstitious?"
"He is sixty and not well. The stone has a sinister
history, as you know, and it has begun to work upon
his imagination. He is quite mad about the collec-
tion."
"He has his collection up here?"—incredulously.
"He cannot be separated from it."
"How did the others arrive?"
"They all came in one car."
"Well, whoever buys it will be protected by the
other three."
"But you are here to buy it, and you will be going
alone."
"True. But I'm afraid that Van Cleve will be
able to outbid me. My client does not care to tie up
too much money."
"Is it just adventure, or do you really care for
gems?" •
"I am quite mad about them. To have that stone
in my pocket and to carry it back to New York!"
He shrugged.
"I understand. The bright face of danger. But you
are young and adventurous, and shortly my uncle
will be an old man. I love him! He has been the only
father I have ever known."


IMPROMPTU
31
Berks lowered his eyes, ill at ease. Devil take the
way fate intruded! Perhaps the finest specimen of
young womanhood he had ever met. Why couldn't
she have been somewhere else? His purpose-was to
wring her uncle's heart; indirectly he must wring hers
too. His jaws stiffened. No deviation from the line.
"Do you live in New York?"
"Oh, no," she answered. "We really live in Paris.
But every summer we have a month here. There's
nothing like it in the old country. My uncle used to
be an ardent fisherman, but now he leaves the rod
to me."
"How about the servants?"
"Except for the chauffeur, all are old in service.
The butler has been with us for twenty-odd years. He
is English, but he speaks French very well. The care-
takers live here the year around, and they sometimes
act as guides."
"And all of them know about the collection?"
"I suppose so. But we have a very odd wall safe.
A man might break into it and still not find what he
sought"—enigmatically. "And where do you live?"
"I have no real home. Hotels, mostly. Probably
that is why I am driven into excitements. I have no
home life to tame me."
"Would you want to be tamed?"
"That depends"—smiling.
"Dinner is served."
The saturnine butler stood in the doorway, eying
Berks coldly.


The Blue Rajah had behind it seven known murders.
Its history began with the rajah himself. No one
knew where he had got it. He had worn the stone
sewed in his white turban at a durbar. He was knifed
in his tent pavilion that night. The stone popped up
in Constantinople. Two murders there. It was next
heard of in St. Petersburg. One murder. Berlin, Paris,
London, Liverpool; in each city someone had paid.
Then for twenty years the world lost track of it.
Berks wondered what the history was previous to its
possession by the rajah. It had not been cut by any
modern machinery, the facets being without con-
formity. A medieval or pre-Christian gem. No one
had ever thought to cut the stone in halves, thereby
enhancing its commercial value. As it was, no woman
would care to wear it with one half of its beauty al-
ways hidden. It was, in truth, a collector's stone.
Seven murders and one man who had died of a broken"
heart.
Berks knew that he would always remember this
dinner. Tension. If he sensed it, surely the others
must. Drawn up here, miles away from civilization
and the protections which civilization offered, the
32


IMPROMPTU
33
sinister history of the stone must be in the process of
review in each mind. Everybody calm outwardly but
jumpy within. He himself had not been conscious
of nerves till the girl's voice had come across the
piano. Indeed, he had not known how deeply the
vision of her had impressed his imagination till he
saw her the second time.
He sat at her right; Morgan, Van Cleve, the host,
Descamps and MacFarlane. To Berks each face was
worth a study. Hood and Van Cleve alone seemed
normal. Morgan, Descamps, and MacFarlane looked
dour and suspicious. Naturally; they were on a queer
business. Berks switched his glance to the butler and
received a shock. The man's eyes seemed like coals in
his head. More than that, his hand shook as he set
down the bouillon cups. The old fellow's phlegm
seemed to have gone out of him. Guns—all of them
were carrying guns!
"What caused you to smile then?" abruptly asked
the girl.
Caught off his guard, Berks stared at her bewil-
deredly. "Beg pardon?"
"You smiled oddly. What struck you as amusing?
Remember, we are not formal here."
"A joke," he said. "You know how irrelevant
things flash through one's head. You were talking to
Mr. Morgan, and this joke popped into my head.
Too infantile to repeat."
A colossal joke! If Hood did not show the Rajah
to-night, the enterprise would represent zero. And


34 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
it would be the last chance he would ever have. Part
of the joke was that he himself might not ask to see
the stone. He must commit no act which would focus
attention, no act which related to the stone.
Yes; she was in the way, because of the loving
glances she sent down the table to her uncle and be-
cause of the loving glances her uncle returned. De-
tour, red lanterns; and he must go smashing on!
"Mr. Berks, you play extraordinarily well."
Van Cleve was speaking. He spoke English with but
little accent. "You should be on the concert stage
instead of selling gems."
"Crowds bother me."
"I see. Stage fright?"
"No. I do not believe I am afraid of anything.
Just do not like crowds."
"That's possible," replied the Hollander. "I see
you wear the Order of Leopold."
"Aviation during the war"—simply. The truth,
so why shouldn't he tell them?
"Ah! Now I understand your distaste for crowds.
The eagle is a lonely bird. He flies over the city, but
never through it." Van Cleve smiled amiably. "I'd
give a good deal to know who your client is."
"There, there!" interrupted Hood. "No business
to-night, if you please."
"But surely," said Descamps, the Frenchman,
"you are going to let us see the Rajah? To keep us
on—what you say?—hooks "He gestured ex-
citedly.


IMPROMPTU
35
"Tenterhooks," assisted MacFarlane, warming a
little.
"On tenterhooks all night is not fair. An unofficial
inspection. Eh?"
"Come, Mr. Hood," said Morgan. "We will prom-
ise not to quote prices or use our micros. We all know
the stone, but none of us has seen it."
"I have," said Van Cleve. "When I was a young
fellow. It came to my father. One of the ends was
slightly chipped. My father himself polished it
down."
"What do you say, Elsie?" Hood called down the
table.
So her name was Elsie. Berks rubbed his palms
upon his napkin. They were beginning to sweat.
"Let them see it," said Elsie. "They are human."
"Very well. Go and get it."
To Berks it was as if he had been holding his breath
under water and his head was now in the air again.
And yet, there was a cold ripple over his spine. Too
easy. The whole affair had cut like cheese; and that
wasn't fate's way. There would be a trip somewhere;
it was inevitable. But being suspicious of fate was as
good as being forewarned.
Elsie. He would never see her again. You had al-
ways to pay an extra price for the Rajah. The im-
agined woman. The physical reproduction of a
dream. You met the one woman in a drawing room
and did not recognize her. You met her under the sky
and by the side of a wild stream, and you recognized


36 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
her at once. . . . Damn his palms! They were like
watersheds!
Elsie departed upon her errand. Berks became
conscious that the butler, who stood behind Hood's
chair, was eying him covertly. But there was some-
thing else in the old chap's attitude. He was listening.
What did he expect to hear? Was there more than
one impromptu on to-night's program?"
Elsie returned presently, holding her handkerchief
in her hand. She stopped at her uncle's chair and
gently unrolled the contents of the handkerchief on ■
the tablecloth. The elliptical ball of prismatic fires
was plainly visible to Berks, even though he sat
seven feet away. The pulse under his jaws began to
thump. Could he do it? Well, if he failed, there was
the thunderbolt in his sleeve.
Hood passed the gem to Van Cleve. The butler
immediately stepped over to the light buttons.
"Henry!"
"Yes, sir."
"You need not worry about the lights," said Hood
reprovingly. "This is not the cinema or a detective
story."
The butler embarrassedly returned to his position
behind Hood's chair, while the gem experts eyed him
amusedly.
Van Cleve rolled the stone about. "The same. I
never have forgotten it. If I were rich I should have
the mania, too." He passed the stone along to his
neighbor.


38 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
With the tip of his finger he rolled the Rajah toward
Elsie.
"I caught him at it, Uncle Mark," Elsie called
down the table. "He had Old-Timer on a barbless
hook."
"Old-Timer?" cried her uncle. "And he lost him?"
—hopefully.
"Alas! I had to make him let it go, thinking he was
poaching."
"In spirit I was," said Berks, straightening up
and vigorously rubbing his side.
The laughter was general.
"Your butler saw the state I was in when I ar-
rived." Berks touched the stone again. "What a queer
business! Sometimes it amuses me to think what men
will do to each other for something like this—a min-
eral with colors in it."
Hood stared at his plate and made bread crumbs
absently.
"There is another phase," put in Van Cleve. "The
collector has no successor. His heirs are always sure
to put the collection on the market. Hence, our reason
for being. I remember"
"Drink a little of your wine," advised Elsie.
"I had a peg before I came down," replied Berks.
"I never drink except when I need it."
"And you don't need it now?"
"There are other and better kinds of intoxicants"
—looking directly into her eyes.
What she saw in his eyes caused some warmth to


IMPROMPTU
39
flow into her cheeks. Well, she had opened the door.
She had told him that one spoke frankly here, by lip
or eye. "Anyone wish to see the Rajah again?"
All shook their heads. So Elsie wrapped the stone
in her handkerchief, and with a bright nod went her
way to return the Rajah to the safe.
Suddenly the butler turned his gaze toward the
hall.
"Is that the telephone, Henry?" asked Hood,
looking up from his plate.
"Yes, sir."
After a few moments the butler reentered the din-
ing room.
"Long-distance from New York, Mr. Berks," he
said.
Berks sat perfectly still for the space of several
wild heartbeats.


V
New York? What had happened down there? He
pushed back his chair and rose.
"Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen. Probably
my client. Where is the telephone?"
"Under the hall stairs, sir. Follow me," said the
butler.
The telephone stood on a small stand; there was no
booth. Berks sat down in the chair and took the re-
ceiver. He was about to call when he observed the
butler, close beside him.
"I'm afraid this is going to be private," said Berks,
smiling.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I wasn't thinking."
The butler walked slowly back to the dining room,
wiping his palms on the sides of his trousers.
Meantime.
"Who is it?" asked Berks, low but clearly.
"Gerry," came from New York. "When I went
back he was gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes. Watch your step."
"Thanks."
40


IMPROMPTU
41
Berks hung up the receiver. He did not rise at once.
It was now after nine. Nine hours. Berks knew that
he would not dare make a get-away till all had gone
to bed. Nine hours. And why hadn't he telephoned?
No doubt he had solved the riddle by this time.
Berks frowned darkly at the green-covered telephone
wire. No fault of his; purely accidental, like the
presence of this girl in the house. And all of them
carried guns! Berks shot a glance over his shoulder.
He was alone and unobserved. Swiftly he drew out a
knife and sawed the telephone wire, applying savage
strength. Then he proceeded to the hall door and
casually opened it.
Now? The way was clear. No. Always the fool,
he must see the girl again. The cold sweet night air
refreshed him. Speculating, he forgot that his pro-
longed absence might be noticed.
The beggar had had ample time to warn Hood.
But he hadn't. Well, the dice were on the green!
Only a few hours ahead!
"Anything wrong, sir?" asked the butler.
"The stitch in my side recurred," said Berks. Was
this chap watching him? Hang him! "I needed a bit
of air. Gone now."
"I thought perhaps the door had blown open, sir."
"You may close it."
The butler peered into the night, then shut and
bolted the door. He followed Berks into the dining
room, and Berks returned to his chair beside Elsie.
"Are the grounds guarded?" he asked.


42 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"It isn't necessary. We have an absolutely im-
pregnable safe."
"A hundred resolute men, armed, could blow up
the Sub-Treasury and loot it in twenty minutes."
"This would be different. Blow up this house, and
there wouldn't be any gems, nothing but crystal
atoms. But I don't like it. Have you ever felt that
someone was behind you? That's the way I feel."
"There's always the man who put in this safe."
"I understand. But my uncle himself built this
safe. Mechanism is his profession, though he no
longer practises it. His inventions are used all over
the world. Only Uncle and myself know the combina-
tion. But I wish he had not brought the collection."
"But what do you think can happen, when all of
us are armed?"
"Something in the air."
"Imagination."
"Whatever it is, I feel it."
"Is your car locked, Mr. Berks?" asked Hood.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry there wasn't room for it in the garage."
"If it rains it will not matter. It's art old bus, not
worth stealing."
"If you should need any gas or oil in the morn-
ing"
"Thank you."
"Henry, coffee and liqueurs. ... I believe," the
host added, "that it will be pleasanter to remain at
the table."


IMPROMPTU
43
"Do you want coffee and liqueur?" whispered
Elsie.
"No"—emphatically, from Berks.
"Then come into the library and play for me. It
will take me out of myself. Come."
Berks arose with alacrity. To have her alone by
himself! To build pleasant but impossible dreams!
Besides, he thought with smarting irony, if anyone
went to the telephone and found the wire cut, he
could make a tolerable exit through one of the French
windows. And in the library, while making a pretense
to view the night, he loosed the window latch. So far
as it was humanly possible he was not going to over-
look a point.
Meanwhile Van Cleve turned to Hood. "I had a
notion that Berks was older and—well, not quite so
polished. Strange how we build up the character and
appearance of a person by hearsay. I am something
of a musician myself. This young fellow has soul as
well as superb technic." Van Cleve paused. "I have
a confession to make. I told a reporter just before we
docked that I had come to America principally to
try to purchase a diamond called the Blue Rajah.
We will talk carelessly at times. But I did not know
where the bidding was to take place. I met my
rivals at Albany, and there we agreed to make the
trip up here together. How far are we from the next
camp r
"Twenty-two miles. We never have any night
prowlers," Hood replied. "Your talking hasn't done


44 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
any harm. I should indeed be pleased if the bidder-in
will announce it to the newspapers."
"Not I!" said Van Cleve. "I have a long way to
"Well," said Morgan, "if I'm the lucky man my
firm will advertise it. Are you going to sell all the
collection?"
"No." Hood stirred his coffee thoughtfully. "I
have suddenly taken a distaste for the Rajah. It is
the pariah of the collection."
Van Cleve took up the Venetian glass and inhaled
the bouquet of the green chartreuse. He was not un-
used to these odd switch-abouts. A mania which
lasted a third of a lifetime, which one day began to
crack suddenly, for no known reason. A real gem
collector was, he had found, generally a man with a
vivid imagination.
"Has anyone attempted to rob you?" he asked.
"No," answered Hood, still idling with his coffee.
"I haven't added to the collection in twenty years.
So my former activities are somewhat forgotten."
Hood raised his head. "The truth is, I have been
thinking about my niece. When I die the collection
will unavoidably come into the open. Although I live
abroad, I am still an American citizen; and the state
inheritance tax will reveal the existence of the collec-
tion. A small army of rascals will learn that my niece
has a portable fortune. She does not care for gems,
except jade and chrysoprase. I can sell the Rajah,


IMPROMPTU
45
but it is utterly impossible for me to part with my
emeralds—while I live."
"I understand," said Van Cleve, sipping the green
nectar.
Gem collectors. There were rich men who bought
gems without being particularly inquisitive as to
how the seller had come by them. Of course, thought
Van Cleve, it was none of his affair, but he couldn't
recall the sale of the Blue Rajah to Marcus Hood.
Certainly it was not recorded in the historical data
which he had in his bag upstairs. Probably Hood had
purchased the stone privately. In 1898 it had been
in Amsterdam. The final registered purchase had
been made by Jonathan Willard, who had been dead
for many years.
Elsie drew a chair beside the piano and waited.
Berks sat slumped on the bench, his chin touching his
chest, his eyes closed. He had the appearance of a
man delving into memories. As a matter of fact, his
body was trembling, and he was waiting for this
tremor to subside. He was sure of himself, of every
future act till he was safe in New York. Yet here he
was, attacked by vertigo which was not a reaction to
his recent activities.
"Perhaps you are too tired?" she said interroga-
tively.
He sat up with a start. "I was trying to recall the
Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
Dream, but it escapes me."


46 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Play anything."
He did not observe that her fingers were tightly
locked.
"Chopin," he said; and plunged into the fiery
Fourth rttude in C sharp minor, as difficult as it is
brilliant. Debussy followed, Grieg, Mozart, the
Tarantelle by Faure, Liszt's transcription of Wag-
ner's Spinning Song—now rarely played on the piano
—Beethoven. It came to him like thunder in the
night that he wanted this girl to remember him al-
ways, tell her by exquisite sounds that in other times
she would have been the one woman in the world.
And never could he tell her; for he was an implacable
enemy to her house.
He concluded the program with the Fantasie
Impromptu, knowing that he would never play it
again without seeing the vision of her. You had to
pay. As he played he ironically cogitated that, had
she not entered upon the scene, he would have gone
through the whole adventure sardonically amused.
He had mocked the crows. By a queer twist of per-
spectives he saw that he had become one of them.
He should have launched his thunderbolt boldly.
Now it was too late.
As he ceased playing he turned. Her hands lay
limp in her lap, her head rested against the back of
the chair and her eyes were closed. He waited. Sud-
denly, yet dazedly, she opened her eyes.
"What a gift!" she whispered. "What a gift!"
"I did not tire you?"


IMPROMPTU
47
"Never, never!"—quite vehemently. Then she
happened to glance at the doorway. Five men stood
there, dead cigars in their fingers. Elsie eyed them
astonishedly.
Berks sprang up, smiling. "I forgot where I was!"
So he had.
"We all forgot where we were," replied Hood
gravely, his eyes vaguely puzzled. Had he ever seen
this man Berks before? It was not the face, it was
the quick smile that had in it something hauntingly
familiar.
Van Cleve shook himself out of a dream. Never
again would he judge a man by what he had heard
about him. This young fellow was a thoroughbred;
it was not possible that he had ever "sold out" or
"gone partners" in a shady gem deal, as rumor
strongly had it.
"I'm off for bed," he announced. "It has been a
strenuous day."
To which the others agreed, and straggled back
into the living room.
"Very strenuous," remarked Berks. "But I would
go a-fishing!"
A moment alone with her, the last ever. He ap-
proached her and held forth his hand. She accepted
it, struggling out of the hypnosis which had bound
her. But when he bent and kissed her hand she with-
drew it quickly, finding her mental balance.
"You go to the moving pictures?"—with light
irony.


48 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
>
"Don't you ever surrender to impulses?"
"Rarely. I am afraid to. One throws a stone into
the water, but one never knows how far the ripples
will go."
"Tharis true." Aye, so it was! If anyone knew the
price of impulses it was himself. "Will you be sorry
to see the Blue Rajah go?"
"Sorry?" Her eyes flashed. "Sorry? I hate it!"
"But why ?"—astonished.
"Men have killed other men for it. Whenever I am
compelled to touch it I have the same feeling as when
I see a snake. The other stones in the collection I
don't mind, but the Rajah fills me with abhorrence."
"It is only a stone with pretty colors in it. You
shouldn't revile it; revile mankind."
"Your voice sounds oddly."
"Perhaps I've caught cold"—lightly. "Good-
bye."
"Good-night." She did not notice the finality of
his salute.
He passed quickly from the room and she sat down
again. A queer sensation laid hold of her. The room
seemed empty and dead, like a theater when the
audience was gone. She was becoming just a little
afraid of this singular Mr. Berks. No man had ever
before robbed her so completely of the initiative.
She had been like an empty chalice into which some
strange living wine had been poured, and drained.
She was not musically emotional ordinarily, but
to-night she had been swept off" her feet. Perhaps it


IMPROMPTU
49
was because she had been so utterly unprepared for
such a visitation.
Her uncle entered. "Remarkable young fellow,
Elsie. All of them are remarkable men, particularly
Van Cleve. None of them ever saw Berks before.
He was not originally invited to bid. But in some
manner he or his client heard of the deal, and he
begged to be permitted to put in a bid. Rumor has
it that Berks has been mixed up in several shady
affairs."
"I don't believe it!"
"Well, after what we have seen and heard of him,
it is mighty hard to believe."
"Don't you see, Nunky? It wasn't humanly pos-
sible to keep the affair secret. Why did you bring all
the collection?"
Hood paced about for a moment. "Because I
want them always with me now. I am sixty. Only a
little time is left to me. Probably five years at the
longest. Might as well face the fact." Hood sat down
on the arm of her chair. "Have I been a good father
to you, honey?"—tenderly.
"The idea!" She put her arm around him. "I
love you better than all the world."
"There's no young man?"—teasingly.
"Indeed there isn't. Several times I believed I'd
found the man, but subsequent events proved I
hadn't. When I marry, Nunky, I'm going to be
sure."
"How will you be able to tell?"


50
THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"When I meet the man, I'll know."
"But sometimes it's the right one and sometimes
it's the wrong. Cupid is often a bad shot. What do
you think of Berks?"
She did not answer at once. "Rather remarkable.
I don't just know what to make of him. He isn't a bit
like the others."
"He is young."
"That isn't it. He belongs to a different world.
Ours—if you want the way I feel."
"Is our world always the best? Haven't we two
seen mighty shady aristocrats?"
"Yes."
"Charming, intellectual, and all that?"
"Yes. Oh, I'm not in search of any Saint Michael
or D'Artagnan. But he must belong to the world I
belong to. Men and women should marry their kind,
socially and religiously. I'm not a snob, but one is
generally married a long, long time."
"Good girl!" Hood bent and kissed her ruddy hair.
And she looked down at the back of her hand.
Men had kissed her hand before now, some perfunc-
torily, some with the air of worship. If he hadn't
caught Old-Timer on a barbless hook, if he hadn't
played the piano like a Paderewski In the be-
ginning he had been whimsically impudent, an
impudence which had worn down her indignation
perilously close to laughter. To-night he had been
gravely courteous and companionable. A man might
be a great fisherman and behave terribly at table, or
4
■


IMPROMPTU
he might be a prince in the house and a pest in the
open. Berks seemed to belong wherever one put him.
"Come along to bed," broke in her uncle, pulling
her to her feet and locking his arm in hers.
Henry, the butler, once in his room, his face
grimmer than ever, knelt before his bureau and began
to rummage the lower drawer. From a small leather
box he extracted a letter the creases of which offered
mute testimony of the many times it had been read.
He did not read it to-night, but carefully stowed it in
the inner pocket of his butler's jacket.
When Elsie got to her room she did not undress.
She turned out the lights and sat in a wicker chair
by the star-spangled window. The theme from the
Fantasie Impromptu persisted in echoing and re-
echoing through her head. She was passionately
fond of good music, but never before had music so
deranged her emotionally.
The unusual episodes had had something to do
with it. The wilderness which had reawakened the
primitives. Her highly strung nerves, tautened by the
knowledge that there was more than half a million in
gems in the house—enough to tempt a regiment of
thieves. These had weakened the barriers. Her mood
had been both receptive and unconventional to this
sort of diversion; only, it had taken her beyond her
depth.
Good heavens, yes! Had he kissed her lips instead
of her hand she would not have been terribly indig-
ft


52 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
nant, at that moment. Somehow it came to her that
he had set his will to the purpose of making himself
unforgettable. Funny old world, wasn't it? To-
morrow he would or would not take the Blue Rajah
away, and that would be the end of it.
She laughed softly. His pipe falling into the stream
and vanishing, and his vigorous reproach. Fisherman,
pianist, gem runner, aviator—and good looks. Why
couldn't she have met him in the proper environment
—say, Cap D'Antibes? But he was here in quest of
a fat commission, and his honesty had been ques-
tioned—by rivals he had frequently beaten, no doubt.
Envy was the mother of Rumor. These cogitations
had taken perhaps the major portion of an hour.
Suddenly she gripped the arms of her chair and
propelled herself to her feet. Music! He had stolen
downstairs and was playing the Fantasie again. To
draw her. Daring and whimsical impulses—that kind
of man. Confident that no one but herself would be
drawn. But she would be on guard this time. No
sweeping her off her feet twice. She opened the door
softly and walked to the landing. Very good. She
would surprise him by permitting herself to be
drawn. It was rather droll, and she wasn't the least
bit afraid.
The pianissimo of the finale died away as she
reached the foot of the stairs. The light was in the
living room. She heard another sound. She ran into
the dining room and peered into the night. An auto-
mobile was making for the highway! Who was steal-


IMPROMPTU
53
ing away, and for what reason? She tried in vain to
make out the shape of the car.
She whirled from the window bewilderedly. There
was the Fantasie again! The player, mechanically set
to repeat! Here, where there were no walls between,
she could readily discern that the human touch was
absent. A car stealing swiftly away and the player
set into action! She began to feel some difficulty in
breathing and her thoughts revolved confusedly.
She got hold of her emotions presently and ran into
the living room.
Instinctively she focused the spot in the wall
where the safe would be. The door was wide open.
She smothered a cry with her palm. A thief in the
house and the thief had got away! Her fears had
not been imaginary. The freshness of the air warned
her that one of the French windows in the library
was open.
Between her and the fireplace stood a magnificent
specimen of birch in the form of a center table.
From where she stood this table obscured the hearth.
Before she summoned help she decided to close and
lock the window. As she passed the table she halted.
Huddled grotesquely on the rug before the fireplace
lay her uncle in his dressing gown and Moroccan
red slippers.
Silence for a space. Then Elsie screamed.


VI
There followed a space of time of which Elsie had
no recollection. When she opened her eyes she was
not sure of the visions presented to her. Faces out
of some mummers' show, pale and almost featureless;
slowly they took shape and distinction. The butler,
Descamps, Morgan, MacFarlane, and Van Cleve; her
gaze slowly traveled from face to face. Van Cleve
dropped to his knees and offered her a glass of water
mixed with aromatic spirits of ammonia. She drank
and became fully conscious. She was in the library.
"Is he "She could not complete the question.
"Yes, my child," said Van Cleve most distressedly.
"A most terrible thing has happened. But you are a
brave girl."
"Dead!"
"Yes."
"How?"
"The fire poker. Someone struck him with it. The
music kept us from hearing the sound of his fall.
Evidently he did not see the man who struck him.
When I rushed down after your scream, the piano
had started to play the Fantasie for the third time.
Rather ghastly."
54


IMPROMPTU
55
Elsie sat up, pushing back her hair, then holding
her head between her hands. "Where is Mr. Berks?"
she asked, quite certain what the answer would be.
"He is gone. His bag and most of his clothes are in
his room. But his car is gone."
"Horrible 1" she whispered. "Horrible 1"
Van Cleve thought he knew what she meant.
Double horror. The death of her uncle and the disap-
pearance of the young man whom she had selected
from them all as her companion for the evening.
The double shock—the tragedy of death and the
tragedy of disillusion.
"Henry!"
"Yes, Miss Elsie."
"The police!"
"He cut the wire after he had telephoned, Miss
Elsie," said the butler, twisting his locked fingers.
"Splice it!"
"I fixed it," interposed Morgan. "The police will
be here within two hours. They have Berks' descrip-
tion and the car's. All the highways and railroads will
be covered. He will not go far."
"The safe door is open. Nothing but papers in it,
Miss Elsie"—from the butler.
Van Cleve, who had, by his seniority in years, taken
charge, stared at the butler curiously. There was a
phase of agitation which did not seem to apply to
the tragedy but to some outside fact. Terror as well
as misery was evident in his eyes.
"The safe?" cried Elsie, struggling to her feet.


56 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"You mean the jewels are gone? But no! Only Uncle
and I knew the secret of the safe. Robbery was only
attempted; it did not succeed."
"Nothing has been touched," said Van Cleve.
"There should be plenty of finger prints. My theory
is that your uncle came down to look at the Rajah
for the last time. He had opened the safe and was
struck down then."
"Who turned on the lights?" asked Morgan.
"They were on when I came down the stairs,"
answered Elsie.
"Then he should have seen his assailant."
"But the gems, Miss Hetherstone—are you sure
they are where you put them?"
"Oh, yes! But just now!.. .All I had in the world!"
She rocked her body.
"I don't believe it would be wise for you to see him
at this moment, Miss Hetherstone," Van Cleve ad-
vised. "Better wait till you are steadier. He did not
suffer any. Bad business for us, gentleman. Have you
your passports? I have mine. We shall need them."
Descamps and MacFarlane signified that they
had theirs.
"That will help," said Van Cleve, "Police get
queer notions in their heads. Fortunately you, Mr.
Morgan, will not need a passport."
"On the contrary," replied Morgan, "I wish I had
a passport. Aside from the letter establishing my
identity, I have practically nothing."


IMPROMPTU
57
"But we can all vouch for you," returned Van
Cleve.
"Please, please!" cried Elsie, her palms going to
her ears.
Van Cleve gestured helplessly. Still, he could not
blame her for disregarding their personal safety. To
him the affair was not only a horror but a disaster.
It was as if the Blue Rajah had vanished. The will
would have to be probated in law before the diamond
would come into the girl's possession. He would have
to return to Amsterdam empty-handed. Hood—
even though he had come to his death so tragically—
was not a friend, scarcely an acquaintance. He was
terribly sorry for this lovely girl, and he would help
her in whatever way he could, but, all the same, he
had lost a fat commission.
Elsie dropped her hands from her ears. "I wish to
see him. I am strong now. Please!"
Gravely they followed her into the living room.
Strong she was; for she knelt at once before the silent
body and reverently kissed the white forehead. There
was a gray bruise on the temple, down which a thread-
like trickle of blood was drying. As Van Cleve reached
out to assist her to her feet she waved aside his hand
and got up. Her face was like marble and her eyes
were like sapphires in the sun.
"If he had come through the window, taking his
chances, and surprised my uncle at the safe! But
he accepted the hospitality of the house; he won our


58 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
respect and admiration only to disarm us. I know of
nothing more horrible. But he has done murder for
nothing. I even told him that there was a trick com-
partment in the safe. Oh, you will find the Blue
Rajah in the case. If you gentlemen will step back
into the library I will produce the diamond," she
said. "You must go with them, Henry."
Three minutes later she called to them. She ex-
tended her palm. On it lay the Rajah, full of magic
fires.
"You see?"—bitterly. "At present I have no law-
ful right to dispose of it. But if I had my will it
would go into the bottom of the well. To me he was
the dearest, kindest man I knew, for all his queer
hobby."
Without knowing why he did so, Van Cleve
swerved his glance from the stone to the butler's face.
The man looked like a cadaver. His queer bald fore-
head was beaded with sweat. Why?
"May I look at the stone?" asked Van Cleve.
"Why?"
"I've a queer notion that it is not the Rajah."
"What ?"—came from four throats simultaneously.
"It is just a notion. I may be wrong."
Elsie passed the stone to him, and he beckoned all
that they should follow him into the library. There
he drew down the lid of a small secretary, got out a
piece of white writing paper, placed the gem on it,
and sat down. Out of a pocket he drew an object
which, to Henry, the butler, resembled a clip of


60 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"The stone?"—hesitantly from Morgan.
"Since it isn't the Rajah, it is not necessary to re-
place it."
What a woman! thought Van Cleve. That red-
brown head, the strength of the face and the courage
of the heart! Berks might go far, but not far enough.
"Henry!"
"Yes, Miss Elsie."
"Get some sherry and crackers and ice water."
She did not stir from the window.
The men sat down where they would, anxious and
distressed. All knew that they would be questioned
severely. They might even be detained, at a serious
loss of time and money. When the butler returned he
set down the tray with a clatter. He filled a glass with
ice water and presented it to Elsie. She drew a small
chair to the window, sat down with her face to the
night and sipped the water.
"Anything more, Miss Elsie?"
"Yes. Sit down somewhere. You must not leave
the room again till the state police arrive."
Henry found a chair in the obscurest corner and
mopped his face.
Van Cleve could not keep his eyes off the man.
Terror. But terror of what?


VII
"How long have you been in the family, Henry?"
Van Cleve asked kindly.
"More than twenty years, sir."
Van Cleve relapsed into silence. He could hear the
clock ticking in the living room, the lights of which
had now been turned out. From out the forest rim
came the melancholy hoot of an owl. To Van Cleve,
to come to a wilderness like this had been a tonic and
an exhilarant. Through the afternoon and evening he
had enjoyed himself thoroughly. Now it was become
more God-forsaken than any other place he had ever
known.
There was danger, too—real danger. Their alibis
would be without corroboration. In the eyes of the
police any one of them might have done the thing.
They weren't house guests in the social sense. They
were not Hood's friends. They had come up here to
buy a diamond. The stone was gone and Hood lay
dead in the next room.
The girl, there. She never stirred. No doubt her ear
was straining to catch the first sound of the police
automobile. A kind of military police, so Van Cleve
had been given to understand, recruited largely from
the vast army which had returned from France. Van
61


62 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Cleve had an almost intolerable craving to smoke,
but the straight back of the girl persuaded him that
the odor of tobacco would be distasteful to her. An
hour passed and more. From time to time Van Cleve
saw the flutter of the butler's handkerchief.
"I hear a car!" Elsie cried, standing.
Ten minutes later four troopers of the state police
entered the house. Brisk, stalwart, personable young
fellows they were. The sergeant in charge conducted
the examination. Hood had died from a violent blow
on the left temple. Death had evidently been instan-
taneous. The character of the blow precluded any
free flow of blood. The fire poker weighed about ten
pounds. Person or persons unknown.
"But he is known!" cried Elsie.
"A suspect, miss. He is guilty only after a jury
has convicted him. I can tell better when you give
me the story. You haven't touched anything—partic-
ularly the body?"
"No," replied Van Cleve. "We have been scru-
pulously careful."
The sergeant cast his glance about. During the war
he had been in the Intelligence and had good back-
ground for a case like this. And it was a case; he
could sense that without two tellings. He noted
that the girl alone was fully dressed. The others had
been in bed or were about to turn in. But you never
could tell. The butler wore his coat, but neither vest
nor collar. A gorgeous-looking girl, who had good
hold of herself.


IMPROMPTU
63
"Now, let's have the story," said the sergeant
kindly. "In the line of duty I shall have to ask dis-
agreeable questions."
Van Cleve turned to Elsie: "Shall I tell it?"
"If you will be so kind."
"Just a minute," broke in the sergeant. "George,
get a sheet from somewhere. We can't move the
body, miss, till the coroner views it."
"I understand."
"Then we'll have to take him into town for the au-
topsy."
The sheet was procured.
"Suppose we go into the next room and turn out
these lights?" This was done. "Now, then, what
happened? Don't leave anything out because you
happen to think it unimportant. Everything you
can remember about the evening."
Van Cleve told the story clearly, and frequently
the sergeant nodded approvingly.
"Queer place for a business deal," was the ser-
geant's comment.
"We were agreeable. Three of us had never been
in this kind of wilderness."
"And this man Berks and the diamond are gone.
Opened the safe for more loot, and Hood caught
him at it."
"But no one except my uncle and myself could
open the safe!" Elsie protested. "Or the secret com-
partment."
"Miss, there are men in New York who can open


64 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
any wall safe ever made. But this Berks is the lad,
all right. Sleight o' hand. Who asked to see the
diamond?"
"I did," said Descamps gloomily.
"I see. How were you going to pay for the diamond
after you had bid it in?"
"Certified checks," answered MacFarlane, the
Englishman.
"Have you all got certified checks?" The sergeant
was astonished.
"We all have letters of credit large enough to cover
the cost of the stone. Quite the same as certified
checks," said Van Cleve.
"All new stuff to me. I must see these letters of
credit and your passports. Understand, gentlemen,
this is murder. Your letters of credit and your pass-
ports will be good alibis. You've all told me where
you were when the thing happened. But none of your
statements can be substantiated by your neighbors.
. . . You're an American, Mr. Morgan. What have
you got to show?"
"A blank check, signed by the treasurer of my
company."
"Not so good."
"To-morrow you can call up my company and
verify my statement. No one could get one of these
special blanks except from the treasurer's office, from
the treasurer himself."
"Bring them all to me, gentlemen."
They proceeded upstairs, followed by the troopers.


66 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
get far these days. Now, you folks sit down while I
prowl about. The player piano was going?"
"Yes."
The young officer returned to the living room and
turned on the lights. He stared at the fireplace. The
case was all cut and dried, motive a mile high. Only
one hope for this chap Berks—the middle of the
Amazonian jungle. Otherwise his goose was cooked.
The fire rack and the medley of instruments had
fallen against the fender. He did not touch the poker
which lay about four feet from the hearth. He righted
the rack, as if absently. With his eye he measured the
distance from the long window in the library to the
fireplace in the living room, the distance between
the fireplace and the wall safe.
"Two of you scout around outside for footprints.
George, you stay here with me. Now, George, run
upstairs, get into a room and shut the door."
George obeyed without question. When his subor-
dinate was gone, the sergeant pushed over the rack.
"Hi, George, did you hear it?"
The trooper called down: "Yes, but not loudly."
"All right. Go back into the room. Someone turn
on the player."
"No, no!" cried Elsie, horrified.
"Sorry, miss, but I must know if it is possible to
hear the overturn of the rack while the music is
going. We are obliged to do a lot of disagreeable
things in search of the truth."


IMPROMPTU
67
Elsie flew to the piano to guard it. "No! I could not
stand it to hear the record! I couldn't!"
> "Sorry, miss, but I must run it over to get the
time."
"Put on some other record!" she begged.
"Duty, miss. Sorry can't oblige. It may mean
a man's life."
This was the law, and she had to surrender. But
when she heard the opening crescendo of the Fantasie
Impromptu, she put her hands over her ears and
closed her eyes, lest she see him at the piano. The
agony was intolerable.
The sergeant again righted the rack and toppled it.
The trooper upstairs came down. He had heard only
the music.
"That's what I wanted to know. Seven minutes
to play the thing. The average man can do a hundred
yards in fifteen seconds. Seven minutes—plenty of
time for a lot of things. Anything missing from the
safe, miss?"
"Nothing"—dully.
"Telephone wire cut, window fixed for a get-
away, a priceless diamond gone. Looks like rain for
Mr. Berks. No one of you ever saw Berks till to-
night? Humph."
"We all knew something of his reputation," said
Van Cleve.
"Not so good?"
"Questionable methods, unethical.'!)


68 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"I see."
The sergeant was a new type of policeman. The
accepted notion of a detective—silent, mysterious,
pussy-footed—was totally absent. And Elsie began
to lean toward him mentally. He talked, explained
his actions, thereby mitigating the nerve tension
of the others. This apparent frankness was premed-
itated. If you scared folk they shut up like clams;
if you could get them into ordinary conversation,
sometimes they dropped a vital bit of information.
This business looked simple, all cut and dried;
but experience warned him that it wasn't. No signs of
any struggle. It was the player piano that created
the fog. It did not fit into the right place somehow.
If Berks had entered by the French window, he
couldn't possibly have got to the poker without Hood
seeing him. Hood had been killed without knowing
what had struck him.
However, Berks might have been hidden in the
library, where the piano stood. Hood had turned
on only the living-room lights. The safe was on the
far side of the fireplace. Hood might have been so
intent on the safe that Berks But the beggar had
got what he had come after! He might have been
sneaking out, seen his host at the safe, and the im-
pulse had come to take all the gems. Confound the
piano; it cross-trailed everything! Had it been going
before or after death?
One of the troopers came in to report:
"Nothing, Sergeant—that is, no footprints. This


IMPROMPTU
69
kind of ground doesn't take footprints well. Nothing
in the flower beds. Milo tires on the car, though—
two new ones and two old. The dust took that.
Balloons. I think he was headed for the dirt trail.
He'll have to turn up somewhere near Lake George.
One of the guides said the rear license plate was
badly bent. He remembered the number."
"Good work. Go to the phone and shoot it out.
That narrows things down a bit. .. . What's that—
a car coming?"
Every head was turned toward the windows, and
all stood in effect like a tableau. The sergeant did not
move. He still had a man outside to take care of
the stranger.
The blood pounded in Elsie's ears. If it were Berks
returning!
But the man who entered with the trooper was
not any man she had seen before. He was rather
stocky, his face rubicund like that of a man who
had lived well and carelessly. But nevertheless it was
a strong face, with a large-bridged nose and thin
straight lips. There were signs of recent physical
activities. Across his forehead was a broad piece of
adhesive, one of his eyes was discolored, and one of
his hands was partly bandaged.
The sergeant observed that the adhesive and ban-
dage were streaked with dust and sweat, several hours
old.
"What's going on here?" the stranger demanded,
somewhat truculently. "Where's Mr. Hood?"


70 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"That'll keep," said the sergeant. "But first we'd
like to know who you are." The sergeant stood be-
tween the newcomer and the quiet thing on the floor.
"Who I am? I'm Berks—Roger Berks."


VIII
Berks! The announcement had the effect—the
stunning effect—of a thunderclap out of the blue.
Even the troopers were silenced by their astonish-
ment. Van Cleve was first to recover. Yonder person
was more like the man he had imaginatively built
up out of hearsay. A bold fellow, not particularly
hampered by ethics, and not quite a gentleman.
Who, then, was the other, who looked and acted like
a gentleman?
"That is not the man!" said Elsie, her voice stifled.
"You bet I'm not! I'm Berks. The other fellow was
an impostor. Oh, it was neatly done. It isn't often
they bamboozle me. Now, what's happened? What
are the police doing here?"
"Hood was killed to-night. The weapon was the
fire poker," the sergeant informed the questioner.
"Dead? Hood?" The stranger dropped into a
chair as suddenly as if someone had cuffed him behind
the knees. "Dead!"
"Yes. By violence."
"Did the chap get away with the Blue Rajah?"
asked the original Roger Berks.
"Yes."
"I knew it! I knew that was his game. But he
71


72
THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
didn't look like a fellow who'd kill a man with a
poker."
"Who is he?" Elsie wondered when this nightmare
would end.
"I don't know,miss"—dejectedly."Sounds foolish,
but it's true."
"You don't know?" shouted the sergeant. "Come,
now. You can't expect us to believe that. What did
he do to you?"
"Plenty—plenty. Kidnaped me and took my pa-
pers."
"I see. Now we're getting somewhere," declared
the sergeant. "And you put up a fight."
"I did, but I didn't get far. It was two to one. But
I got loose about ten and here I am."
"And here you are! From where did you escape?"
"New York."
"Who was your client, the man you were working
for?" interjected Van Cleve.
"He wasIThat's how he fooled me," Berks replied.
The sergeant shoved back his hat. "Seems to me
you're telling the middle of the story. Begin at the
jump-off. The fog is too thick."
"Which one of you is Van Cleve of Amsterdam,
Holland?" asked Berks, looking about.
1 am.
"You've heard of me, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"But till now you never saw me?"
"That is correct."


IMPROMPTU
73
Berks—for all understood now that he must be
Berks—brought forth a wallet and handed it to the
sergeant. "Please examine the contents. There's an
old passport in there. Compare the original with the
descriptions."
Which the sergeant proceeded briskly to do. "Gen-
tlemen, this is the real Berks. You were entertaining
an impostor. Now, then, Berks, get along with your
side of the story."
Elsie noted that the trooper did not use the con-
ventional title. On the other hand Berks apparently
did not note its absence.
"Well, about two weeks ago this fellow came to
my office. He had heard that the Blue Rajah was
about to be put up for sale, which was more than
I had heard. Said he wanted the stone. He had
heard of me. That's my business—negotiating the
sale and purchase of gems on commission. Said he
wanted the stone, but that if he handled the job he
might bid too deep. I'd heard of the stone, but had
never seen it. Here was a fat commission, if the fellow
was on the level. He looked and dressed like a swell.
. . . I'd like a drink of water."
Elsie shivered.
The butler got Berks his water, and Berks emptied
the glass.
"That's better. Been through a lot of dust. He was
staying at one of the commercial hotels in the For-
ties. We had dinner a couple of times. Knew a lot
about gems. Said he lived in Paris. Oh, he hooked me


74 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
all right. Asked me casually if I knew any of you,
and, like a fool, I said no."
"Why didn't you telephone when you got free?"
demanded the sergeant.
"I'll come to that," answered Berks, apparently
quite pleased with the interest he had aroused. "I
was to do all the corresponding and all that. I finally
got a letter from Hood giving me permission to come
up and make a bid. When I reported to him that
everything was ready but the financial side Say,
he took my breath away. He showed me fifteen ten-
thousand-dollar bills!"
"Genuine?"
"Five of them were. I handled them; and I know
real money."
"Cash," mused the sergeant. "We'll rake the
banks and find out who drew fifteen bills as big as
that."
Berks smiled. "He had me hypnotized. After a
late breakfast he invited me to his apartment."
"In the hotel?"
"No. He was living at the hotel temporarily. He
wouldn't be in town long enough to engage a cook,
so he said. I went with him. Why not? He had a
hundred and fifty thousand in his pocket."
"And he was going to turn it over to you?"
Berks smiled again. "That's what I thought. His
apartment was in Seventy-eighth Street. Third flight
up. Two lowers were vacant. I kept thinking of that
roll and my commission if I got the Rajah."


IMPROMPTU
75
Elsie hated him and the sound of his voice. She did
not know why. It was one of those unreasoning sen-
timents. Probably this hate was aroused because he
seemed to be enjoying himself.
"He opened the door of the apartment. And then
the circus began. They took my letters and left me
bound and gagged in a middle room."
"You got the number of the house?"
Berks gave it with a good deal of satisfaction.
"George, get headquarters in New York. Give a
gist of the story. Find out who owns this apart-
ment. Get Albany and Syracuse airports."
"Yes, sir."
"Now," said the sergeant to Berks, "what name
did this fellow give you?"
"Bassett."
"Bassett?"
The others jerked their heads in the direction of
the butler. He looked like a Venetian gargoyle—his
forehead and cheeks marble white and his jaws—he
had a heavy beard—black.


IX
The sergeant eyed the butler as though he had taken
note of him for the first time.
"What name were you expecting?" the sergeant
asked with sardonic amiability.
"I—it just came out," stammered the butler.
"Oh! Ah! Come across. You were expecting some
name. What was it?"
"No, sir. But everything—the confusion, the ter-
ribleness of the night I'm a bit hysterical."
"Did you hear the piano player?"
"Oh, yes, sir. But I thought nothing of it."
"Where were you at the time?"
"In my room, sir, preparing to go to bed."
The sergeant decided to hear the end of Berks'
story before he resumed questioning the butler. "Go
on, Berks."
"Well, I got free about noon. And my first thought
was speed. So I got an airplane. It was just possible
that I might beat out the crook. At any rate, arrive
here before the bidding began, and expose him. I
landed at Syracuse at about three. But it took me
almost an hour to find anyone who'd risk renting a car
going into the woods at night. Chap like me who
didn't know the ropes."
76


IMPROMPTU
77
"Syracuse. You should have been here by half-past
ten."
"I know it now," Berks agreed. "You can find
your way in the daytime, but it's a different thing
at night. By ten I found myself miles up a dirt road.
It was smooth and I took it for the state road, till
it began to get humpy. That's my story. This part
of the map is brand-new to me."
"Do you realize that if you had telephoned, Mr
Hood would not be dead?"
"I realize it now. Maybe I wasn't thinking clear."
"What time did this pseudo Berks get here?"
The sergeant put the question generally.
Elsie spoke. "I saw him fishing in our stream be-
tween five and six."
"Fishing? Well, I'll be I beg your pardon,
miss! You say he was fishing?"
"Yes."
"Berks, how long did it take you to get to Syracuse
from New York?"
"About four hours. It took me a long time to find
a plane."
"Then this chap must have left New York by air-
plane. Landed at Albany. Otherwise he couldn't get
here by auto and then fish before dark. Had his plane
ready and lost no time. A good deal of fog. And he
must have driven like the devil—yes, and known
the way. Miss, did your uncle have a known enemy?"
"He couldn't have had. He was too kind and
generous. May I retire? I'm dreadfully tired."


78 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Go to bed. I haven't any more questions to ask
you. But you'll have to appear when the coroner ar-
rives." When Elsie was gone, the sergeant approached
the butler menacingly. "What name were you ex-
pecting?"
"I told you the truth, sir."
Van Cleve interposed mercifully. "We all have been
badly shaken up, Mr. Officer."
"I know it, sir. But he didn't merely repeat the
name—he shouted it. Exactly as if he had been ex-
pecting Jones or Smith instead of Bassett. Someone
killed Hood. Everything points to the pseudo Berks.
And yet, I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Just what I mean. If he started the player it must
have been before he struck Hood. And in the event
of the player starting, Hood would have wanted to
know why. See what I mean?"
"Sir, "put in the butler, "Mr. Hood frequently came
down and turned on the records when he couldn't
sleep."
The sergeant struck his hands together. "Now we
stand on something. The darned fog lifts. Thanks,
Henry. I begin to see. Hood goes into the dark li-
brary and turns on that piece, returns, and opens the
wall safe. The music going, he doesn't hear Bassett,
who decides to get all the loot. Good boy, Henry.
But you were thinking of another name, and when
the coroner comes you'll be underoath."
Van Cleve smiled inwardly. No coroner would dig


IMPROMPTU
79
anything out of Henry, the butler. But Van Cleve
felt saddened with life. He had this night been pro-
foundly disillusioned. He had given, unasked, his
friendship to an amazing scoundrel.
The trooper called George came in from the tele-
phone.
"Shoot it!" ordered the sergeant.
"The owner of that apartment house in New York
is Crabtree, the eccentric millionaire. He is seventy,
and cussed the police when they woke him up. The
man who called himself Berks evidently broke into
the place. Berks arrived in Syracuse about the time
he said. Man answering Bassett's description landed
at Albany a little after one o'clock. Coroner on the
way. No other news."
"A smooth customer, this Bassert. Do you notice
that nothing has been left to chance? Mathematics.
Cash. Got those bills outside of New York, or has
half a dozen men working for him. And it will be
deposited in several banks. Again, bootleggers in New
York carry thousands. They may have helped him
out with the cash. This bird, so it seems to me, has
written a play for himself, and he won't be missing
any cues. What name were you expecting, Henry?"
"No name, sir. But what will they do with the
body?"
The sergeant eyed Henry thoughtfully. "The cor-
oner will come with the village undertaker, and they
will take the body back. And then the autopsy will
be performed."


80 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Just what do they do, sir?"
"Open the head, open the body; examine the brain
and the heart and the lungs. It is the coroner who
will say that Mr. Hood was murdered. I only gather
the facts. He examines both the facts and the body.
Murder, by a man named Bassett. And you have to
catch your rabbit in order to cook it. A man who
can palm a diamond with all you experts about can
easily fix his mug so that no one will recognize him.
There'll be a lot of good dicks in Grand Central and
the near-by flying fields. But they'll have a mental
picture of another man than the one who will walk
by them."
"What about us?" asked Morgan anxiously.
"Go to bed and snooze till the coroner arrives.
I'll stay in the house, boys; you clear out and stay
wide-awake on the hoof," the sergeant ordered.
"I'll sleep on the lounge here," declared Berks.
"Suit yourself."
Berks settled himself comfortably, with his back
to the lights, and composed himself for sleep.
The sergeant eyed him moodily and dropped his
own weary body into a comfortable chair.
The butler's room was above Elsie's; and she
heard him tramping, tramping, till at length she
could no longer support it. There was a pole net
in one corner of the room. With the butt of this
she pounded the ceiling. The tramping ceased.


X
Meantime the activities of the young man who
did not know he was being hunted for murder.
The car rolled through the green tunnels of the
forest toward his objectives. It would be nine or ten
in the morning before the trick would be discovered.
He had plenty of time, but he was going to pretend
he hadn't.
He wasn't going ahead blindly; he had been over
this road in another car to familiarize himself with it.
Yet only once did he recognize a tree and a plank
bridge over a trout stream. By compass he was going
northeast; by the dash clock he was an hour and a
half from the Hood camp. An hour later he would
have to go on by foot—seven or eight miles, in time
to catch the milk train south.
How green the tunnel was in the glare of his head-
lights! He had seen two deer and any number of
hare; occasionally a clearing, with a darkened farm-
house or a sawmill. They could, of course, trace his
tires to the spot where he was going to dump the
car.
Elsie Hetherstone. That was the way it was with
81


82 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
life. No matter how beautifully you wrote your
copy, there ivas an Editor with ideas of His own, to
cut, add, siash. The girl had changed the color of
the adventure. It had been written in sardonic shades;
it had become drab and grim.
The miles dropped behind; the hour hand of the
dash clock turned. From afar came the shrill pipe of
a whistle. The young man stopped the car and turned
off the headlights. From the rumble he took out
the tin box—which held something more than tackle
—and an electric torch. He listened intently and
heard the murmur of a stream near by. By the aid
of the torch he found it. The tackle box was really a
theatrical make-up box with a mirror in the lid. For
twenty minutes he worked. Not so easy as might be.
At last he held the light to his face and looked into
the mirror. Heavy black eyebrows, a scrubby black
mustache, the deep tan of the woodsman; it would
pass. Next he searched for a balsam and smeared
his fine hands with the sap, then he dug his hands
into the leaves and muck. A hardened son of toil.
No one at the camp had seen the clothes he wore,
so they could not be described. And no one had seen
the cap. The clothes he had left behind could be
found in a thousand shops of ready-made clothing.
The milk train as far as Albany, then a day coach to
New York. But he would drop off at Yonkers and
take a taxi into town.
He buried the make-up box, the reel, and the
barbless flies and went back to the car. Devil of a


84 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Hi, Bud! Gerry Owen! Here's John—Chick-
Murray Willard home again, and with the loot. The
vendetta is over. Oh, Gerry!"
Living sounds kitchenward, and almost at once
there entered into the drawing room a young man
in the middle thirties, red-headed and freckled. He
held a crumpled newspaper in one hand. His name
was Robert Owen, but only his checks and legal
documents were signed thus. Otherwise he was
known to his intimates as Bud or Gerry.
"Chick, is it you?"
"As you see, but made up a bit. It was easy—too
easy. But here I am, Blue Rajah and all. There was
a fly in the amber, though." Willard paused. "Hood
has a niece."
"Has?"
Willard did not catch either the vehemence or the
inflection. He said: "I didn't know she existed. And
when I saw that she adored Hood and that he wor-
shiped her, y' know, the whole job went stale. But
how was I to know? The mysterious note I received
was unsigned. It stated simply that Hood was about
to offer for sale the Rajah, at his camp in the woods.
There wasn't any family history in the note."
Owen stared at him.
"Suppose," went on the oblivious Willard—"sup-
pose you stepped out of a tunnel into the Garden of
Eden? It was that kind of shock, seeing that girl.
No clinging-vine stuff, no flapper—a young woman.
On my word, I can't quite describe her. Funny,


IMPROMPTU
85
■
Gerry; what? A kind of sideswipe when I'm on the
way to somewhere else. You'll laugh, but she's the
one—the one each man of us searches for and seldom
finds. There she was, and I had lost her even as I had
found her. For how the devil am I ever going to
explain to her? Any hot water? This make-up is pull-
ing my face apart."
"There's hot water in the kitchen."
The adventurer did not observe Owen's face—so
pale that the freckles stood out like the spots on a
snow leopard. "I say, how the deuce did Berks get
loose? I gave him every sailor's knot I knew."
"He was gone when I returned."
"How about starting some bacon and eggs and
coffee while I have my face lifted?"
"All right, Chick."
"I wonder," said Willard, looking about the room,
"if I shall ever be content in any one place long
enough to call it home?"
"I wonder, too, Chick." Owen's voice was un-
steady.
Willard was lax this day; the hours of tension were
gone. So he missed Owen's stark anxiety and that
the latter's two hands were twisting the newspaper
into dry pulp.
"Any kerosene?"
"I can get some."
"I'll need it for my hands. . . . What the devil
are you doing to that newspaper?"—suddenly be-
coming observant.


86 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Chick, have you read any newspaper this morn-
ing?"
"No."
"Then you don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Thank God—thank God!" Owen wrapped his
comrade in a fierce embrace.
Willard released himself roughly. "What's hap-
pened? Have they discovered the paste?"
"Hood was murdered last night at the camp. Some
one struck him with the fire poker. By to-night your
description will be in every newspaper and police
office in the country. I warned you against the folly
of this game!"
Willard stood perfectly still. He looked at his friend,
eyes unbelieving. A momentary petrifaction, then he
seized the newspaper and opened it. In a little while
he let it fall to the floor. He sat down in the nearest
chair, the sheet folding about him queerly. With
terrifying clearness he saw his position. He hadn't
one chance in a million—not one! The circumstan-
tial evidence was impregnable. If he took the police
with himj over step by step, explaining each step,
it would only be handing his head on a platter to the
district attorney. Done! Willard began to laugh.
The sound terrified Owen, who seized him by the
shoulders and shook him. "Stop it, man; stop it, I
say!"
The queer paroxysm died away.


XI
The coroner's office is political. In a small town it
is a dull job, but sometimes the occupant can step
from this office into legislature. The verdict of his
jury is not conclusive, but it may be the foundation
of criminal prosecution against the person or persons
charged. The performance of the autopsy is not per-
functory; it is the one thing he has to do thoroughly.
Upon the coroner's findings the district attorney must
always depend. When he opens the case for the state
he must know absolutely that there has been murder
done; else the lawyer for the defendant may push him
out on the end of a limb.
Magically, then, the coroner and the town in which
he acted leaped into the spotlight from one end of
the continent to the other. This was not an ordinary
case of one bootlegger killing another, of a killing in
a roadhouse brawl. A millionaire had been the vic-
tim in his beautiful camp. Some of the greatest gem
experts in the world had been visiting the camp at
the time of the crime. The coroner saw brightly into
the future, himself at Albany, in the halls of legis-
lature. There was even a dim vista of the national
capitol.
88


IMPROMPTU
89
The verdict of his jury—after the examination
of all those who had been at the camp—was willful
murder against the man who had stolen the diamond
known as the Blue Rajah, who had given his name
as Berks and as Bassett, in both cases assumed.
The autopsy revealed that the blow from the poker
had crushed in the side of the head, death being in-
stantaneous. It further revealed that Hood had a
bad heart, due possibly to the reaction of an opera-
tion for appendicitis three years before. But with
care he might have lived several years. The handle
of the poker, octagonal in shape, but having no
sharp edges, had crushed the skull without cutting
the flesh to any noticeable degree. That there were
no finger prints on the end of the poker was of minor
significance, since it was widely known these days
that high-type criminals wore gloves. The playing
of the record on the piano had given the criminal
time to kill Hood, leave by the library window, make
his car and get to the main highway before the alarm.
Hood was dead, the man Bassett and the diamond
known as the Blue Rajah had completely vanished.
The evidence was clear.
The sharp wits of the metropolitan newspapers
got to work. The foreign correspondents learned that
the roster of the Order of Leopold offered no help,
for the reason that it did not give a man's weight,
height, or color or any'of those identifiable marks
indicated in passports. It was not possible to find
the late Busoni's papers in relation to the names and


go THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
nationality of his distinguished pupils. The reporters
worried themselves into blind alleys. They had this
much—a good-looking young man about thirty,
brilliant blue eyes, a jaw verging on the so-called
lantern, a great pianist, a skillful fisherman, and an
airman of note. The pilot who had driven the man
from New York to Albany swore that his passenger
knew more about air busses than he did.
The reporters naturally gave a good deal of space
to the niece—her unusual beauty, her dignity, the
quality of her voice. They all agreed that she seemed
cold. Not the warm vivacious type of the movie
queens.
For a week the story occupied the front page; then
a chorus girl shot her sugar papa in a night club
and the Blue Rajah mystery was promptly relegated
to the inside pages. There wasn't enough human
interest in it.
Elsie decided not to close the camp till she had
drafted a workable plan for the future. Another point:
it seemed to her to be an admission of cowardice to
run away and hide in a great city among strangers.
She knew the trees here, the streams, the birds, the
trails; and there was that in her that demanded iso-
lation from the crowd.
One of the first things she did was to destroy the
record of the Fantasie Impromptu. The deed had
the appearance of childishness, but it was actuated
by something far deeper than that—a dim, evasive


IMPROMPTU
91
clairvoyance that some night she might be drawn to
the piano, irresistibly, and play the record; and see
the man's face as it had been that night, mildly ec-
static as the melodies flowed out of his magical finger
tips. A thought as fascinating as it was horrible.
She was lonely and bitter. She walked miles,
broke new trails, but with no delight. She never went
anywhere near the trout run, but wandered along
the tributaries.
It was the treachery, the abysmal treachery, that
kept her brooding ceaselessly. Never, never so long
as she lived would she wear a jewel. She never looked
at the back of one of her hands that she did not scrub
it vigorously against her skirt.
The will had left her everything, aside from a few
legacies. But her riches left her unstirred, indiffer-
ent. All his gifts had made Bassett's acts only the
baser. Had he been from the underworld, had he come
from anywhere else save from the circle in which she
herself dwelt! Her sense of shame was at all times
equal to her lust for vengeance. She had secretly given
the man her friendship, not easily acquired, the
moment she had seen him at the piano. Horrible—
no other term seemed to have any strength. Had it
been the real Berks she would have had neither shame
nor desire for vengeance beyond that which the law
would mete out.
Affairs at the camp went on about thesame.The
wardens kept the poaching fishermen away, and sol-
emnly the gaunt Henry attended to his duties.


92 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Her plans for the future did not mature quickly.
She would never return to live in any place where
she and her uncle had been happy together. This
much she could, with definiteness, plan. In time she
would put up the camp for sale and find some place
where no one knew her.
Once a day Henry would ask: "Any news, Miss
Elsie?"
And each time the answer would be: "No, Henry."
So deep was she in the sea of her own speculations
and brooding that she did not observe that Henry-
was also brooding. Once in a while she would catch
him tramping the floor at night.
"I can't sleep, Miss Elsie," he explained.
"But you keep me awake!"
"I am sorry."
'- Now Elsie's mind had not functioned keenly in
relation to the happenings of that dreadful night—
that is, she had not gone over the scenes and deduced
from them any salient.
One night Henry was about to set the soup before
her, when she happened to recall an odd incident.
"Henry, why were you so startled that night when
that man Berks said the name was Bassett?"
The soup sloshed from the cup, which slid peril-
ously near the rim of the plate. His queer face be-
came ghastly.
"Why, what is the matter? . . . Henry, you are
hiding something!" She got to her feet swiftly, her
mind bell clear. "What are you hiding?"


IMPROMPTU
93
Henry put down the soup. "Please, Miss Elsie!"
he begged.
"You perjured yourself in the coroner's court 1 Did
you see anything that night?"
"No. And that is God's truth!"
"What is it, then?" Henry began to back away.
"Henry, if you do not tell me at once, I shall call
in the state police!"—her eyes burning. "What
have you been keeping secret from me?"
"Miss Elsie, I am half crazy! I have kept silent
because I did not want to hurt you."
"Hurt me? How could you hurt me?" she de-
manded.
"Why not have patience? Soon or late, the police
will find him."
"You know his name!" she cried. "You expected
his name instead of Bassett! And that policeman un-
derstood it. But you lied in the coroner's office. I've
been blind! What is his name, Henry? Oh, I will give
ten thousand for his name!"
"Yes, I know it. But, Miss Elsie, if I tell it to you,
your heart will break."
"It is already broken. You refuse to tell me?"—
her fury rising. The reporters would not have called
her cold had they seen her at this moment.
"If I tell you, you will be sorry all the rest of your
life. The love which existed between you and your
uncle was beautiful to all who beheld it."
"Be still! I want nothing from you but that man's
name."


94
THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Henry bent his head, but he did not speak.
"Very well," she said, with passionate vehemence.
And she rushed toward the hall.
He tried to stop her, but failed. "Wait!"
She paused at the threshold.
"The name is Willard. The only son of Jonathan
Willard. At one time, years ago, he and your uncle
were bosom friends."
"I never heard of him."
"No. Mr. Hood never mentioned his name again.
Shall I proceed?"
"Go on."
"Willard and his son lived in a house in lower Park
Avenue."
"But why didn't you inform the police?"
"When I learned that your uncle was going to offer
the Blue Rajah for sale, I sent an anonymous note
to the old house. When the young man came here
as Berks, I was fooled. After he had gone, then I
knew who he was. I did not inform the police be-
cause I believed they would catch him without help
from me."
"Why did you warn him?" The blood in her was
running high.
"Because the Blue Rajah is rightfully his, Miss
Elsie."
"Rightfully his?"—thunderstruck. "Are you
mad?"
"Nearly. I could not bring myself to hurt you."


IMPROMPTU
95
"You have stressed that word. What do you mean
by it?"
"I have always held that there was madness in
collecting these stones."
"Will you come to the point?"
"I have said Willard and your uncle were once
upon a time bosom friends. The friendship ceased
when your uncle took what did not belong to him."
"What proof have you of that?" asked Elsie,
chilled.
"A letter the boy wrote your uncle after his father
died. A wild and threatening letter, for a boy of
ten. He accused your uncle of bringing his father to
his deathbed by treachery, of pretending to borrow
the Rajah, having a paste copy of it made and sub-
stituting it for the genuine and swearing he had lost
the historical document and the bill of sale in a fire.
Oh, I warned you!"
"Where did you find this letter?"—her voice
steady.
"Why your uncle did not destroy it I don't know.
Every morning I empty the wastebaskets. This letter
was all alone in the basket. Accidentally I saw a few
threatening words. Then I read it all. Mr. Willard
never attempted to recover the stone. He died too
soon after. And the boy had no proof that the stone
was his. I warned you."
"Let me have this letter."
The butler drew it out of his pocket reluctantly


96 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
and gave it to her. She read it. But from her face
he could not guess what her emotions were. In the
end she drew a palm across her forehead.
"Did Uncle know that you knew?"
"Oh, never, Miss Elsie! Only, I couldn't destroy
that boy's letter. It had all the strength of a man in it.
I believe I know what happened. They met down-
stairs, and your uncle recognized him at last, for
the boy's smile was like his father's. Your uncle
seized him, and It is a terrible stone, Miss Elsie.
Death, death, death wherever it is."
"All this may be true. But with this letter I have
him—I have him!"
"Will you discharge me, Miss Elsie?"
"No."
"Shall I serve the rest of the dinner?"
"No, no, no!"
She rushed to the stairs and up to her room.
That night the butler heard her tramping her room.


XII
Gerry Owen paced the room while Willard sprawled
in his chair, his face thin and haggard.
"Chick, I can't stand this inertia any longer.
Every hour wasted is the other fellow's advantage.
You did not kill Hood, but someone did. You can't
stay cooped up here all the rest of your life."
"I can't think, Gerry. The old bean isn't working."
"You can go abroad."
"Why should I? I haven't hurt anybody."
"Let me do what I want to do."
"What can you do but become involved as ac-
cessory to the fact?"
"Look here, Chick; I have the detective instinct
just as you have the flying instinct. There are two
niggers in this woodpile—the man who sent you that
anonymous warning and Roger Berks. My work in
the secret service has trained my mind for sleuthing."
"But this fellow Berks—there's no motive. He
merely came to warn Hood."
"Berks swore he got lost up a dirt road for hours.
The statement was never thoroughly checked up
because everything pointed to you. Of course he
could get lost that way, but was he?"
97


98 THE BLUE RAJ AH MURDER
"What purpose had he in lying?"
"That's it. On the face of it he had no purpose,
just as you had every purpose according to the evi-
dence. The man who sent you that note. Was he
friend or enemy? He might have framed you."
"But nobody except Hood and I knew the story."
"Not so sure of that. There might have been a
leak somewhere. I want to dig into Berks' testimony
and learn something about this butler."
"That poor old gargoyle came rushing down with
the others when Elsie screamed. Van Cleve in his
testimony stated that."
"Elsie?"
"Yes, Gerry."
"Can't get her out of your head?"
"No."
"Now think. You were close to Berks for several
days. Do you recall any striking fact about him?"
Willard rumpled his hair. "Nothing, except that
he smoked cigarettes incessantly."
"Notice the brand?"
"Why, yes. That's what makes the picture stick.
Smoked Laurens. Imported them from Switzerland,
though I believe the company is owned by Germans."
"Chick, I caught a spy in Geneva because he used
an unfamiliar brand of matches. Laurens—that's a
starting point. Anything else?"
"No. But if you go, how will you get in touch with
me? The telephone is off."
"You'll hear from me only when I've brought


IMPROMPTU
99
down the bird. I'll get Dodge, my chauffeur, to cook
for you. You can trust him with your right eye. So
there's Elsie."
"Yes. Two blows that utterly bewilder me. No
use dodging it. A perfect crime. And a girl like that
has to step into the picture. The cart's upset and
the apples are all over the lot. But go, and God bless
you, old-timer!"
"All right. I'll toddle over to the grocer's. Sugar
and coffee's given out."
/' Alone, Willard began to pace. Memories. Jona-
than Willard and Marcus Hood, friends from boy-
hood. They had taken the grand tour together, and
during this voyage the collecting mania had struck
them both. For years after there had been friendly
rivalry, till the Blue Rajah, cobra-like, had lifted its
sinister beauty into their gaze. Jonathan outbid
Marcus, and Marcus became secretly obsessed. The
man he had once loved he now hated. Pretending
that he was writing a history of his gem-collecting
adventures, he had prevailed upon Jonathan to lend
him the stone and the documents. Neither the regis-
tered history nor the bill of sale had come back.
There had been a fire. But the Blue Rajah had been
returned later, to be discovered as paste.
"Never take the affair into court, my son," Jona-
than had said on his deathbed. "His conscience will
punish him as the law never will be able to. For he
will always remember that I loved him."
The son had promised, but with reservations. He


IOO THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
would never trouble Hood unless he offered it for
sale. The son now remembered having written at
the time a passionately angry boy's letter. No doubt,
long ago destroyed.
Willard stopped his pacing suddenly. The butler!
The butler had written that anonymous note. Henry
had known the truth. And Henry had suspected his
identity! Why, then, hadn't he denounced the pseudo
Berks to the police?
Willard moved over to the piano and sat down.
On Gerry's return, in the act of entering the area
door, a policeman hailed him:
"Hey, there! What a' yuh doin'? That house is
vacant."
Gerry Owen took one deep breath. "Mr. Willard
has just returned from abroad. He hasn't had the
telephone connected nor has he informed the precinct.
He is a great musician, sir, and is preparing concert
work and does not wish to be disturbed."
"That's all right, but I'll have a look inside,"
replied the policeman.
"Follow me."
The policeman stalked into the basement. From
somewhere above came the thundering chords of
the Brahms Rhapsodie in E flat. Owen held a finger
to his lips to command silence. He laid down his
grocery bundles. When the music stopped, Owen
shouted up the stairs:
"Mr. Willard, a policeman wishes to see you. Shall


IMPROMPTU
101
I send him up now or wait till your practicing is
over? I've told him you were preparing for concert
and had given orders"
"Oh, send him up!" called Willard, snatching his
cue.
He was a good guardian, this policeman. "You're
Willard, the owner?"
"Yes."
"Got any proof of it?"
Willard showed him a passport.
"All right, Mr. Willard. We have to watch these
houses where the folks 've gone abroad. You ain't
been here in a long time. But y' oughta called up
the precinct. I'll report your return before I go off
duty."
"But promise me the newspapers won't get hold
of my return to America. My friends will pile in on
me, and I'll have to clean house."
"Sure. That'll be all right. The women—they
drive you fellahs off the Carnegie stage. Play me a
tune."
Willard sat down at the piano and played one of
Grainger's rustics. The policeman kept time with
his head and foot.
"You sure know your ivories. Thanks. That's my
kind of music. I don't get this highfalutin' stuff like
you was playin' when I came in."
"Gerry, the cigars."
The policeman helped himself. "Thanks. I'll
smoke it after supper to-night."


102 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"And be sure and close both the basement and
area doors as you go out," reminded Owen.
"Trust me, sir."
The policeman went downstairs.
The two young men stared at each other. They
waited in suspense till they heard the doors close.
"Pretty close," whispered Owen.
"Get your man to me to-night, and you go north.
You're right. You're all the hope I have. The irony
of it! I didn't even see Hood again after I went to
my room. Check up Berks. And God be with you!
I never thought of death during the war save as a
fierce and glorious adventure. But death by the
state, my name dishonored"
"Hush!" whispered Owen.
Willard's body became tense. Steps—light steps
on the basement stairs! His hand went into the
pocket where the automatic lay concealed.
As the policeman opened the basement door to
step into the areaway, he stood stock-still. And
well he might. A young woman, regal and beautiful!
"Sh!" she whispered. "Let me in. I know. He's
probably given orders to admit no one. But that
would not include me, for he doesn't know I'm in
town. Please!"
The policeman pushed back his cap and scratched
his poll perplexedly. Sure, he had read about it—
the women mobbing a famous pianist. If he turned
this one loose on Willard—well, well; if he had been


IMPROMPTU
in Willard's shoes! Well, one of 'em couldn't start
a riot call. So he winked and stepped aside for the
young woman. He gently closed the area door. He
recognized the type. They used to live on Fifth
Avenue, now they lived on Park or on Long Island.
There wasn't a good-looking fellow living who'd
report a poor cop for letting in a queen against or-
ders.
So it came to pass that Elsie suddenly confronted
the two young men. There was no reading that calm,
pale face of hers.


XIII
For three days and nights Elsie had watched the
house. She had seen the red-haired young man de-
part and arrive with supplies, so she knew that Wil-
lard was hiding within. This was her affair; the po-
lice could enter it later.
Her obsession led her about in a kind of night-
mare. She knew exactly the meaning of each move
she made, her thoughts were diamond cut; but she
could not have turned away from her project even
if she had tried. There were little bursts of fury,
each leaving her colder. She must confront the man
alone, empty her mind of such scorn and loathing
as would shrivel him; then she would force him to
precede her to the nearest police station. Like the
script of a play, all the lines and cues. The obsession
was that this scene had to be enacted or she would
never again possess herself.
She was not conscious of any excitement when
she saw the policeman follow the young red-haired
man into the house. Here would be her chance per-
haps. If the policeman came out alone. She got out
of the limousine and crossed the street. Luck was
■
104


IMPROMPTU
with her. As she slowly mounted the basement stairs
she could hear the voices of the two men—sounds
without meaning.
She held the tableau for half a minute. Her ap-
pearance was mesmeristic. Neither man had the
power to move, his mouth loose with astonishment.
She carried a capacious needle-point handbag. She
broke the spell by drawing from this handbag a
long envelope. This she calmly sailed at Willard's
feet. He did not stir.
Still gazing at her, he said: "Leave us, Gerry."
Owen tiptoed from the room. There was no reason
why he should tiptoe, but he did.
"That," said Elsie, referring to the envelope,
"contains the documents which establish your in-
alienable right to the Blue Rajah."
She was here? What had happened? How had she
found him ? The hypnotic phase was gone out of him,
but his astonishment had lost nothing.
"When did you learn the truth?" he asked.
Calmly and in level tones she freed her mind of its
flaming diatribe. He did not interrupt her by word
or gesture.
"Were you a prisoner," she concluded, "I could
not say these things to you."
"I am a prisoner so long as I live. I did not kill
your uncle," he said. "I never saw him again after
I went to my room."
"No? Well, there is a court in which you may try
to prove your innocence." Out of her handbag came


106 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
a pistol. "I am quite expert with this. If your friend
appears I will shoot and disable him. Put up your
hands and come toward me."
"Dear lady, I shall fill your cup to the brim,"
he said recklessly. "I love you."
"Be silent!"—furiously.
"It is true. I knew it when I saw you across the
piano. My plan to recover the stone was as perfect
as human ingenuity could make it. But you had to
enter the scene. Your uncle broke my father's heart
as surely as if he had taken it in his two hands. It
was not the stone; that did not matter. But that
the man he loved and trusted more than any other
human being should betray this love and trust—that
made an end of him. I was only ten years old. But I
became a man in that hour. I wrote and threatened
him. If that letter is still in existence"
"I have it! Do as I bid you!"
"To the end of the world!"
Something had gone wrong with the scene; she
had wanted to see him cringe.
"Life isn't worth much now," he said. "But
I am not the kind of man who permits the law to
snuff out his life. You snuff" it out." He smiled. "I
am going to walk straight toward you, and if you
do not shoot me I shall take the pistol away from
you."
He began to walk toward her slowly. The pistol
did not waver. One step—two—three—four. Her
hand began to tremble. Five—six—seven—one step


IMPROMPTU
I07
more!" She threw the pistol halfway across the room
and covered her face with her hands.
"I—I can't!"
He forced down her arms and pinioned them to her
sides. Then he kissed her—her mouth, her eyes,
her hair—but tenderly and loverly. He released her,
recovered the pistol and offered it to her.
"Come!" he said.
"Come? Where?" Her thoughts were without
coherency; her emotions were on the whirligig; her
obsession gone.
"Why, to the police station! And you, Elsie, are
going to take me there. Come, while I am in the
mood for it. But I swear to you by the memory of
the love I bore my father that I did not kill your
uncle. We pay, don't we? Other people's bills along
with our own. Follies—ten thousand of them—and
we pay each time a stifFer price. That adventure
into your camp was half sardonic, half rollicking.
But fate had to appoint that moment for your uncle's
tragic death. Come!"
But Elsie groped for the nearest chair and sat
down. She knew that it was his voice; she knew
that were she alone all her cold fury would return,
all her will to vengeance. And the smothering rain
of kisses, instead of filling her with loathing, filled
her with another emotion which took away from
her the strength to stand. Not to fight him, strike
him; not even to want to strike him!
"Come!"


Io8 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
She did not speak.
So he knelt beside her. "You will not hold to
your purpose? In a corner of your heart you know
that I did not do it. I'm a madman; I have done
crazy, impetuous things because I was trying to find
you and couldn't. With a man of my temperament
things ripen quickly. Elsie, if you really hate me,
loathe me, then life isn't worth hanging on to. If
you can look me in the eyes and say you still believe
I killed your uncle because of a boy's crazy threat
and a man's crazy caprice, then I will go and give
myself up. And they will execute me. And that will
be the end of it. Look at me!"
The voice, the voice! she cried inwardly. If only
she could get away from this voice which seemed to
disintegrate her will! She dared not look into his
eyes. There was strange madness in this house, and
she must fly from it. By a superhuman call upon
her will she managed to pick up her handbag, dash
into the hall, down the stairs and presently into
the street, up which she fairly raced. . . . He had
kissed her, and she couldn't strike him!
"Miss Hetherstone! Miss Hetherstone!" some-
one called from the curb.
She paused and turned bewilderedly. Her car
and chauffeur, which she had forgot utterly!
"What has happened? Shall I find a policeman?"
"No. Take me back to the hotel. And do not ask
questions."


IMPROMPTU
IO9
"But your orders! Who was this man you were
afraid of?"
"Return to the hotel. And if you wish to remain
in my employ forget this day—all of it."
"Very well, miss."
Gerry Owen came running into the room. He saw
Willard studying the chair Elsie had vacated.
"She gone?"
"Yes"—listlessly.
"I heard everything, Chick. We must trek out
of here at once. That copper didn't ask anything
about me. So over to my ranch we go."
"No go. Gerry, I'm going to give myself up."
"In a pig's eye! Haven't you tumbled? That girl
doesn't believe you did it. She's been under a ter-
rific mental strain, and this was the crack-up."
"You heard what she said?"
"But she didn't shoot you, did she? And in the
end she got scared and ran away. But the point is,
she didn't come here without protection in the offing.
And it's this protection I'm afraid of. Get what you
need together, and I'll hunt up a taxi. Hop out of it!
All I want is a week up there. If you give yourself
up, good-bye. You haven't a Chinaman's chance.
You've said it and I know it. What the devil do
you care what she said, considering the state of
her mind?"
"You saw her?"


IIO THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"With both eyes. I can see how easy it would be
for you. She's a corker. But will she ever care any-
thing for you if you give up without a fight? She'll
be that kind of girl, Chick—that kind of girl. I
know women. Because I'm red-headed and freckled
and homely, they always come to me with their
troubles. This girl's had two terrible jolts. She has
lost her uncle and learned that years ago he com-
mitted a sneaky crime—something that wasn't done
in her set. First shot, she believed you killed Hood.
Anybody in like case would have believed it. Then
she gets the true story. No matter. To her jingled
mind, you killed her uncle. Vengeance. She would
hale you into court by her lonesome. Then her
brain would turn right side up and life would go on
again. Now I believe that's just what made her run
away—her brain has turned right side up. She won't
give you away now. So look alive and get together
what you need. There's a piano you can thump
over in my joint. From now on I'm running this
show. All I want up there is a week. Will you obey
me?"
"All right, Gerry."
"Then I'll scout up a taxi. And what's more,
I'm going to use five or six taxis. And it will be a
whale of a flatfoot who'll be able to pick up my
trail."
Gerry rushed from the house.
Willard remained before the chair. Things hap-
pened like this. The war had proved to him that


IMPROMPTU
III
nothing was impossible, no matter how absurd it
appeared, no matter how incredible. While he had
been racing to the highway, Marcus Hood had
gone to his death in violence. He laughed, but caught
and savagely smothered this laughter before it got
too deep. He had kissed her. Why hadn't she fought
him, beaten him in the face?
Elsie's chauffeur was not satisfied. Something
queer about this adventure. Three days and nights,
hanging around that house in Park Avenue. Finally
getting inside, and then running out as if she had
forgotten her name. Something connected with her
uncle's murder. So at nine that night he acquainted
the police with his suspicions. Later the police forced
the doors of the Park Avenue house, but found no
living thing. However, they found a photograph of
Captain John Murray Willard in uniform. One thing
led to another inevitably.
The Hood murder case broke out on the front page
again because Captain Willard's description tallied
exactly with that of the unknown who had stolen
the Blue Rajah and killed Marcus Hood. A good-
looking young millionaire. Human interest for every-
body.


XIV
Westward of the Hood camp there were four par-
allel dirt roads, wending north of the state highway.
Three of these roads Owen had investigated with
microscopic carefulness. The result was zero. He
had gone miles up each road but had found no evi-
dence of a car having turned right-about, or evi-
dence of a hiding place in the forest, or evidence of
broken road shoulders. Berks had not got lost up
any of these three roads. There remained the fourth,
and upon what he found in this road hung the life
of his friend.
Willard had not killed Hood. But somebody had,
and nothing pointed to this somebody. He had left
a path as invisible as a bird's in the air, and yet the
path was there. A mad gesture on Willard's part;
the peculiar and singular braggadocio of a brave man.
Smoldering in his heart all these years was the treach-
ery of the man his father had loved. To pay back
Hood in his own coin. With this result! It made a
man's brain wag a bit.
But he had got Chick out of that house in time.
He had been a fox there. So long as the name of the
Hood-case fugitive remained unknown, chances of
112


IMPROMPTU
"3
discovery had been negligible. Now Chick's photo-
graph was in the newspapers with his dramatic ad-
ventures under it. Seemed strange that the news-
papers couldn't read the truth in that biography.
Soldier, explorer, musician—more appetizing for the
gum chewers. And his pal, Gerry Owen, must dig
up a miracle to save him.
Hang the girl! She had upset the apple cart. But
who had told her the truth about the Rajah? The
old butler; no question about that. But twist it
about as he would, Owen could find in the warning
only good faith. In some mysterious manner the
butler had fallen upon the truth and had tried to
foursquare his conscience by warning Chick.
Owen's conviction that Berks had lied about get-
ting lost went into the category of hunches—at
least, so far. If the fourth road revealed nothing
it would be a case of flight to foreign lands—Ish-
mael till the crack of doom.
As a base for his operations Owen had selected
the hotel in the village twelve miles west. And this
evening he got back to it at suppertime. In the din-
ing room he found two state troopers—good-looking,
hard-bitten chaps, one with chevrons.
"Good evening," he said as he drew out a chair.
He was hungry, and his mind was busy.
"Good evening," responded one of the troopers.
The one with the chevrons stared at Owen pe-
culiarly. "Well, I'll be tinker dammed!" he said.
"I beg pardon!"


114 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"I say, is your name Owen or Owens?"
"Why, Owen!" Who was fair startled out of his
boots. "You seem to know me, but I admit I don't
recall you."
"We didn't meet socially. I may forget to get
up in the morning or to go to bed at night, but I
never forget a face."
"Neither do I," said Owen, sitting down. "I
swear I never saw yours before."
"George," said the sergeant, turning to his com-
panion, "remember the yarn I spun to you the other
night? Well, this is the man. Twenty-odd thousand
miles around the world, three or four billion people
in it, and this man Owen has to drop into supper to-
night! Get that?"
"I pass," said Owen, nervous and distressed.
"What are you doing up here?"
"Motoring about. Vacation. Maybe I'm going fish-
ing. But do you think it's fair to quiz me till you've
told me where we've met?"
The sergeant laughed. It was good-humored laugh-
ter. "Well, this is the bedtime hour on the radio.
So here goes: Once there was a church. Its steeple
was gone, the roof; the doors were still there and,
funny thing, still locked. Someone was tapping our
wires. We decided to stop it. I was detailed on that
job. You and I stalked each other around that ruined
church for an hour. I thought a mite quicker than
you did. I doubled suddenly, and as you poked your


IMPROMPTU
"5
head around the corner, I let you have it on the chin.
Couldn't make any noise, you know. I knocked you
cuckoo. I turned the torch on your mug. That's
why I remember you and you don't recall me. To
me you were a Heinie in a Yank's dress suit. So I
took your gun, hoisted you on my shoulders, and
got you back to the lines, announcing that I'd
taken the wire-tapper alive. A week later I learned
I'd knocked out one of the aces of the Intelligence,
and that you had gone to the church to be captured.
For what purpose I don't know. But I was almost
laughed out of the army. They say that redtops don't
forget punches. There's a nice little plot o' grass out
in front"
"No!" Owen laughed and thrust his hand across
the table. "You're right, though. The world is
small. But I never knew who turned that trick."
"If we were in France," said the sergeant, "I'd
stand treat. Wade into your chow and we'll talk
afterward."
"The world's pretty dull now."
"Oh, I can't say as it is," replied the sergeant.
"There's lots o' fun and excitement up here. Are
you looking for trouble? If you were a trooper I
could hand you a platterful twice a week. Bootleggers
and murder and all that."
For a while speech ceased and food began to
vanish.
"Where's this bootlegger's alley?" asked Owen.


Il6 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Around Malone. There's half a dozen alleys. Out
of five bootleggers, we catch two, generally amateurs.
Once in a while we chance on a real load of hooch,
and then there's some pistol-shootin'. Gee, when
you think of all the bullets that's been popped in
ten years and nobody nicked! If you want any fish-
ing, I know some good streams that aren't posted."
"Thanks. On some job to-night?"
"You might call it a job. Ever have a guilty
conscience?"
Surprised by the question, Owen did not answer at
once. "Probably I have had, but just now I can't
recall the time."
"Well, sometimes a crime is committed. It's so
darn cut and dried that you're prone to sit back
with your thumbs in your vest. The whole thing is
as plain as the nose on your face—motive and every-
thing. So you let nature take its course. A little
while ago a millionaire was murdered near here."
Owen reached for the sugar and dropped two
lumps into his coffee.
"We did not know who the killer was for a while.
But a couple of days ago the whole business came
out in the papers. I mean, who he was and all about
him. Aviator, traveler, musician, fine family, money
galore. I took my thumbs out o' my vest."
"Meaning?"
"Not so cut and dried as it looked. Hunch. You've
read about it?"
"Couldn't escape it. But where does the guilty


IMPROMPTU 117
*'
conscience come in?" asked Owen calmly—calm
outwardly. To maneuver this shrewd fellow into
that fourth road!
"Suppose," began the sergeant—"suppose I just
looked at the front door of the crime, seeing every-
thing cut and dried. Suppose I'd looked at it from
all four sides and found a hole in the wall. That's
what I mean. This young fellow came up to rob Hood
of a diamond. Something funny about that, when
you learn that the young fellow is rich. He had an
imitation stone which he palmed for the real one.
And nobody would be the wiser till morning. Why
should he go downstairs and kill Hood with the
fire poker?"
"Have you found anything pointing the other
way?" Owen wondered if his voice was steady, nat-
ural.
"No. This guilty-conscience stuff came to me too
darned late. Maybe it's because I didn't take any
particular shine to this bozo Berks. You know how
it is. A hunch that kind o' sticks. You've followed
the story?"
"Yes." Owen ran his tongue across his lips.
"Have you given the case any thought, Owen?"
"Well, it seems to me that you fell down on the
check-up. You took Berks' word for it that he'd got
lost for a few hours."
"Do you hear that, George, old-timer? Well,
Owen, that's just where the guilty-conscience stuff
comes in."


118 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"And you're on that check-up to-night?"
"We sure are. Nothing may come of it, but I'm
one of those guys who has got to be satisfied, by
and large."
Owen breathed a prayer.


XV
"Have you looked up Berks?" Owen presently
asked."
"Of course. No mix-up with the police, but the big
jewel firms hint of shady transactions. All within
the law, though. What you'd call ethically crooked."
"I see."
"He gets lost up one of the dirt roads. A stranger
up here might have got lost just as he said he did.
But on his ticket there isn't any motive. That's the
hard nut to crack. No motive of any kind. This
getting lost accounts for a few hours. Neither Hood
nor his guests had ever laid eyes on Berks or had any
business transactions with him. So the idea of re-
venge goes ki-yootin'. He just curled up on the
lounge and slept till I woke him up for the coroner.
That a man had been killed twenty feet away didn't
trouble his dreams any. He's under surveillance, so
we can lay our hands on him easily. He was the
goat—Willard's goat."
A little while later Owen and the two troopers
had their chairs tilted back against the clapboards.
"Did you ever stop to think," said Owen, "that jus-
tice gets hold of a lot of criminals through tobacco?"
119


120 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Sure. Berks smoked cigarettes. But, as I said,
I wasn't paying much attention to him. To me he
was just Willard's goat. But Berks smoked a lot."
"What kind of a place is this Hood camp?"—
casually.
"All the comforts of home in a clearing. They've
tried to make a lawn of this clearing. But the grass is
dry and rooty, there being no real topsoil. Muck
flower beds all around the house. But we found
no footprints in any of these. But there's a girl
over there that'd burn your eyes out. Eh, George?"
"Uh-huh."
"How about the servants?"
"The butler kind o' got me. But he hadn't any
motive. Got anything to offer?"
"Did you examine this clearing?"
"No. Because we were all so sure of the other fel-
low."
"Let us suppose Berks had a motive. He would
know well enough what Willard's game was. Let's
say that it was his motive to make the camp and
waylay Willard and frisk him of the diamond."
"Not bad. But to get into the house through the
opened French window he'd have stuck one of his
feet into the muck flower bed."
"He might have seen who killed Hood."
"Holy Moses! Man, you've said something. If
he had frisked Willard of that diamond, he'd
have No, no; we're getting up a blind alley."
. Owen's heart sank. "All right. Let's get back into


122 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
cigarette butts, Laurens brand, in good condition,
for all that the coals had been pressed out by heel.
Near by they also discovered the old logging trail
through which the trees from Hood's camp had
been hauled when the making of the clearing had
been in progress. From the road to the Hood camp
was not more than two miles.
"Owen, I'm much obliged to you," said the ser-
geant. "If I hadn't had a guilty conscience, and if
you hadn't turned up, that chap Willard wouldn't
have had a ghost of a show. Now there's some doubt.
Berks had some kind of motive. Cigarettes. What
do you know about that, George? I guess you and
I are only a couple of bum road cops. Want to go
with us to the Hood camp to-morrow?"
"I'm going fishing," Owen declared.
"Well, let's shoot the car back to the ham and
eggs."
When the troopers arrived at the Hood camp the
next afternoon they found that the purpose of their
visit had been anticipated. Elsie greeted them
eagerly.
"I've found something," she said, "that puzzles
me. I went over this morning to that lilac bush to
trim off the dead flowers, and discovered these on
the ground behind the bush."
She exhibited a small cigarette lighter and several
cigarette butts. The lighter was initialed R. B.


IMPROMPTU
123
The sergeant joyfully clapped his comrade on the
back. "Well, George, that's that!"
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"That the real Berks did some lying about his
time-table that night. He didn't go hunting for that
lighter, George, while we were around. And when he
saw that the other fellow's jig was up, he didn't take
the trouble to come back."
"Do you think he did it?"
"Well, there's a chance now for an argument.
Berks was hanging outside here half the evening.
Either he did it or saw it done. And if it hadn't been
for a chap we met in the village hotel last night, we
wouldn't have had this fifty-fifty basis."
"What was this man like?" Elsie asked, feeling
that her knees were going to buckle under her.
"We had a queer run-in during the war and I
recognized him when he came into the dining room.
Red-headed and freckled. . . . What's the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing! I was beginning to get used
to it, and now it all comes back again!"


IMPROMPTU
125
and tanned faces, they stood outside the picture.
The New York detectives had confessed that they
had been unable to get anything out of Berks. He
had laughed at them and informed them that he
would tell his story his own way when he stood be-
fore the coroner or the deputy sheriff. He had not
been permitted to have a lawyer, for this was an ex-
amination and not a trial.
He sat at a deal table, indolently; the deputy
sherifFs clerk, who was also the stenographer, sat at
Berks's elbow. The gem runner seemed quite oblivi-
ous of his surroundings and of the semicircle of
menacing eyes. For even in Elsie's eyes were un-
uttered threats.
The deputy sherifF cleared his throat. "Berks,
you've been found guilty of perjury in your state-
ments at the coroner's inquest. You were either in-
side or outside the house when Hood was killed.
Where were you?"
"I was outside."
"You- saw this fellow Willard, then, commit the
murder?"
"First, just where do I stand here?" Berks asked
thoughtfully.
"You are under arrest for perjury and we are in-
quiring into the facts before we present your case
to the grand jury. You lied, and we want to know
why."
"I see. Where are all the other men who were at
Hood's that night?"


126 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"We aren't answering your questions; you are
answering ours. Why did you lie at the coroner's
inquest?"
"I was in a confused state of mind."
"So confused that you could go to sleep coolly in
the room where the body lay?"
"I was tired. I had gone through a good deal that
day. I want you to let me tell the story my own way.
If you keep shooting questions at me I'll forget some
detail."
Cool beggar, thought Owen. The deputy was going
to find Berks something like a porcupine. But what
kind of a story was it going to be?
Elsie studied from memory the faces of Van Cleve,
Morgan, Descamps, and MacFarlane. One could not
corroborate the statement of the other; what each
had been doing from the time they had entered their
rooms to the moment of her alarming cry were state-
ments which stood unsubstantiated. And yet she
knew instinctively that none of them was guilty.
Berks—the shady character of the man, the wolf
which frequently shot from his bleak eyes. The man
balanced on the wall, as it were. She heard the
deputy's voice bellowing:
"You saw what happened inside the house! Tell
it your own way, but watch your step! A man's life—
perhaps your own—hangs upon the truth of this
story you have to tell!" The deputy scowled.
"Well, the lives of two men hang upon what I have
to say."


IMPROMPTU
This bombshell held them all in the grip of such
hypnosis that none observed that the door had been
quietly opened and that upon the threshold stood a
young man soberly but excellently dressed in summer
gray, a bit of scarlet ribbon in his buttonhole.
"Which of you is the sheriff?" the newcomer asked
quietly.
Double hypnosis.
Owen gasped but otherwise did not move. Elsie,
however, covered her mouth with her palm. Here to
give himself up! She wanted to cry out: "Fly!"
The expression on Berks's face went from astonish-
ment to sardonic joyfulness. Company. The fool was
giving himself up. Play with Roger Berks, would he?
"I'm the deputy sheriff. And who are you?"
"My name is Willard. I am under indictment for
murder. Where do you want me to sit?"
"Get him!" yelled the deputy.
Two troopers, their guns out, started for Willard.
"Hold on!" cried Berks, rising. "I need this man's
corroboration. He's a big part of my story. There are
five policemen in this room. He won't get away.
Bring him over here next to me."
The effrontery was too much for the deputy,
but the coroner leaned toward him and whispered
something.
"All right," said the latter. "But one of you boys
guard the door."
A trooper thereupon marched over to the door and
stood with his back to it, grimly ready.


128 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Welcome to our city!" said Berks ironically as
Willard sat down beside him.
"You are John Murray Willard?" asked the
deputy.
"That is my name."
"You have this diamond known as the Blue
Rajah?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"In my home in New York."
"Where it rightfully belongs." All eyes immedi-
ately switched to Elsie.
"What do you mean, miss?" asked the coroner
sharply.
"That the diamond lawfully belongs to Mr.
Willard."
"It wasn't your uncle's?"—bewilderedly.
"No. In a moment of madness my uncle took what
did not belong to him. Mr. Willard sought to recover
it by a most unfortunate method."
"Do you believe he killed your uncle?"
"No."
Berks's bewilderment was quite equal to the
coroner's. The diamond belonged to Willard?
"Gee, what a case!" whispered the sergeant to
Owen, who nodded mechanically.
"Miss Hetherstone," said the coroner, "you told
a different story at the inquest."
"I did not know the truth then."
"How did you find out the truth?"


IMPROMPTU
129
"I am not prepared to answer that question, but
will do so when I am properly put under oath. It
seems to me that the main business is to hear Mr.
Berks' story."
The deputy sheriff rumpled his hair. "Go on,
Berks," he managed to say without a crack in his
voice. All this was just a little too big and too sud-
den.
"All right, Mr. Sheriff. No man ever made a fool
of Roger Berks and got away with it, skin-free. This
chap here made a prime fool of me, and I had to pay
him out. Besides, as I proceed you'll see that I had
myself to look out for. But in trying to pay him back
I suddenly found myself pretty far out on a dead
limb."
"Just a moment," interrupted the deputy. He
turned to Willard. "You're the man who kidnaped
Berks and took his papers?"
"I am the man. Everything Mr. Berks told about
that at the inquest was perfectly true." Willard
looked tired.
"That's all I want to know. . . . Go on, Berks."
"After I was knocked down and bound by Willard
and his companion, I tumbled right away to what
was on foot. Willard, or Bassett, as he called himself,
was going to lift the Rajah. The fight was so unex-
pected that I did not get a good look at the other
fellow. The curtains were down."
The deputy spoke to Willard. "Where is your ac-
complice?"


I30 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Here he is," announced Owen quietly, standing
up. He smiled down at the astounded sergeant.
"Gerry!"—from the startled Willard.
Owen took his chair over to his friend and planted
it beside him. He sat down.
Elsie's eyes grew blurred. She knew that eventually
this was going to happen. Buddies. Both fearless and
nonchalant; only one was not so masterful as the
other. And would the other ever forgive her? What
had she not said to him!
The deputy, quite dizzy by now, appealed to the
sergeant of the troopers, "What'll I do with him?"
"Hold him for trial. If," the sergeant added under
his breath, "there ever is a trial!"
"Get Berks' story," whispered the coroner fiercely.
He and the deputy sheriff indulged in some
whispering.
"Why did you poke your fool head into this?"
asked Owen miserably of Willard.
"Handcuffs. Didn't like the idea of a big parade
from New York up. How far is it to the jail?"
"Right under us, Chick—right under us."
Berks eyed them venomously. "Willard, if we
get out of this, I'll hang your hide on the door.
Don't forget."
"No use telling you I'm sorry, Berks?"
"No use."
"No talking there!" warned the sergeant.
"Go on with your story, Berks."
"Well, I was bound and gagged in a chair. So when


IMPROMPTU
131
I got loose finally, I wasn't thinking pretty. To tele-
phone Hood was not my idea of first-rate reprisal.
Better, thought I, to walk in on Willard when he be-
lieved he had the game all bundled up under his arm,"
Elsie shivered, though the room was summer
warm.
"By the time I landed in Syracuse," continued
Berks, "another idea popped into my head. I'd let
Willard pull his stuff, and then hijack him on his
get-away. What to do with the stone after I got it I
hadn't figured out. I was mad—just plain berserker
mad."
The sergeant nodded. He could understand that.
He'd have been plumb mad, too, to be made a goat
of like that. But he shot an admiring glance at the
imperturbable Owen, who had adroitly if indirectly
arranged this scene.
"Plain berserker," repeated Berks. "Put yourself
in my place, Mr. Sheriff."
"You could have got the troopers and had Willard
arrested for assault and battery and kidnaping,"
snapped the deputy sheriff; "and Hood would be
alive to-day."
"But I want you to know that I wasn't quite hep
to what I was doing. Brain storm. When a man is
prompted by fury to do things, he's generally sorry
after it's over."
For the first time Elsie's glance encountered
Willard's. Perhaps the same thought had flashed into
their heads. Prompted by fury.


IMPROMPTU
133
Elsie was on her feet. "Who killed my uncle, since
Mr. Willard could not have done it?"
"Nobody killed him," said Berks gently.
Stunned, all gazed at Berks. It was his hour, and
he smiled thinly.
"What!" simultaneously barked the deputy sheriff
and the coroner.
"Just what I say. Nobody killed him. He died a
natural death. There wasn't any murder, but neither
I nor Willard had a ghost of a chance of proving it."
Then Berks shook a finger at the dumfounded
coroner. "Small-town booster. Name in the papers
and all that. Election in the fall. You fell down on
your job. You emphasized the poker and the cracked
skull and muted the condition of Hood's heart."
"The evidence pointed to murder and robbery!"
"It certainly did! Well," said the stormy Berks,
"as Hood opened the safe—for then I knew it to be
Hood—he suddenly clutched at his chest and stag-
gered toward the mantelpiece, which he fumbled.
Then he pitched headlong into the fire rack. He was
dead probably before he struck. And that's God's
truth!"
"You skunk!" cried the deputy sheriff. "And you
let another man be hounded for murder—for a crime
you say wasn't committed!"
"Willard," said Berks, "you understand, don't
you?"
"Yes. When we are angry we do things we're sorry
for after."


134 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Berks turned upon the deputy. "You country
bumpkin, what would have happened to me if I'd
rushed into the house? I'd be right where Willard
is now. I saw the whole mess clearly. One or the other
or both of us would be accused of murder. The cir-
cumstantial evidence was a mile high. Look at the
newspapers. Not an item anywhere giving Willard
the benefit of a doubt. If I opened my mouth before
the right time, it would be my funeral. And how about
the prosecuting attorney linking us together? He'd
have missed a shot like that, wouldn't he?"
"The right time—what do you mean by that?"
asked the coroner.
"Till every mother's son would have believed
Willard had done the job. Till there wasn't a loop-
hole left. On the first day of the trial, Willard, I'd
have cut in with the truth. You believe that?"
"I begin to see. Did you have gloves?"
"Yes."
"So did I. A perfect case against either of us, with
all those gems in the safe."
Berks faced the coroner. "I acted as I have to save
both our lives. . .. Coroner, wasn't Hood's heart in a
bad condition?"
"Yes"—reluctantly. "But there isn't a coroner in
the world who wouldn't have accepted the evidence
which appeared to the eye.... Sergeant, am I right?"
"Yes, sir. It was always murder till just now. But
I wasn't quite sure who did it."


XVII
There was a tremendous powwow in the news-
papers. Reporters and cameramen flocked to the
obscure village. Three times the Hood case had
broken into the front page, as craters break out on the
slopes of volcanoes—the final eruption being the
state's decision that it had no case against Willard,
that there had been no murder, that Hood had died
from what is known as a wandering blood clot, that
he had been dead two or three seconds before his
skull had struck the poker. The case collapsed with
the suddenness of a parachute.
The state also decided to ignore Berks's perjury
on the premise that a man had a right, in such pecul-
iar circumstances, to make what defense he could.
Even the most blase reporters got a kick out of the
case, there were so many odd angles. Back files re-
vealed no comparison. There were serious editorials,
too, on the uncertainty of circumstantial evidence. In
this case it had been easy to% cry murder. No one
censured the coroner. It was agreed that his deduc-
tions had been humanly logical. Ten thousand coro-
ners would have made the same mistake.
136


IMPROMPTU
137
The case was featured two or three Sundays. Then
city editors leaned back and waited for the after-
math—Berks versus Willard, assault and battery
and kidnaping—waited in vain.
Willard, Owen, and Berks left the jail together.
It was raining.
"Buzz saws are tricky things to play with. I
haven't forgiven you, Willard," said Berks. "I accept
your check without thanks. I take fifteen thousand
when I could have taken a hundred. But to me there's
been eighty-five thousand dollars' worth of rope
around your neck. You'll always owe me something.
Good-bye and the worst of luck I"
"Gerry," said Willard as he stared at Berks's
diminishing back, "do you know, I rather like that
beggar."
"Cured?" asked Owen dryly.
"If you mean cured of being a fool, I don't know,
Gerry. See you at the hotel later."
Owen laughed.
Suddenly Willard became lost in the crowd.
Elsie remained hidden till the reporters and
cameramen disappeared. When she started for camp
it was raining pitchforks, as they say in the North
Woods district. No thunder and lightning; just rain,
cool and sweet, but thick and monotonous. It would
rain all day, for there was no break in the drab bowl
above. Mist, like steam, rose from the parched earth.
One could see only a little way into the forest.


I38 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
The deputy sherifTs umbrella covered her to the
car.
"We all make mistakes, miss," he said.
t Elsie nodded and got into the car. To get back to
the camp, to wander through all the rooms, no longer
filled with sinister shadows. She peered through the
rain-lashed windows. When she saw the trout run,
boiling and swirling at flood, her fingers sank into her
palms.
"Faster, faster!" she called to the chauffeur, who
had betrayed Willard's identity to the police.
"All right, miss, but it's mighty slippery."
When at length the car rolled under the porte-
cochere and Henry came down to open the door for
her, she brushed him aside and ran into the middle
of the clearing, and stood as straight as a pine, her
arms tight against her sides, her hands shut, her face
tilted to the rain, which presently saturated her.
There was ecstasy in this tattoo upon her body.
All at once she sensed a presence near by. She
turned. Willard, hatless, stood beside her. She had
known from the beginning of things that this moment
must arrive, from the hour he had entranced her by
the magic of his fingers. She had fought other men
with her wit and invisible stratagems, but there was
no will in her to fight this man.
She loved him! All the torture, all the agony, the
incredible madness, because she had known all along
that she loved him! And had begun to a few minutes
after he had started to play. To have read of such a


IMPROMPTU
139
situation, to have seen it enacted upon the stage,
would have aroused in her only cynical amusement.
In her world men and women did not fall in love at
first sight. Too canny to be fooled by moonshine and
poetry and lutes. He had kissed her like a madman,
and she had not struck him! Oh, she would not lie to
herself. She had believed him guilty; believed him
capable of everything base and despicable, but neither
could she shoot him nor surrender him to the police.
The human eye that often saw not what the eye of
instinct always saw—the truth!
"An eye for an eye is Biblical but unprofitable,"
he said. "All I intended was to pay back your uncle
in his own coin. I did not know that he loved anybody
or that anybody loved him. That would have made
the adventure impossible. I'm sorry."
"All my life I have known only the kind and loving
side of him. Obsessions."
"I have always been a creature of impulse."
"And see how far the ripples of this one have gone!
I had my obsession, too," she admitted. "I entered
your house that day with the single murderous
thought in the whole mad business."
"Will you forgive me?"
Instinctively—and she was determined to fet in-
stinct guide her—she knew to what he was referring
—that mad embrace. "For what?" she asked.
"Don't you remember?"—uneasily.
"Remember what?"—smoothing her hair from
her forehead where the rain had driven it.


I4O THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"That unforgivable act in my own house, believing
I should never see you again."
"What act?"
"I—I kissed you!" What a sophomoric sound it
had!
"Did you?"
He understood. She had wiped the whole affair off
the slate. Quite right, too. But how lovely she was,
her eyes sparkling like sapphires and her tanned
cheeks shining like beaten gold! Well, presently he
would go.
"It will rain like this," she observed, "all day."
She turned her face to the rain again. "How clean
everything has suddenly become! Naturally—he
died naturally. His heart stopped. We human beings
—we think we know so much!... Yesterday I found
a letter addressed to me. That operation in Paris—
he thought perhaps he wouldn't pull through. For
two years, immediately after the war, he had agents
hunting all over the world for you. But you were in
mid-Africa or the Himalayas. You see, he dared not
write. He never wished me to know. He couldn't
find you; then the old obsession returned. All men
become mad, at some time or other, upon some one
subject."
"Yes."
"And what is your madness?"
Suddenly the breath was shaken out of her.
Another kind of rain fell upon her face.
"Good-bye!" he said, flinging her roughly aside.


IMPROMPTU
I4I
But she ran at him and took hold of his sleeve.
"It seems to me," she said breathlessly, "that you
are always kissing me good-bye forever. Won't you
stay to luncheon? After all, you came here because
you love me or because you are hungry, or both."
"Hungry!"—seizing her again.
"Luncheon is served."
Astounded, Elsie and Willard turned, to behold
Henry, the butler. The smile on his saturnine face
was hidden by the shadow of an enormous cotton
umbrella.





PART II
PRESTO!





I
The shade did not quite reach the window sill; so
the man outside could see into the room easily and
clearly. The room was in the rear of the old Park
Avenue house which three generations of Willards
had occupied and sometimes lived in. Sometimes
lived in because the second and third generations—
son and grandson—had been wanderers.
There was a backyard—rather a sorry thing, as
most New York backyards are. There was so little
sunshine that even the grass had hard work to sur-
vive. Along the sides there was evidence that some-
one had attempted to start a garden and had been
defeated. Besides, there would be no privacy in such
a backyard, there being so many staring windows in
the business skyscraper on the adjacent street.
The man outside arranged his body as comfortably
as he could, for he knew that this would be a long
vigil, probably as fruitless as the vigils of previous
nights. It was cold and starless. The watcher knew
that this job must come to an end before the first real
fall of snow. No tracks to be left behind; and the order
had gone forth that there was to be no rough work
145


PRESTO!
collector would have pulled his hair over the mutila-
tion of the exquisite piece. But the young man—
Willard was thirty-two—seated at the desk was in
no wise to blame for the sacrilege, nor his father, who
had purchased the chest in its present condition years
ago in Switzerland.
Pipe smoke drifted hither and yon, buffeted by a
draught of air imperceptible to Willard, who was
playing with one of the strangest games in the world.
Upon the desk lay a square of white velvet; and upon
this lay a dozen of nature's riddles. For, after all,
precious stones are riddles which nature has not yet
fully explained to science. (If you want the truth,
nature has never fully explained anything to science!)
She has permitted science to label these stones, but
she has never given any reason for their existence.
Perhaps her reason is that she believes humanity
hasn't enough ordinary trouble and threw in, for
extra fermentation, these colored transparent and
translucent objects. A king's ransom lay upon that
square of white velvet. Emeralds, pigeon-blood
rubies, cornflower sapphires, a single glorious dia-
mond, and a pink pearl so lovely and perfect that the
first woman who saw it must have gone mad.
A woman—a strange woman who possessed a mil-
lion in gems—entering this room and gazing at the
collection, at the man entranced by it, would have
frowned perplexedly. A man, playing with precious
stones! That would be completely out of her orbit
of deduction! For women may possess any quality


I48 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
and quantity of gems without knowing anything
about them except that they glittered and shone and
that all women coveted them.
But there were men in Amsterdam, London, Paris,
and New York who would have known instantly
what these stones represented—a priceless collection:
gems which rarely came into the market. Curios.
Indeed, only death or financial disaster brought this
quality of gem within reach of other collectors. There
was a queer, grim warfare going on—millionaire
against millionaire—for the possession of such stones
as lay upon that square of white velvet.
Humanity is well leavened with men who turn a
hobby into an obsession; and all obsessions are but
degrees of madness. There is no obsession quite like
that of collectors, and there is none more desperate
than the obsession of a gem collector. He will some-
times shut his eyes to theft and murder. What's that
to him? A man offers him a gem and he pays the
price. Perhaps on the morrow he will endow a uni-
versity with a million for biological research. Con-
science is never entirely dead in any of us.
Nature, who is an inexorable and malevolent dame,
gathers a great deal of sport out of her creations.
Wonderful nature! Poetical imagery! The chemist,
the biologist, and the physician, however, they will
tell you she is only interesting and terrible. She
creates a colored crystal: and men will thieve and
kill, and women end in the gutter.


PRESTO!
this, despite the protests of his wife, that he stub-
bornly refused to take the gems down to the bank
vaults? Perhaps. What was his he would defend:
which was the Willard legend. Besides, it would have
been an admission of cowardice. But the bravest are
equally the most cautious; and Willard had forgotten
this homely military truth.
It is true that the devil finds much for idle hands
to do; and Willard was both idle and rich.
Perhaps Willard's main trouble was that he was
not creative; he was interpretative. Could he have
created he would have found the outlet for his vital
energies. A truly great pianist, the urge to composi-
tion was lacking in him. He dreamed melodies, but
could not hold them: no more than he could write
the thrilling romances he built around the gems. He
could improvise for hours, but could not recall these
improvisations. Perhaps, after all, he did not lack
the ability to create; he lacked incentives. A dusty
garret would have forced this flower. Must does all
the great things.
f The air, the mountain peak, the jungle—war: a
man who had been born lonely, with the spirit of the
eagle caged in conventional wool and linen. What to
do with a man like this? His wife often wondered.
He loved her, she knew, beyond all other mortals;
but always in her heart was the abiding fear: when
love became the accustomed thing, he might break
the chain and fly away. There were no manufactories
to interest him; the bulk of his fortune lay in New


152 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
York real estate, and old reliable agents handled this
so competently that it would have been folly to
meddle. She could read his thoughts when he was
thinking of Tibet, the far places: he looked through
crowds and walls—and her. A man who hadn't found
himself, who saw the great fields of adventure dwin-
dle to the size of his palm, figuratively. Other people's
adventures, those crystals he dandled in his palm,
not his own. How to capture truly this soul and hold
it without chains? She sighed, for she had been stand-
ing in the empurpled doorway at his left for a long
time. She never interrupted him; she always let him
tire of the game before she spoke.
How she hated them, thoss glittering baubles!
Fear. She could not account for it, but it was abiding.
Not for herself—no, no—but for him. A fear which
had grown into an obsession. She was conscious of
possessing a savage pride and admitted to herself that
jealousy tinctured this fear. Wanting music some-
times, she would come to this door hopefully, only
to find him deeply immersed in his gem dreams. Her
stormy pride often threatened to burst forth verbally;
but her innate dignity abhorred scenes; and if she
spoke as she felt there would be a scene. And yet he
loved her better than other living thing on earth—
any living thing. Pebbles, dead, inanimate . . .
She had had great ambitions for him: to triumph
on all the famous concert stages, in recitals and with
symphonies. To show them that her man could stand
up beside the great in his particular field. But crowds


PRESTO!
153
bored him to extinction. They came to recitals and
symphonies to have something to chatter about on
contract-bridge afternoons—not for the sake of mu-
sic. He would play to her friends and his, at all times,
but he would not play in public for any purpose. He
was sorry; but that decision was final.
And she knew that it was inevitable that soon he
would begin the search for other gems to add to this
collection.
Love. Well, that would go on forever; but in the
pleasant amenities of daily contact there appeared a
rift.
The man outside the window could see the dim
outline of her. He had discovered her there more than
once. But always, when she broke the silence, Cap-
tain Willard would put the gems into the case and
turn out the light. Even his wife did not know where
he hid his toys! The watcher crumpled a cigarette
in his pocket and sniffed his finger tips. Ordinarily
he could go half a day without tobacco, if he had to,
but here the temptation to break orders was almost
insupportable.


II
Willard was in full evening dress; and in the lapel
of his coat was the ribbon of the Order of Leopold.
He had fought and flown in Flanders, having a pref-
erence for all underdogs. He wore the order, however,
only to please his wife. He had been this night to the
opera with Elsie; and from time to time he hummed
bars from The Love of Three Kings. Stage jewels and
stage love! He chuckled; struck a match and set his
pipe going afresh.
He rolled about, with the tip of a finger, an emerald
in matrix, the crystal, flawless and perfect in color,
jutting out at an angle of forty-five degrees. A
fifteenth-century gem, alleged to have come out of
the lost Somondoco mines. His father had found it in
a pawnshop in Peru. Pizarro, and all that, perhaps:
or it was really an ancient emerald and nothing more.
But it was a great stone to muse over. To Willard
it was always burgeoning with the secrets of a thou-
sand crimes and had come to a peaceful end in a
pawnbroker's den.
Next, he played with a great pigeon-blood ruby.
Queer; whichever way he turned the stone it never
iS4 /


PRESTO!
155
deepened in color at the center. A miracle in refrac-
tion. Another of nature's riddles. Atop the book-
shelves stood a small gilded Tibetan Buddha. Out
of this Buddha had come the ruby, wrapped in a
scroll of prayers. His father's particular find at Prome
in Burma. The old boy had dug out the prayer scrolls
of a thousand metal Buddhas, always with the hope
of finding something like this.
A great game, a great game. And there you were;
that was the thing that got you by the throat. You
hunted the lion and killed him, and that was the end
of it. You came out of a dogfight in the air with your
enemy whirling down in flames, and that was the end
of it. But to the tale of these gems there was no end,
and never would be till humanity ceased to speckle
the earth. For every gem on that bit of velvet had a
to-morrow.
And the outraged little Buddha on the bookshelves
knew it: the man outside the window: the woman in
the doorway.
Willard reached for the single diamond, the size
and shape of a large pecan nut, strangely blue, with
a thousand rainbows imprisoned in its flawless trans-
parency. The Blue Rajah. From the ancient sands
of India: durbars and strange gods and mutinies.
The gem of all these gems. Willard did not have to
build a romance here; fie had lived one. Here was a
gem to the history of which he himself had added
somewhat. The Marcus Hood camp in the north
woods; Hood and his niece Elsie Hetherstone, and


presto!
157
Berks, escaping from New York, had been witness to
the manner of Hood's death through a window, but
had not dared give evidence till the whole land had
damned an innocent man as guilty. Yes; he owed
something to Berks. His life. A good deal of sweat on
that adventure. Vengeance, just or unjust, was a
prickly thing to handle.
Berks had not pretended he had forgiven; he had
taken what would have been ten per cent, commission
on the sale of the Rajah, without thanks and without
threats, but with an eye and a chin which were im-
placable. Something of a sportsman. He could have
gone to court and sued for thousands, for kidnaping,
imposture, and violence. He had gone his way, con-
temptuously. Yes; Willard often thought of Roger
Berks.
But certainly there would be a to-morrow for the
Rajah. A stone like that did not remain permanently
in one man's possession. Keen Elsie! Vaguely sensing
some impending bolt, Elsie wanted him to sell the
diamond. A bit of a rift because he wouldn't. No.
What if the publicity of that adventure had in-
formed the underworld that he possessed such a gem?
Sinister? What of it? Wasn't he man enough to de-
fend his own? Wasn't he as clever as any crook?
Yes; a bit of a rift, but so it must stand. If only she
could be made to understand the game! To go hunt-
ing for gems together—what sport! But she would
have none of it. Her fear was an obsession. And be-
cause of this he dared not let her know where the


I58 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
wall safe was, and had warned her of the shock-volt.
She was the most beautiful, the most alluring, the
most valiant woman he had ever known; but she was
granite when it came to her dislike for trinkets. She
could not be got to wear jewelry; even her wedding
ring was a simple band of gold. If she had been a
timid woman, he might have understood her better;
but she feared no living thing. She was like a young
woman who had been listening to an old-wives' tale.
If he could but impart to her the fascination of fol-
lowing each gem along its twisted path to the present
hour: madmen, lovely women, palaces and hovels,
strange lands and strange seas. But always she saw
only the cruel and bloody hands that had, at some
time or other, touched these gems—and her uncle's
treachery. He regretted now that he had permitted
her to sell her uncle's collection, particularly the
Mogul emeralds.
By George! Willard stiffened in his chair. Suddenly
he saw adventure of a sort hard by. Why not? In-
stantly was revealed to him what had been going on
in the back of his head for days: to hunt down that
collection and buy it back. Here was a notion with
an active thrill in it. And there was one man who
could help him—Roger Berks!
Willard replaced the gems in the red Morocco case
and locked it. The man outside became intensely
alert. Willard folded the square of velvet and put it
away in a drawer.
"Man-child, do you know what time it is?"
*


PRESTO! 159
Shocked, Willard jumped to his feet. "Elsie? What
time is it?"
"Nearly two in the morning."
"Good Lord! And how long have you been there?"
"Several years. But you were so interested I didn't
have the heart to disturb you."
"Nevertheless he was disturbed. "I'm sorry!"—
contritely. "I thought you had gone to bed."
"Those funny old stones! Supper has been on the
dining room table since twelve. I sent Henry to bed.
And you ordered the supper, remember."
4 "I forgot."
f The combined notes of irony and weariness in her
voice confused him, and he thereupon committed the
act for which the man outside had been waiting and
hoping these many nights. Willard took the jewel
case and crossed the room to a small Rembrandt
hanging above the bookshelves. (Had the man out-
side but known it, that foursquare of canvas was
nearly as priceless as the Rajah!) The painting was
swung aside. The watcher, through his opera glasses,
dimly saw Willard press two spots—two roses, to be
exact—and a door popped open. He understood the
meaning of the two pressures. They freed the outer
casing of the safe. Presently the door to this swung
back. Into the black hole went the Morocco case,
and shortly the wall became blank again, the Rem-
brandt dropped to its usual position.
Suddenly Willard caught his breath. He had never
wanted her to know, for her own sake. Hitherto he


l6o THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
had put out the light before going to the safe. Oh,
well; the damage was done.
And so it was. For the man outside the window
stepped quietly off the empty box, carried this to the
side of the kitchen porch, and then climbed over sev-
eral walls and fences till he reached the garage alley to
the street which bisected Park Avenue. He took good
care that no one in the garage saw him. Gaining the
street, he lit a cigarette, hailed a night-roving taxi,
and was driven to a hotel in lower Broadway. The
curtain had rolled up.
Elsie threw her arm across her husband's shoulder
and drew him into the dining room, pushing him into
his chair.
"Champagne and foie-gras sandwiches!" he cried.
"I made the sandwiches and brought up the wine."
I "Where was Henry?"
"I told you I sent him to bed. He looked so old and
tired. Man-child, we kind of belong to him, and we
must be careful. He is sixty-seven."
"Henry. Yes; we kind of belong to him. If he
hadn't secretly warned me that the Rajah was to be
sold. . . . How beautiful you are! Your hair always
reminds me of the ruddy dried pine needles on the
floor of the forest. 'Member how you caught me
poaching? Hooking your exhibition trout?"
"And I, hoping the black flies would smother
you!"
When he looked at her like this she knew that she


PRESTO!
161
would have forgiven him murder. She was first; she
would always be first; but in her heart she knew that
she had a sinister rival. She would really have pre-
ferred a woman; she could have defeated any woman,
annihilated her, by the strength of her mind and the
beauty of her body. But little inanimate pebbles 1...
Her heart sickened. It was like shaking her fist at
the Matterhorn. Besides, that terrible example was
always before her—her uncle's base treachery be-
cause the Blue Rajah had once driven him mad. The
gentlest and kindest man she had known—a liar and
a thief all in one mad hour. Then twenty years of
secret shame!
The man she loved no longer played the piano as
he used. Till recently, wherever he had come upon
something so beautiful that it struck him inarticulate,
he had gone to the piano for expression. Music was
in the very bone of him, and he had begun to neglect
it. This gave her thought for serious meditation.
Yesternights, when they had returned from concert
or opera, he would always go to the piano. Now he
got out his colored pebbles.
She was afraid. Not of visible things; she could,
with highest courage, cope with anything she could
see or understand. What she feared was something
stirring in the Unknown, something yet to be born.
It was printed indelibly on her mind that the posses-
sion of the Blue Rajah was an invitation to disaster.
"What has become of Gerry Owen?" she asked,
suddenly.


presto! 163
Achates he was; but he was younger because he had
been born not lonely but gregariously. He liked the
fellowship of men, a round-table with a bit of grog
on it; liked to elbow crowds and study faces; and ap-
peared restless when he was only curious and observ-
ant.
Willard had fought in the air. Owen had burrowed
underground and fought in subterranean passages.
One the ace in the air, the other the ace in the ground.
Owen's gift of languages had naturally sent him into
the Intelligence; and peace-time hadn't changed his
activities much. He still prowled o' nights.
"Gerry?" Willard set down his wineglass. "That
reminds me. I haven't laid eyes on the beggar in more
than a week. I'll call him up to-morrow and ask him
to dinner. I wish the right girl would put the barb
into him. But you can't get it out of his coco that he's
ugly to look at. And half the girls we know are crazy
about him because they can't get a line on him. All
the money he needs, too."
"Perhaps the war keyed you both a little too
high," Elsie suggested, wistfully.
"Elsie, old girl, the world isn't the same as it used
to be, and that's a fact. But men will go on loving and
fighting till the old top cracks up and blows away.
I wish it were May instead of November."
Her heart leaped. May. Together, with their rods,
whipping the wild trout runs, living in dogtents,
bathing in icy pools, and, oh, dear God, the perfume
of the saps!


164 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
The bell rang—the doorbell. The two looked at
each other surprisedly. It was a prolonged ring;—a
vigorous demand.
"Two o'clock," said Willard. "Who the devil!. . .
Well, somebody wants to see me."
"I'll go with you," Elsie declared, her heart beating
swiftly.
So together they went to the hall door. Willard
threw off the chains, unlocked the door and drew it
back boldly.
A man, who had evidently been leaning against the
door, stumbled heavily into Willard's arms.
"It's Gerry!" cried Elsie, her voice high-pitched.
"Ye-ah," said Gerry Owen, trying to grin.
Willard stared bewilderedly at his friend, diago-
nally across whose face ran a thin trickle of blood.
Gerry, in a velvet smoking jacket and a pair of slip-
pers—his head cracked!


Ill
What never ceased to amaze Elsie was her man's in-
stant acceptance of a mishap and his soldierly manner
of handling it. In these times, when he gave an order,
she obeyed it instantly, without question, knowing
the order to be the correct one.
"Run upstairs and get the guest room next mine
ready."
"Shall I call Henry?"
"No. Toddle, old girl."
She flew up the stairs but hesitated at the landing
and looked down. Gerry was already hanging over
her husband's shoulder and the limp body was being
shifted to the proper balance. Then Willard lurched
toward the stairs. By the time he reached the guest
room, Elsie was ready to help him to lay his burden
on the bed.
"On the third shelf, in the butler's pantry, behind
the old punchbowl, are three first-aid kits. Get them.
But before you come up, phone Dr. Keen."
Elsie rushed away. A terrible resolve flicked
through her head. She entered her own room first,
then ran downstairs. When at length she returned
to the guest room, Willard eyed her rather grimly.
16s


166 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Could you get Keen?"
"He'll be right over. I kind of lost my nerve for a
moment—couldn't see the numbers on the dial."
"Now, now!" protested Gerry. "Don't go fussing
about like this. I wanted a quiet place to think in;
that's why I headed in here. A slug of that old brandy
of yours will do me as much good as old Doc Keen;
though he may have to take a stitch or two."
Elsie fetched the spirits; and Gerry emitted a
shudder and a ha as she took the emptied glass from
his hand.
"Gerry, what's happened?" asked Willard, seri-
ously.
"Chick, somebody tried to kidnap me to-night—
right off my own doorsteps."
"But why?"
"I ain't never ben nowhere and I ain't never seen
nuthin'," Gerry quoted. "That's all I know about it."
A shudder struck Elsie's spine. It was queer; but
she knew. This was the beginning of something. Gerry
was the first episode.
"You mean to say "began Willard.
"That the bell rang and I went to the door. I
found a darned pretty girl crying. At the curb was a
taxi. The cabby had insulted her, and she wanted to
telephone."
"And you, of course, ran down to punch the
cabby."
"Good egg. That's it exactly. This crack on the
coco was luckily only a side swipe."


PRESTO!
167
"But your knuckles are raw!"
"So they are. I had to lay out two roughnecks.
It was all a frame-up to land me in captivity. But
the why of it, only the devil knows, Chick."
"Reprisal?"
"I don't know. If they had tried to bump me off,
well and good. I could understand that. But I don't
know why they should want to cage me. There isn't
any smell to that. My mind's clear, but what it's all
about is not. There are men who would like to bump
me off if they got the right break. Those fellows are
not in on this. To-night the bump-off would have
been easy, the get-away perfect. But they wanted to
carry me off somewhere."
* "Gerry, why will you play this dangerous game?"
asked Elsie.
"Because I get a kick out of it, Elsie. Besides,
there's nobody to care."
"We care!" she returned vehemently.
"I mean, no widow and orphans"—grinning.
"The trouble is, Elsie," Willard offered, "Gerry
doesn't know that the war is over."
"That is possible," replied Elsie, her voice sub-
dued. The war. After all these years! To neither was
it over; so long as they lived^the rags and tatters of it
would cling to them. Gerry, still the secret-service
man with his life in his hands; John, with his soul
wandering among colored pebbles and losing itself.
"You see, Elsie, it's this way," Gerry submitted:
"I get a thrill out of studying these poor moron


PRESTO!
169
quiet for two or three days, at which Gerry grinned.
"Chick, I'm no Adonis with the ladies. But what's
the procedure when a chap finds a peach of a girl
on his doorstep and crying her eyes out?"
"You might have kissed her."
"What do you know about that! But all I heard
was blub-blub . . . taxicab man . . . blub-blub . . .
insult . . . blub-blub . . . telephone."
Willard laughed. "Why didn't you escort her to
the phone? You'd have blown the whole business
sky high."
"No women in my house, Chick."
"No go, Gerry. You saw a chance for a fight and
jumped in. And now you'll go and hunt for the
girl."
"That's whatever. For that little gal will know
what all the shootin' was about."
"Where was she during the fight?"
"Ringside, by the corner lamppost. If I had had
shoes it wouldn't have been so bad," Gerry remarked
ruefully. "You can't set yourself properly in loose
slippers. Which makes me think. Get me a cap, a pair
of golf shoes, and a sweater. I can't go prowling the
street in these togs. I'm going to lie still for an hour.
If, later, you hear me stumbling around in the garret,
don't pull the burglar alarm."
Elsie bent and kissed his bandaged head, Willard
gave him a pat on the shoulder; and the two of them
left Gerry in the dark.
Owen knew the plan of the house as well as he


I70 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
knew his own, if not better. Most of his boyhood had
been spent either in the upper rooms or in the back-
yard where he and Willard had played pirates and
circuses. He would lie perfectly still for an hour, rest.
His head would ache for some time to come; but he
had managed to get along with headaches before—
from poison, gun butts, and drink, all in the line of
duty.
He was going to leave this house. The cap would
hide the bandages. The point was, no one must see
him leave. Some funny business was toward, he did
not know what; but unless he had absolute freedom
he might never find out what this whirlamagig
signified. Kidnaping. But why the devil should they
want to suppress Gerry Owen? They could have put
a bullet into him and made a perfect get-away. But
they had only intended to kidnap him. Why? A
peach of a girl, too, and a crook. Lord, Lord; the
town was filled with pretty girls who were crooks.
He had got one good look into her face, in spite of
the hanky with which she had tried to hide the upper
part. But he would know her again, out of a million.
She had been too sure of the result. And there was
that ring—a square opal, probably imitation.
Then Owen remembered something else. He had
left the front door wide open! He chuckled silently—
and then swore under his breath. The patrolman
would be likely to notice it and investigate, and there
would be a hullabaloo, which was the last thing he
wanted. Well, it was spilt milk. It had been the most


PRESTO!
171
natural thing in the world to go down to the curb
with the notion of punching the cabby's jaw.
He settled himself comfortably. There was still a
star or two that wouldn't go down the horizon. If
that cabby had been on his feet when he had struck,
Robert Owen, alias Gerry, would, to-morrow, rest
quietly with folded arms under pale lilies. And yet
they hadn't come to bump him off. Something deep;
but where did he come into it?
An hour later he slipped out of bed. His head
throbbed painfully but he felt steady on his pins.
He put on Willard's coat, then the cap—which act
caused him a stab of pain in the eyes. Nevertheless,
the cap completely obscured the bandages. Then,
picking up the golf shoes, he tiptoed out of the room
toward the door which led to the upper servants'
stairs.
He remembered the scale of the vast garret per-
fectly; but there would be many new trunks—Elsie's.
Chick, the lucky beggar! His knee touched a trunk
and he stopped shortly. The roof trap was on the
other side of the chimney. Now then, Mr. Golightly!
Was the grandmother's old Saratoga trunk where it
had been twenty years ago? Owen proceeded. He
was used to the dark. He had in his time got safely
out of many dark holes.
Ha!—Grandma's trunk, all right. He mounted
the trunk carefully, stood full height, and fumbled
around for the trap latches, found them and pulled
them out. The freedom of the roof was his. His head


PRESTO!
173
elusive and mysterious, at least till he had a clue to
what it was all about. The first thing, after entering
from the rear, was to examine the front door. It was
locked, but the chain wasn't on. Shut from the out-
side. And where was Dodge, his man?
"Dodge?" he called. "Hello, Dodge!"
Silence. Hang the idiot! He had gone to the police,
the last place Gerry Owen wanted anybody to go in
this queer business. To be sure, however, he ran up-
stairs and banged on his chauffeur's door. "Dodge!"
He tried the door, and it opened easily! Knowing
where the light switch was, Owen turned the key.
Then he leaned against the door jamb—another
round of spinning stars.
On the bed lay his man Dodge, trussed shipshape
and a handkerchief over his mouth. Owen freed him.
"Dodge, when did this happen?"
"About eleven, sir. They got through some back
window. You said you didn't need me any more for
the night. But what's happened to you, sir?"
"A piece out of the same pie. They didn't get me,
however. I left the front door open. It was shut when
I looked at it a minute gone."
"Well, it wasn't me that shut it," said the chauf-
feur, working his jaws, his wrists, and his ankles.
"They got in, tied you up, and I never heard a
thing! Got you out of the way so you couldn't help
me. Did you struggle?"
"No chance. I was dead to the world. What's the
racket, boss?"


PRESTO!
175
"Hang me, if there is anything!"—explosively.
"She was as pretty as a peach, too, Dodge."
"Who was?" Dodge's eyes bulged. A skirt in the
picture?
"The girl who rang the bell and lured me into the
cornpopper. But I'll see her again, boy. Now, listen.
How much food have we in the house?"
"Including the canned willie, enough for a week."
"Good enough. For three days we are not at home.
Detach the phone. We'll sleep all day and watch all
night. Then we'll sneak down to that joint of ours in
Fourteenth Street."
Whenever Owen attacked a serious criminal prob-
lem he changed his residence to a flat in Fourteenth
Street. It secured his incognito extremely well. An-
other point worth mentioning. When his crossword
puzzle was solved he would hand the solution to
Detective-Sergeant Arthur Heller, headquarters.
The detective got the glory and Owen got the sport.
This queer partnership was based upon a first-rate
friendship.
Owen sipped his grog. Suddenly he raised his head.
"Come to think it over, Dodge, we'll have to roost
right here. For the present, anyway. Got to stay here
for the first clue."
"Maybe someone has got loose and wants to tor-
ture you."
"Blah! A gun would have led me right into the car.
But they didn't point any gun at me. Someone who
knew me and where I lived. Yes, and what I'd do!


IV
In another part of this city of troublous nights,
some time previous to the hour Owen opened his door
to the weeping lady, the man who had peeped into
Willard's study window knocked on the bedroom
door of a hotel in lower Broadway—a relic of the nine-
ties. The man was bidden to enter. As he did so he
sailed his cap jovially across the room into the lap
of a middle-aged man who looked as if he had lived
well but not wisely. The bon vivant impression you
got of him was somewhat modified by a pair of eyes
as bleak and gray as the ice of the Rhone Glacier.
He made no effort to touch the cap but spread out
his knees and let it fall to the floor. The hooked nose
suggested a pride which was very inflammable.
"Well?" he said.
"Done it!" cried the visitor.
"A wall safe?"
"Behind a picture. I could find it in the dark. Wall-
papered. His wife came in. Something she said must
have given him a jolt, for he forgot the usual routine.
That's where I came in."
The middle-aged man hove himself out of his chair
177


I78 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
and went to the telephone. He called a number,
waited, then said crisply: "Start the ball rolling,
and report." The man went back to his chair. "A
wall safe."
"Easy as cheese!"
"Oh, you think so, do you? I've told you that the
wife's uncle was one of the greatest safe builders in
the world. Only a ton of dynamite can open most of
the safes. The small ones are all full of tricky devices.
I'll wager that the girl can open any ordinary safe.
The old boy Hood taught her all he knew for amuse-
ment. Still, in the Willard house, it may be an old-
fashioned safe. Could you see anything?"
"With opera glasses, yes. Captain Willard has the
bug, all right. He fiddled with the Blue Rajah for
fifteen minutes. I can open that safe when the time
comes "—confidently.
"All right, Joe. But you're going to treat it as
though it had all the General Electric inside. Maybe
I'll be with you."
"Got a snifter? Getting cold outside."
"Lower bureau drawer; and don't guzzle it."
Joe sipped the whisky slowly and with relish.
"Here's your cap."
"I see it, boss."
The man called Joe set down his glass and walked
over to the bell button and pushed it.
"What do you want?"
"Bellhop. I'm not picking up that cap, boss, in
front of your knees. Not me. You may have your


PRESTO!
179
thumb in the eye of the other guys, but not mine.
Anyhow, not yet."
The man with the bleak eyes recovered the cap
and sailed it into the owner's hands. He had made a
mistake, and, because he wasn't a fool, corrected it.
"I wasn't trying to humble you, Joe. You see, my
vest is getting ahead of me. And anything on the
floor that doesn't belong there annoys me."
"All right, boss."
"I'm running this affair on a fiddle string. One
mishap anywhere, and we're done. So I have what
the French call a crisis of the nerves."
Joe nodded appreciatively. But his thought was:
Fussy? A man who never lost his poise, who never
said a word too much, whose comfortable body belied
the strength hidden therein—nerves? A cold, ruth-
less man, who might become terrible because he
feared nothing. Fussy? Joe put on his cap thought-
fully.
"Have another snifter?"
"No, boss. I'm off that stuff till this job is done."
"Good boy! Sleep all day to-morrow. So long. Need
any money?"
"A hundred wouldn't put a crimp into me."
"Here she is." The man with the bleak eyes wadded
a bill and filliped it into Joe's outstretched hands.
Then he lit a Laurens cigarette. "I don't know, Joe,
but it would be a good idea for you to run down to
Atlantic City and stay till I need you. The other
business may take four or five days."


PRESTO!
181
single man. Lay this chap by the heels, and the play
would be perfect.
Steps in the corridor, approaching; a hand against
the door. The man went to the door eagerly. Three
men and a young woman with red eyes and swollen
lips entered. The door clicked behind them. Two of
the men were somewhat battered up. The third,
in the get-up of a chauffeur, was scowling.
"You got him?"
"No, boss." The man with the purple eye spoke.
"Why didn't you tip us off that he was a light-
heavyweight and as fast as they go?"
"You didn't get him—the three of you?" de-
manded the man with the bleak eyes, bleaker than
ever now.
"No, boss," said the chaufFeur. "He laid out Mike
and Louis so quickly that my think-box didn't work
till it was too late. Anyhow, I gave him a side swipe
with the blackjack he'll remember. Almost got him."
"Where were you, Jenny?"
"By the corner."
"How'd you get those swollen lips, then?"
"Louie struck me."
Bleak-eye whirled upon the offender. "If you ever
lay a hand on her again, I'll break you. I mean with
my hands."
"She's my niece "—sullenly.
"I've warned you. What made you strike her?"
"I laughed," said Jenny, her black eyes spitting


l82 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
fire. "Why shouldn't I? He was in a velvet smoking
jacket and wore a pair of old slippers. He threw Louie
into the gutter and knocked Mike cold; and it was
only by a fluke that Jimmy hit him with the jack.
I think Owen was off his bean, didn't know what he
was doing; for he did not run back into the house
but beat it down the street. I ran back and closed
the door. The cop would have noticed it."
"Would he know you again if he saw you?"
"My hanky half-covered my face."
"Take off that ring and don't wear it again."
"It was my mother's."
"I'm not telling you to throw it away, Jenny.
Don't wear it till we're out of the woods." Bleak-
eye turned to the chauffeur. "Why didn't you chase
him?"
"I was busy hauling those bozos into the cab.
When that was done, this Owen had turned the
corner. Probably looking for a cop. Boss, the show
just busted up. You should have told us this guy
was a mauler. And then, you said no gun-play, just
kidnap him. You gave us all the dope about his line o'
thought. He came down just as you said he would.
But you didn't wise us up to his fists. At that, I
don't think he went for a cop but for a taxi. He didn't
know a thing, except that his own house wasn't
healthy just then."
"I know where he has gone," said Bleak-eye.
"You're the only man with brains, Jim. Take off
those puttees and beat it to the Willard house. Hang


PRESTO!
183
around till dawn. I'll have another man take your
place then. Owen is dangerous; so we must put him
on the shelf. The very fact that he didn't try to get
back into the house is enough for me. He won't go
to the police. He'll want to find out what's going on
all by his lonesome. Jenny, there's a new job for
you. Go back to the night club. He'll be looking for
you in one of these. Let him find you. But never wear
that ring. Puzzle him; then lead him into a trap.
I'll take care of the trap."
"But you've told me he's afraid of women."
"Not in a case like this he won't be. He will be
out to learn what interest we had in kidnaping him.
Clumsy fools!" The voice cracked like a whip.
"Jenny led him right into your hands, and you let him
get away. Well, the game must go on, just the same.
Clear out! Louie, I want a few words with you."
Alone with Louie, who, twirling his cap and waiting
for what he supposed would be a private tongue-
lashing, Bleak-eye said: "Is Jenny really your niece?"
"She is, boss. She gets high-hat once in a while
and needs a crack."
"What are you trying to make out of her?"
"Who, me?"
"Are you going to make a crook out of her or put
her on the street?"
The veins in Louie's neck swelled.
"Well," said Bleak-eye, "she isn't going to be
either. When this game is over, I'm going to take her
away from you."


I84 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
The huge paws of the ex-prizefighter clamped
down on Bleak-eye's shoulders. "Listen to me, boss.
I'll play your game because I half to. But I'll bump
you off as sure as hell if you start any monkey busi-
ness with Jenny. She's clean an' straight. An' I'll
kill her, too, if she ever gits to be anything else."
Bleak-eye pushed Louie aside. "That's all I wanted
to know, Louie. Vamoose!"


V
The following morning Willard said to his wife:
"Now don't worry about Gerry. He knows what he's
doing. And he has hinted that he wants to be left
alone for two or three days."
"Men!" She uttered the word wonderingly.
"We are a troublesome lot, aren't we?"
"Troublesome and lovable. Why is it we women
always go crazy over men who are always hurting
us in some way? And yet, I suppose we couldn't live
with a model husband."
Willard laughed. "Lots of funny things in this
world."
"Lots," she replied.
Drunkards and loose-living men could be reformed,
so she had heard. But how to reform a man gone
drunk on beauty?—something which left the moral
fibre intact? She heard Willard speaking and let down
the shutters over these rambling thoughts.
"Gerry never takes anybody into his confidence
till he's got the fourth side to the square. All over the
world the police hate the amateur, and basically with
good reason. But Gerry is on the war records in
Washington as a man at once brave, patient, and
cunning, who performed miracles. He is a real detec-
ts


l86 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
tive. He has one of the finest criminology libraries
on this part of the globe, and he follows the Viennese
methods rather than the Anglo-Saxon. He'll tell us
the yarn when he is ready. So sit tight, beautiful
lady, sit tight."
Sit tight, she thought. Sit tight. Elsie felt a strange
tingling at the roots of her hair.
"Man-child," she cried impulsively, "let's spend
Christmas on the Riviera!"
Astonishedly he faced her. "The Riviera, for
Christmas? We couldn't make it. What's the matter
with little old New York?"
"It is cheerless, cold. It's a whim. Let's go. We
haven't any aunts or uncles or nephews. Sunshine
and the blue Mediterranean. We haven't had a real
honeymoon. I was in mourning."
"Really want to go?"
"Yes."
"All right."
But when he returned from the telephone he shook
his head. "Only one boat before Christmas, sailing
the nineteenth of December. All the others are full-up.
You don't want Christmas at sea?"
"No." The eagerness had gone out of her voice;
it was dull. To get him away from New York, without
any reason which she could define! She felt like a
child who had unexpectedly entered a dark room
and was afraid. Madness. Was she, too, a little mad?
Did she possess a prescience which was blind?
"But," said Willard, "there's one curious phase


PRESTO!
I87
in last night's work. Why did he come barging hither-
ward? Why didn't he go back into his house?"
"He wanted to be among friends in case his in-
juries should turn out serious. Came here instinc-
tively. At any rate, his affairs keep him active and
interested in the world outside."
Which left her man mulling this over with the
uncomfortable suspicion that this subtle barb had
been aimed at him. He felt a touch of annoyance.
The Riviera for Christmas! What had put that notion
in Elsie's head? He had a sudden longing to fly. He
crossed over to a window. Clouds and high winds.
The doorbell rang. Presently Henry the butler
entered the living room.
"Mr. Berks wishes to see you, sir."
"Berks?"
Willard and Elsie exchanged startled glances.
Berks 1 What would he be wanting?
"Show him in, Henry. Do you wish to see him,
dear?"
"Why not?"
Berks came in, dressed in morning gray; every-
thing about him was sartorially correct. He bowed to
Elsie and smiled pleasantly at Willard. But into the
minds of all three there came a vivid flash of memory.
Berks saw Willard entering the dingy village court-
room, up north, the red ribbon in his buttonhole,
his manner debonair: to give himself up for a murder
which hadn't been committed! Berks suddenly came
upon a fact. He was the real adventurer and this man


188 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
was only adventurous—a line as definite as the hori-
zon. He was driven by necessity, Willard by choice.
Elsie saw the motionless Thing on the floor by
the fireplace—what remained of the human being
she had once loved—and respected!
Willard saw the man in front of him contemptuously
telling the truth about what had happened that night
—what he had seen through the camp window. Com-
pelled to admire the man, though instinctively he
disliked him. Homage to courage, no matter what
kind of case the jewel lay within.
This tableau was but momentary.
"Well?" said Willard, smiling.
"I am here upon a peculiar errand," began Berks.
"Be seated. We had quite a time of it, didn't we?"
"Yes. And whenever I think of it, my few hairs
stand up. If I hadn't been outside that window"
"Please!" interrupted Elsie.
"I beg your pardon! To go straight to the mark, I
have a client who will give you two hundred and
fifty thousand for the Blue Rajah."
Elsie covered her mouth to suppress a gasp; and
both men turned astonished glances upon her.
"It always comes back—the horror of it! Mr.
Berks, I do not like that stone. There is too much
sadness and tragedy behind it. But I'm quite sure
that my husband will not sell it."
"She's quite right, Berks."
"But fifty thousand more than that chap from
Holland was ready to give!"


PRESTO!
"No, Berks. It isn't for sale. In the first place, it
was my father's; in the second place, a million would
not tempt me."
"Can't you get him to see it my way, Mrs. Wil-
lard?" Berks pleaded.
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Berks. He doesn't quite
understand my antipathy to it. And yet it does seem
nonsensical that I should feel as I do. It draws evil,
mesmeristically. It brought evil to his father, to my
uncle, to Mr. Willard himself. It isn't through yet."
A rift in the lute? Berks wondered.
Willard smiled. "Perhaps that's what makes the
stone so hypnotic. But, after all, why should there be
evil? The stone was lawfully my father's, therefore
lawfully mine."
"Was it lawfully the man's who sold it to your
father? Was it lawfully the Rajah's, who gave it its
name?"
"My dear, were those three magnificent Mogul
emeralds lawfully your uncle's? But they came to him
through the lawful channels of commerce."
Berks lost none of these shadings.
"That's the queer thing about these uncommercial
gems, Mrs. Willard," said Berks, thoughtfully. "I
understand how you feel. But most of us, like your
husband and myself, do not believe in curses or ban-
shees. How far does a curse reach? Actually no
farther than the sound of the voice. Curses are of no
utter use"—and a humorous glint beamed in Berks's
eyes—"unless you stub your toe in the dark."


PRESTO!
I9I
He stepped over to the piano and played the
Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
Dream. He had scarcely finished it, when Elsie ap-
peared in the doorway, dressed for the street.
"Going out?"
"Shopping a bit"—giving him her first lie. "I'll
be back for lunch."
She wanted to be kissed and he wanted to kiss her,
but both were conscious of a barrier to be got around.
"Got the car?"
"No. To-day I want a top seat on a bus."
"Got all the money you need?"
"Oodles! By-bye."
The bright November morning sparkled perhaps
too brilliantly, for it set tears trembling on the lids
of Elsie's eyes. She was mad; and the strange part of
it, she knew that she was mad.
- Five o'clock that afternoon. Bleak-eye sat in his
hotel room, smoking and musing. No one answered
the telephone in the Owen menage. It signified that
Owen and his man were off and away somewhere,
which was a blotch on the escutcheon. Smelt a rat,
but did not know what sort of rat it was. Neverthe-
less, it was not pleasing to contemplate Owen being
at large and boiling with curiosity. All the same, the
thunderbolt was forming rapidly; and when it was
launched Owen would not know what hit him. The
red-headed sleuth would not have time to find out
anything.
Presently a thin little man came in.


I92 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Bleak-eye barked: "I told you to keep an eye on
the Willard house till relieved!"
"I know it, boss. But something darn funny has
happened."
"What?"
"Well, this morning, about eleven o'clock, this
Willard dame comes out in furs, an' o' course I fol-
lows. I had a hunch. I know I disobeyed orders."
"What happened?"—the bleak eyes boding no
good to the delinquent.
"Well, she makes for crosstown; an' I think mebbe
she knows where this Owen has his hide-out. But all
she did was to get into the Jersey City ferry—me
near by, watching."
"You fool!—while Owen may have walked out of
or into the Willard house and nobody the wiser."
"Just a minute, boss. She leans against the rail,
never turns her head. Watching tugs an' ferries an'
ships. But here's the point. When she gets to the
Jersey slip, she stays right where she is, never looking
at nobody."
"What next?"
"Why, when the ferry gets back to town she slips
into a taxi and beats it back home. If that ain't
rummy, what is?"
"You shrimp! A bit of air and sunshine, which she
can't get in her car. You're a fine specimen of a
watchdog!"
"But she'd been cryin', boss."
"Crying?"


PRESTO!
193
"Ye-ah."
Bleak-eye stroked his chin musingly. "Go back
to your post till you're relieved," he ordered. "I'll
overlook it this time. Don't bother to think. Do as I
order. Beat it!"
Bleak-eye dined well that night, in a small, choice
but illicit grillroom. The Corton Charlemagne wasn't
half bad.
At nine o'clock Willard sat reading a book on the
varieties of green beryl. Elsie sat near by, doing
needlepoint. The doorbell rang. They saw Henry,
with dignity and assurance, pass the door. They
heard the door open and close. Willard laid his book
on his knees and Elsie stuck her needle into her pat-
tern, expectantly. A minute passed; two. Curious,
Elsie called.
"Henry?"
No answer.
Willard got out of his chair and hurried into the
hall. No Henry was visible. He wrenched open the
hall door.
Henry was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished
inexplicably.
Presto!


PRESTO!
195
Then, with an appealing gesture: "Will you take the
gems down to the bank in the morning ? John, so long
as they are in the house, I shall be nervous."
"Elsie, what's the matter with you? That wall
safe is impregnable. It will fairly knock out anyone
who does not know the trick of it. I wish you would
drop the subject. This is my home, and I can defend
it."
"Suppose someone has kidnaped Henry to force
him to disclose where the safe is? Torture him, when
he knows nothing?"
"Aside from yourself, who knows of the existence
of the safe?"
"The man who put it in."
"Who knew nothing of the purpose for which it
was built."
"How do you know?"—quietly.
Willard laughed. "Elsie, if I bowed to your in-
excusable fears, I should be a coward."
"Is it a sign of cowardice to be cautious?" she
countered. "Did foolhardy generals ever win a great
battle?"
"What astonishes me is that a woman of your poise
and intelligence should act as though she'd been
attending old-wives' meetings."
"That isn't fair, John."
"Maybe not. But, Elsie dear, I have known you
to be a woman without fear. You never had any fear
like this while you lived with your uncle."
"I did not know then that he had committed a


I96 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
crime and betrayed a friendship and was about to
add to the original crime another. Selling the Blue
Rajah in private, miles away from other habitation.
It is you, John. I care nothing about the gems them-
selves, or what might become of them. I'm afraid for
99
you.
"And that's the point I insist upon. I can take
care of myself."
"If Berks hadn't been outside that window, could
you have taken care of yourself? Look at me! I, I
knew you had killed Uncle Mark!"
Here the telephone interrupted; and both of them
hastened toward the tingling bell. Willard took up
the receiver, while Elsie listened in.
"Who is it?.. . Gerry?. . . Yes; this is Chick. . . .
What? Not to worry, no matter what happens and
under no circumstances call in the police? . . . Yes.
Your house wire is cut and you'll be away three days.
Yes. Now, where is ... I say, Gerry!" Willard waited
a moment. "Confound the beggar, he's rung off!
But it means he has called in Henry for some reason."
"I don't believe it. Why should he act mysteriously
over Henry if he wanted him?"
"Why should he call us at all, then? You leave it
to Gerry. Henry's all right. And you know Gerry;
there must always be a mysterious slant to the work
he does."
The two of them returned to the music room. The
fierce pride which was Elsie's burned brightly. No
more pleading. It would only harden his resolve.


PRESTO!
197
The family row should not go any further. They
had been so happy!
Both of them were sensible and resolute persons.
There would never be any petty squabbles, pin-
pricks; the subject would have to be vital to arouse
them to argument. In the present argument—the
only one they had ever had—the queer thing about
it was, they were both right.
She would give him one more test; from another
angle.
"Please don't buy back the Mogul emeraldsi I'll
admit of your right to do anything you please with
the collection. But don't buy the emeralds."
"I made a verbal agreement with Berks."
"But if I wrote him?"
With slow strides Willard began to pace. All at
once he faced her. "All right. If you can get me out
of that bargain, go ahead. If you wish that I should
never buy another gem, that goes too. I will do any-
thing you wish so long as my sense of property rights
is not infringed upon. You women are funny."
"I suppose we are." He would do anything on earth
for her except the one thing she wanted him to do.
"Superstition 1"
"Well," she said, "when we have it we have it.
And it isn't anything you can laugh away, John."
But the bitter anger in her heart did not subside.
Suddenly she made up her mind. A live woman or a
handful of colored stones; sooner or later she would
force him to make his choice. She had been so happy


PRESTO!
I99
"No."
"Why?"
"You know"— lowly.
The Tibetan Buddha began to frown—to keep up
the illusion. The rift was drawing together. All at
once he smiled again. The musician was playing the
Impromptu Fantasie with frills which did not belong.
Elsie reached out and caught Willard by the hand.
"Please! You know I love it better than any other
piece of music. Always play it for me as you did that
night."
Swiftly he bent and kissed the hand. How lovely
she was! But she must be cured of this nonsense.
"I'm sorry. I'll play you Grieg—honestly."
So he began the Ballade with variations. He played
exquisitely, up to the final movement, when he broke
down. Three times he went back; three times he
broke down.
"Something the matter with my fingers to-night.
Funny. I never broke down like that before, not
anything by Grieg."
"You don't practise as much as you used to"—
gently. "Play something light. It will restore your
confidence."
He played Dohnanyi's Marche Humoresque; and
he played it with all the drollery of the master him-
self. Elsie began tapping the floor and nodding her
head. It was one of those irresistible compositions:
you marched!
He wanted to seize her in his arms and kiss her,


VII
Gerry Owen and his man Dodge sat drinking for-
bidden beer and munching ham sandwiches. It was
ten o'clock, the same night.
"Dodge, I've got an idea."
"Spill it, boss. Say, you wouldn't believe I could
make home-brew's good as this, would you? Call it
beer, if you want to, but it's up to any Scotch ale I
ever had over there before they brigaded me with
the Froggies."
"Don't call them Froggies. The French are a fine
people."
"Well, they started calling us Sammies."
"That's your mistake. They meant les amis—
the friends."
"So that's what it meant? Well, spill the idea."
Gerry leaned back and crossed his legs. "Dodge,
what did we do over there, when we wanted to move
our right against the enemy's left?"
"Why, we shelled hell out of Heinie's right."
"To keep them from coming to the assistance of
their left."
"Sure.""
"Well, maybe that's it."
301


202 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Is the beer getting you, boss?"—anxiously.
"Want me out of business before the big push.
Now, I'll stake everything that they never followed
me over to Willard's." Gerry paused. "Yet there was
a watcher posted there when I left by the roof. Saw
him over the parapet."
"Oho!"
"I don't know. When they saw me running away,
they may have tumbled to the fact that I was headed
for Chick's. An anticipatory mind in the woodpile.
I studied my private records to-day. There are three
men just out of prison. One of them is as clever as
the devil, and I think he's got it in for me. But he
wasn't in that bunch the other night. Still, crooks
have queer minds. He may have wanted to have a
little personal chat with me before giving me the
deep end. He liked filigree work. What I've really
got to do is to find that gal. She'll be the serial in
book form."
"A peach, you said."
"That, too, makes it interesting. I want a real
good look at her."
"How's your head?"
"Sore as the devil to touch, but otherwise all
right."
"Uh-huh. Maybe you're right."
"For three days we are not at home. No doorbell
to be answered and the phone wire to be cut. Don't
want any outsider to come in and do any telephoning.
Dodge, there's something in the back of my head


presto! 203
trying to tell me something, and it can't work its
way to the front. Your job is to stand guard here.
We'll sleep in the daytime and do patrol at night.
If they're after me, bub, they are sure to have an-
other try. So I'm not going to be home nights. What
bothers me is the ease with which they got you,
without either of us hearing a sound. They got into
the backyard somehow."
"Where do you think you'll find the skirt?"
"Night club."
"Gee, boss, there are seventeen thousand that I
know of! But what'll I do when you're out?"
"Get your gun license. Shoot to cripple. The license
is in case the police butt in."
"But will you recognize her?"
"She had her face pretty well covered up. But I'd
recognize those eyes of her ten years from now.
Lovely 1"
"Boss, are you hunting the gal, or just falling?"
"Atta boy. You'll never learn anything if you
don't ask questions. Ask the question a week from
now."
"She'll cry on your shoulder and tell you her daddy
beats her and sends her into the street. Ye-ah. I
know, boss. You may not be no Valentino; but you
can sit right next this guy Menjou and still look like
a million dollars. In your glad rags, I mean. You could
stand in a line of a thousand head waiters, and any
smart dame would pick you out. And so will this
bootlegger's daughter."


PRESTO!
205
and London was the uniform height of the buildings.
With such as partially enclosed the Place de la
Concorde, Central Park would have been almost as
lovely. Now the Park, it seemed to Owen, presented
a timid, half-hearted garden aspect, growing almost
clandestinely, surrounded by myriad eyes which
glittered in the daytime and burned snugly and re-
provingly at night.
His overcoat kept his shirtfront immaculate, and
he could give himself a brushing at the doctor's.
"The thing that worries me," said the doctor, "is
that someone will pot you climbing over fences."
"Some of them know. Anyhow, it's my funeral."
"What's it this time?"
"Not sure. But I'll tell you when anything breaks."
Gerry quietly let himself out the front door.
The girl would be the key. Queer thing, he had
never found it difficult to get himself into the graces
of women—when he was hunting them. In his secret
service work his homely mug—for somehow women
trusted homely faces—had helped more than once.
Clever stroke. A girl crying at the door, a supposed
brute of a taximan at the curb. Sherlock himself
would have fallen for it. The chauffeur could have
finished the job had he joined the melee instead of
staying at the wheel. But naturally he believed that
the two plug-uglies could handle the victim. Funny
thing, though: heading for Chick Willard's. He must
have been half cuckoo. All the same, it had turned
out right.


presto!
207
because the nighthawk cabbies steered the moneyed
inebriates into their claws, and their profits were
enough on wine alone.
Owen was clean, both his body and his mind; and
the two resented some of the atmospheric effects
he had to encounter. Maybe he was wrong. It did not
seem possible that such a girl as he was hunting for
would act as hostess in any of these portals to hell.
Cheap tobacco, liquor that was neither corn, grain,
nor potato. As he did not know how to peddle pencils,
he pretended that he already had drunk enough.
(One glass of champagne to taint his breath suffi-
ciently.) Histrionic talent, he possessed that, too. He
spent his money freely. Girls sang for him. One
dollar each. The musicians collected a dollar. When
they learned that he was about broke, he was told
they were closing. And when he got to the street,
two chaps in top hats were struggling to crowd into
the lift. Owen drank the air for a couple of blocks.
Fun! They called it having fun. His head ached. It
would have ached even if it had had no bump.
Another cabby—who got his split for bringing in
the soft money—and three more of the increasingly
repelling places. What struck Owen was this: he had
been in nearly all these places months before. Not
one familiar face remained. All this Walpurgis going
on because the Government wasn't strong enough to
catch the bootlegger, or if it was, not strong enough
to hold him.
The last place on the list was dim-lit, purposefully.


208 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
You would not be able to recognize your friend across
the dance floor. For everybody danced or tried to.
About ten feet away was a little coupe in which sat
four musicians, with faces from the ghost-brush of
Dore. Owen walked over and dropped five dollars
into a cigar box.
From the dancing floor to the bar was a darkened
corridor.
A man and a young woman were watching the
guests from the vantage point of this corridor. Sud-
denly the man seized the girl by the arm.
"The gray fedora! It's him! The boss was right.
He's on the look. Sing. I'll get back t' th' bar."
The girl shivered, but not from fear.


VIII
When the dancing was over and Gerry, weary, rather
nauseated by headache and visions, was about to
leave for home, the orchestra began a Mammy song;
and the young woman stepped under the spotlight.
Owen stared at her. Something about the eyes and
nose . . . But what a voice! He wanted to put his
hands over his ears. Poor kid! She sang dreadfully.
All he could understand was the whang-whang-whang.
As a wife she would have to have other talents. The
eyes and nose. ... He must have a good look at her.
He beckoned to one of the waiters. "Hey! Bring
me that girl—the one that's singing. And bring a
bottle of Pommery, 1919."
"Ye-ah, 1919. Say, are yuh kiddin' me?"
"Well, if you haven't that, bring me the best,
brother."
The waiter grinned. "What other label wouldja
like? Pommery's th' on'y thing we ain't got."
"Go to it."
"Girl an' a bottle o' Hell's Bells." The girl had
finished her song by the time the waiter reached her.
"The Grand Duke o' Roosha has thirty iron men
he'd like tuh spend on yuh."
209


PRESTO!
211
She accepted it. "What's the name of this act?"
she wanted to know.
"Company. Here comes the wine."
His gorge rose. To keep the game going he would
have to drink this time. For this was the girl; and
she knew perfectly well who he was. The cork
popped, far too loudly. Where did they make the stuff
and what did they make it of? He raised his glass at
salute, and was about to take a swallow, when her
hand staid him.
"All you have to do is to buy it. You don't have
to drink it." All the mockery had gone out of her
voice. "Lay down the bluff. You've been drinking,
but you're as sober as I am."
"You don't drink?"
"Ginger ale. You men are queer. You always want
to get us girls blotto."
"Are you a good girl or a bad one?" he shot at
her, rather cruelly. Well, this was a sordid dump.
Her dark eyes flashed. "Would I be likely to tell
you one way or the other before six o'clock, when we
close?"
"What's your name?"
"Jenny." She looked down.
Jenny. Owen thought of Herrick and the sweet
ever-memorable ballad. Jenny. No name for a dump
like this. Devil of a world!
"May I see you home?"
"No go. We're not allowed to go home—to our
homes with strangers. Come, come!"—impatiently.


212 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"You know as well as I do that the whole business
is a stall to get rid of this fermented garbage."
"What if your boss heard you talk like this?"
"He won't hear me—not this time." She smiled.
"What would you do if I kissed you?" Now why
the devil did he ask that?
"Why," she replied, "with this bottle of wine on
the table paid for, I'd have to stand for it." She
leaned toward his ear. "But I'd wash my mouth the
moment I got home"—savagely.
"Am I as ugly as that?"
"All men are ugly—here."
So they would be, thought Owen. "I've three
hundred"
"Sh! Don't let anyone but me hear that."
"Why you?"
She looked into his eyes suddenly. A glorious Latin
eye, as steady as his own. He reached out and covered
her hand with his.
"You're strong," she said. She felt of his arm. "Y'
know, I'd like to see you in a mix-up with these
Greeks and Wops. They are all yellow."
"Guns?"
"Some of them."
"How did you fall into such a life?"
She smiled dryly. "What if I told you I'm safer
in this dump than in a broker's office? I tried a brok-
er's office once."
"I understand. You can stay straight if you want
to. And you've stayed straight."


IX
Willard did not consider himself stubborn. To be
wrong and to refuse to admit it—that was true stub-
bornness. A man had to stand firm sometimes.
Superstition had got Elsie, somehow. He could see
her point of view, but it was such an infernally silly
one. To lock up those stones downtown because her
imagination had got out of hand! To prophesy battle,
murder, and sudden death, simply because the stones
had lively histories! If he surrendered, her notion
might become permanent and cause all manner of
petty friction. Elsie was basically a most sensible
woman; if he held out, she would soon be coming
around to his side of the tent. Only a few months
gone she had admitted that if it hadn't been for the
Blue Rajah, they would never have met! And now
this unreasoning attitude!
Anything else in the world, but those gems were
going to remain in the house, indefinitely.
There was in each of these two persons a pillar of
steel. Not the gay rapier type, to bend quickly and
brightly at a pressure and then to flash back. This
steel was rather the stuff" out of which the Crusaders'
double-handers had been hammered. A lot of queer
114


PRESTO!
one saw him and what they would think of him if
they did. He reached the cellar door—or to be exact,
the rear basement door. He signaled.
"Who is it?"
"Willard. Is that you, Dodge?" Willard got a re-
freshing whiff of malt as Dodge let him in.
"Howdy do, Mr. Willard? Have a glass? I'm bot-
tling twenty gallons, but I've some six months old."
"All right. Crack a bottle for me. But first, tell
me what Gerry wants of old Henry—the butler?"
"Henry?"—astonished. "You mean your butler?"
"Isn't he here?"
"Why, no, sir. The boss tells me plenty, but he's
never mentioned your man. Has he left your house?"
Willard recounted the incident of Henry's evanish-
ment, emphasizing the bewildering suddenness of it.
"Gee!" said Dodge. "I don't know when the boss
will be back. My orders are to stick inside the house.
He went out early in a business suit. No sleep at all.
I'll get you that beer."
Willard sat dumbly upon a crate. Henry, kidnaped,
by the same forces that had tried to kidnap Gerry.
But why? That poor old duffer, with his gargoyle
face—how was it possible for him to fit into any
scheme which might concern Gerry? Willard heard
a pop at his elbow.
"Swig it out of the bottle, sir."
Willard emptied the bottle, his throat stinging
pleasantly. "Dodge, what does someone want of
Gerry?"


2l8 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Search me, boss. Nobody's trying to bump him
off. They just want him out of the picture. And he's
trying to find out why. But leave it to him."
"But where does my butler come in?"
"Don't know. Somebody's after something. What?
Who? Maybe the backfire of an old job of the boss.
Johnny-Get-Even stuff. Mr. Willard, the boss is a
great detective, and I don't mean maybe. We got
blotto together Armistice Night in Armentieres.
He took me on after I was demobbed. Say, he's
cleaned up fifty police jobs in this town. He helps out
a dick down at Central. Now, when you get home,
stay there till you hear from the boss. Wandering
around, you might be accidentally mistaken for him.
See? Sit tight."
Willard waited till one, then decided to go home.
"Elsie?" he shouted, after his own door closed
behind him. Silence. "Elsie?" He ran up the stairs.
Servants' day off; so if Elsie wasn't home, he would
be alone in the house.
There was no Elsie. But in her room nothing
seemed to have been disturbed. He opened various
bureau drawers, the cedar chests, and the hanging
closets. So far as he could see or remember nothing
was missing except the short sable coat she usually
wore. He was frankly alarmed, nevertheless.
He hurried down to the library and opened the
safe. The combination was of deadly preciseness. If
you did not whirl the knob completely around to zero,
you were partially electrocuted. If you stopped at


PRESTO!
219
any even number, you summoned the Burns and the
Fiaschetti agencies. This, if you were lucky enough to
turn the knob completely. If you then reversed and
did not stop at seven, you shot up all the lights in the
house and they winked for several minutes. It was a
safe full of the ingenuity of the devil himself. Willard
had warned Elsie never to meddle with it, this warn-
ing having been uttered the night when she discov-
ered where the safe was.
The jewels were in their accustomed depressions.
Carry them down to the vaults? No. That was final.
He would give in on any other point; never on this
one. Why, good Lord, the Sub-Treasury wasn't any
stouter. It was all nonsense.
Suddenly the house had the feel of a barn about it.
He wandered through room after room. Her touch
everywhere, but strangely no longer warm. With a
violent gesture he sat down at the piano and began
the Grieg Ballade. Again he stumbled at the end.
He burrowed among the sheets in the case, found the
composition, and began to play it by note, not with
feeling but with accuracy and with slower tempo. He
repeated this performance five times. Then he tossed
the composition off the rack and played the whole
thing faultlessly—but emptily. He could not put any
soul into it.
"That's better," he said aloud.
He glanced at his watch. Half after two! Where
was Elsie? He ran out into the hall, to the telephone
stand. She hadn't said anything about going out to


220 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
lunch. There ought to be a note. There was none;
but the pad was covered with her pencil scrawls—
half-thoughts, subconscious pencil-work while listen-
ing. All at once a phrase caught his eye. "A live
woman or some dead stones."
He put the pad down, sick at heart. She took it as
seriously as all that!
What about Elsie? This. She had gone forth an-
grily. Women do sometimes, leaving the house and
not even returning for dinner, and not a line of in-
formation as to where they have gone. Let their hub-
bies squirm a little. Let them suddenly note what a
big hole had been left behind. It is human nature for
Mr. Husband to dash about, telephone, and if he
has a locker at the club, eventually turn to that.
This notion popped into Elsie's mind, and im-
pulsively she acted upon it. The first big thing she
had ever asked of him, and he called it nonsense!
She could not tell him outright that she was being
confronted by the most terrible rival a wife can have
—a hobby in which she has no share; and in this case
—because she had experience to know—a menacing
hobby.
He called it superstition, when it was only an un-
acknowledged fear for him. The newspapers, during
what they had called the Hood Murder Case, had
stressed the jewels; and trust the underworld to put
away the clippings. Not once in a great while, but
nearly every night, after she had gone to bed, he


PRESTO!
221
had gone into the library—that one hour when a
woman wants her man all alone to gossip with over
the events of the day.
So she had ordered the limousine from around the
corner where Willard kept the cars.
Ever take real note of a spider?—the skill and
boldness with which he weaves his net? And then,
the inconceivable patience of him! The wind cannot
rend this net, the rain cannot drag it down, the sun
dissolve it.
Elsie was so busy with her mental bruises that she
did not take any particular notice of her surroundings.
She became alert and curious only when she saw that
they were outside the city and on the way to Thunder
Mountain.
She did not return to Park Avenue that night. And
the terrified husband could not find Gerry Owen.


Gerry did not return home that day; in fact, he
did not return home till the middle of the following
day. When whirlwinds and thunderbolts pop out of
a blue sky, the schedule breaks down. His first visit,
around about noon, was to Police Headquarters,
where he was fortunate to find his friend Detective-
Sergeant Heller.
"Hello, Sherlock!" hailed the professional. "What
terrible crime have you brought in to-day?"
Heller was a bulldog hard to shake loose. He was
a man-hunter because he liked the job; and this
made him like Gerry. But the trouble with this
first-rate amateur, in the mind of the professional,
was that he flew too high. That is, he generally gave
the crook credit for being far more astute than he
was; and in rounding him up got tangled among the
brambles of theories. But Gerry could find things,
even if sometimes it was too late. Give him the
breaks, and he got his man. But he wasted time in
trying to be mysterious. Heller recognized the
basic trouble. Gerry had stalked Germans with su-
perbrains and could not be made to understand that
ninety-nine per cent of the crooks had brains only
half-baked. Soup instead of super.
333


PRESTO!
225
bathtubs. Keep an eye open for him. Louie is my
mugful of bad luck. Did a bit ten years ago, but
nothing on him since. Deaf in his tin ear, so he got
out of going to war. Bouncer is his open job. But
he peddles dope, and I want him. Look out for this
pretty jane, though. She may trim you. Y' know,
they trim as many wise guys as they do boobs.
Twelve o'clock. Come along with me and hang on
the nosebag."
"All right. But I wish that buzzer in the back of
my head would come through. Maybe that crack
on the dome paralyzed its legs. I'm sure that it will
make this abduction stunt click."
It did, when it arrived—too late. But this time it
was through no tardiness on Gerry's part. All the
breaks fell to the enemy side.
At two o'clock that night Willard went around to
the garage—for the fifth time.
"No news, Mr. Willard. Your chauffeur took the
car out. And he's as good as there is in town. And
from what he's dropped about you people, he'd drive
through hell for you. There's been no accident or
we'd have heard of it," said the manager of the
garage. "Nothing yet has turned up at Police Head-
quarters; but every cop in the city is on the lookout
for the car. That silver-eagle water cap makes the
car noticeable, sir. Maybe she's gone into the coun-
try to visit friends."
"My man would have telephoned."


lid THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"She have any jewels on?"
"She never wears them," answered Willard, pa-
tiently, his nails in his palms.
"Well, I don't know, sir. Your valet's disappear-
ance, too. Come into the office and smoke."
Willard accepted the invitation. If anything hap-
pened to Elsie! . . . Those damned stones! One
single straw held his head above water. She might
have gone away in a huff, to spend the night at some
hotel in the country, to teach him a lesson. . . . Had
he kissed her that morning? Torture.
The business of the garage went on. Cars came in
to abide for the night. Horns tooted. Cars rolled
out, probably to return in the morning. The whole
town was going on as usual... as usual! But Willard
sat stonily still, without gestures. He was conscious
of the manager's frequent entrance and exit. At
a quarter to twelve the manager dashed in.
"The car is here, sir!"
"My wife?"
"No, sir. But your man is back, with a detective
at the wheel."
Willard rushed out, his mind on fire with the old
instinct to kill.


XI
"You're Willard," said the detective who had
brought in the car. "Perhaps you remember me.
I'm Owen's friend at headquarters—Heller."
"Yes, I'm Willard. What's the matter with my
man? Where is my wife?"—rather wildly.
"Your man has been drugged a couple of times.
A policeman discovered the car on East Fourteenth
and got Headquarters." Heller turned to the garage
manager. "Get some coffee; not a cup but a pot—
strong and bitter. No cream or sugar. Hike! There's
opium here. Sit tight, Mr. Willard. We'll get both
your wife and your butler. How old was he?"
"Nearly seventy."
"That let's him out. Have you any idea what the
game is?"
Willard lied grimly. He was going back to the
house—alone. He wouldn't need company. "No."
Half an hour later the chauffeur was able to speak
coherently.
"I was out in front, waiting. ... A cab run up
behind. . . . Fellow dressed like me. . . . Wanted to
know if I'd seen the new windshield. I leaned for-
ward. . . . Gun. Jabbed something into my arm. . . .
I came to, tied up in a dark room. . . . Before they
227


XII
Interim.
Elsie could not tell exactly what had happened to
her after her discovery that the man in front was
not her chauffeur. She called through the tube.
"Where are you taking me? Where is Jack?"
The car came slowly to a halt. The driver got out,
opened the door, and, with a hand cupped to his
ear, as if deaf, asked Elsie to repeat the question.
As she leaned forward to do so, her arm was seized.
"Oh!" she cried, as a stab of pain came into her
arm.
The strange chauffeur got into the car and seized
her by the shoulders. The man's face slowly faded
on her sight. The next thing she knew, she was in
this semi-darkened room, and it was night. She felt
slightly nauseated.
Beyond the window were the millions of city
lamps. It took her considerable time to make out
where she was. The moment she tried to concen-
trate she grew dizzy. But at last she got the outlines
of the Brooklyn Bridge. She was near the waterfront,
either in New York or Brooklyn.
She lay down for a while. Her head ached violently
and her tongue was thick and dry. Drugged. That
much was clear. But why? She could hear no sounds
230


PRESTO!
except a ferry's occasional bleat or a tug's piping;
there were no near-by sounds. Her left arm ached
dully, continuously. Morning—and now it was
night. What had they given her to keep her sense-
less all these hours?
Light! Oh, she knew what had happened! Elsie
Willard, in exchange for the Blue Rajah—the whole
collection! And John would not give them up. All
her fears, come to the thunderclap. A brave man,
he could not understand her fears; he could not even
have patience. And now, for his blindness, he might
have to pay with his life. Had he but taken the
gems to the bank as she had urged him! If he could
but show the thieves an empty wall safe! She had
known: from what source this information had come
she could not say: nothing, except that she had known
that this hour would come. She sat up.
The Blue Rajah, the inanimate crystal—a thou-
sand years of havoc. She began to laugh hysterically
and rock her body. She had run away from the
house to punish him. Anger on both sides. Dear
God, they might never see each other again! Again
her shrill wild laughter rang out.
A hand began to pound on the east door of her
prison. She stifled her laughter.
"Who is there?"
"Is that you, Miss Elsie?"
"Henry?" she screamed.
"Yes, miss." To Henry Elsie was still the child
who had played about his knees.


232 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Are you hurt?"
"No, miss."
"What do they want?"
"God knows, miss. They have treated me well.
When they come to feed me they wear yellow rubber
masks and carry guns. We are on the Brooklyn side.
I imagine the building is empty. I hear no human
sounds till they come with the food. Is the collec-
tion safe, Miss Elsie?"
"Yes." Elsie paused. "How are the doors?"
"Too thick for me to break."
"The windows?"
"Straight down into the street, miss."
"You have tried to attract attention?"
"Oh, yes; but nobody seems to look up; and if they
do, they can't see me."
"Can you open the window?"
"Only by breaking the glass. Then they might
put me in a worse place. So I've just waited. Don't
worry, Miss Elsie. They are not going to hurt us
if we don't interfere seriously. In two or three days
they'll let us go. You'll find a cot in your room.
Mr. Willard should never have kept such things
in the house. I was always scared when your uncle
carried his with him. I told him so, more than once.
But it doesn't do any good to warn certain types,
miss."
"No, Henry, it doesn't."
"Don't worry."
"It's good advice, Henry."


234 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Don't know."
"Bad business. Henry the butler has been kid-
naped, and now Mrs. Willard hasn't returned. Wil-
lard is frantic. He has notified the police, for he is
sure that she's been kidnaped, too."
"Gee!" gasped Dodge. "Then my hunch is right."
He exhibited his small-arm. "I'm going over to
watch the Willard place. If the boss returns, tell
him where I am."
"And if anything happens, get to the nearest
telephone."
"Willard's missus!"
"Yes; and Willard's inside that house, and prob-
ably full of murder. Any notion where Gerry is?"
"Some bootlegger's dump. He's located the jane
who lured him to the door the other night. I'm off.
If anything breaks, I'll phone."
But Dr. Keen received no telephone message
from Gerry's man that night.
A series of oil-and-water expeditions, which did
not mix very well, as will be seen.
It was ten by the clock when Dodge took his stand
across the street from the Willard house.
Gerry did not return home at all that day. The
farther away he stayed, the freer his actions. After
leaving Detective Heller, he went uptown to the
University Club, found a comfortable lounge, and
slept like a log till dinner time. He dined at the
club, cashed a check for two hundred, saw the new
Guild play, then was ready for the night's work.


PRESTO!
235
For to-night would solve everything or the riddle
would continue.
Gerry decided not to change. Something might
happen, and a stiff shirt and collar would be dis-
tressfully in the way, either in a fight or in a race.
She had said about two o'clock. He would walk about
town, in the meantime, clear his head and digest
his beefsteak. His head no longer bothered him
seriously.
As the sailor smells rain, Gerry could smell trouble.
He felt it in the air to-night. Well, he was ready.
If anything broke in the line of rough-house, he
would lose a good overcoat and about three hundred
dollars.
He could not put aside the notion that he had
been soft last night. This time she would probably
try to get the grappling irons into his hide. Eyes.
He could always get something out of a man's eyes.
But what the devil did he know about a woman's?
He did know that a woman could lie beyond any
man's ability to trap her. Moreover, she could re-
member last week's lie. Pretty as a peach, too.
Jenny. It was such a decent, old-fashioned name.
Devil of a world!
As he entered the evil-smelling dive she discovered
him instantly and ran toward him, smiling. She drew
him down into a chair.
"So you've come back?"
"Sure. You asked me to."
Out in the country, among chickens and cows


236 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
and clover, she would develop into a raving beauty,
he thought.
"Hey, boy!" he called. "Wine—Canal Street
grapes." He turned to Jenny. "You're good to look
at to-night."
"Don't ask me to sing."
"Leave it to me."
"If he brings in the bottle open, don't drink it,"
whispered Jenny.
"Why not?"
"Don't drink it. . . . Laugh, now, as if I'd said
something funny."
Gerry laughed and patted her on the shoulder.
Mentally, very alert. Something doing, then? And
she was quietly tipping him off! Hang it, maybe
the kid was good.
"You haven't told me your name."
"Robert Owen. They call me Gerry, though."
"Gerry Owen." She piped the old melody.
"You're Irish 1"
"Irish and Scotch. And what's all of your name?"
"Jenny Lavina."
"That's pretty." Figuratively his bones began to
sing a warning. He stood up and threw off his coat.
Louie Lavina, and perhaps the kid was his. But
it was a queer game she was playing.
The wine came, foaming.
"Put it back in the lamp," cried Owen. "When I
pay thirty bucks for wine I want to hear the cork


PRESTO!
237
"What's the diff?" snarled the waiter, a sleek-
haired, sly-eyed rascal.
"Twenty-nine dollars different. One dollar for
this or thirty for one corked."
The manager approached. "What's the row?"
"I want my wine opened in front of me."
"Bring him another bottle, Hank," said the man-
ager. "You'll have to pay for it just the same,
mister."
"All right." Gerry had felt Jenny's foot touch his.
The war cloud died away. The music began.
One of the girls began to wah-wah, whang-ivang.
"Who is that ex-pug out there in the hall?" Gerry
asked, grinning widely. "The one with the shiner?"
"Louie Lavina—my uncle. He handles the souses."
Louie Lavina. Owen laughed loudly and emptied
his wineglass because he must.
"Trouble for me?"
"When you leave. Laugh often. Now, kiss me the
way you did last night. They expect it. Don't do
anything to make them suspicious."
Stunned, Gerry stared at her. A boy of nine could
have knocked him out of his chair.
"Quick!" she panted, her eyes desperate.
He bent toward her and kissed her. She pushed
him away, and his elbow knocked over the wine
bottle. It wasn't exactly the same kind of kiss
they had exchanged last night; and they stared at
each other astonishedly. The music stopped. The girl
who had sung came over. Gerry gave her five dollars.


238 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Sing something else, lady; something else."
The flattered girl beckoned to the orchestra.
Whah-whah-wah.
"Now, Jenny," said Gerry under cover of the
music, smiling, "Come across. You're the girl who
rang my bell"
"After the waiter goes."
The waiter set down a fresh bottle and pulled the
cork. Gerry took out a fat roll and handed a fifty-
dollar bill to the man.
"Keep the change, Hank."
Hank, his eyes sparkling, started off for the bar.
He had seen a roll, a cow-choker.
"Give me the rest of that money," whispered
Jenny. "Under the table."
Gerry grew cold. "I'll keep it," he said. He smiled,
but ironically.
"Laugh, but listen."
He laughed, but it was beginning to be very
difficult work.
"You know who I am," she said. "You recognized
me last night. My Uncle Louie is the man you
knocked out. All I know is, you're in the way—some-
body's way. I don't know what his real name is.
We none of us know. We just call him Bleak-eye.
You are not going to get out of here."
"How many?" Bleak-eye, thought Gerry. Bleak-
eye.
"Five, just outside the street door. You can't
possibly get through. And Louie will beat me if he


PRESTO!
*39
finds I've talked. I can take your money home for
you. I must sing now."
He slipped the roll along with his night key.
"Front door. Stay there till I come." He banged on
the table for another bottle. The waiter flew to the
bar. "My name is Robert Owen. But you don't
know my middle name, Jenny. Outside they'll know
it."
"Dear God, you're not going to put up a fight?"
Gerry laughed. It was the same kind of laughter
she had heard from him the other night.
"Hey!" he yelled to the orchestra. "Give us a
dance."
He swung Jenny to the floor.
"What's it all about, anyhow?"
"I like you," she answered. "You're right. Have
you a sister or a mother?"
"No."
"All alone in your house? Well ... all right."
"You don't like your uncle?"
"I hate him! He's a beast. But he'd kill anyone
who mishandled me. Yet I hate him."
"Tell my man Dodge everything. Keep dancing,
and smile. Have you ever seen this chap Bleak-eye?"
"Oh, yes."
"Where have you seen him?"
"No. He's been kind to me. I won't give him
away."
"He laughs with his mouth and never with his
eyes?"


XIII
Two things a man does when he enters out upon a
street. He steps forth briskly, then lags for a moment
to look up and down, at the sky, anywhither, then
proceeds toward his destination. It is probably one
of the most common acts we humans perform, com-
mon and natural. However, if a man be somewhat
suspicious, the natural act is to peek out before
stepping out.
In ordinary circumstances, Gerry, upon leaving
the cabaret, would not have had one chance in a
thousand. But he had been forewarned. As he shot
out of the doorway, as if catapulted, only one hand
lightly touched his shoulder as the five closed in be-
hind him. He was across the street before his would-
be assailants got themselves untangled. Then they
raced after him.
One thing Gerry always carried—a police whistle.
Heller had given it to him. Still running, he put the
whistle to his lips and blew a shrill blast. To an eye-
witness the whole affair would have assumed the
jerky revolutions of a movie camera in a comic
scene. The pursuers halted, ran back and piled into
241


PRESTO!
Gerry flattened himself to the floor, cursing under
his breath. A fixed barrier—an alarm bell, as it were.
This time he waited five minutes. No sound in
answer to the racket. One of those fool maids, prob-
ably: they left things everywhere.
He rose. The house was empty. Chick had once
told him that the safe was in the library. Thither
he would proceed and lie doggo. The weak point
in this business was that he had no shooting iron.
But he had dependable fists and legs.
He was half way down the stairs, when there came
a crash like thunder and a blaze of white flame.
The bullet came so close that Gerry felt the wind
of it. He was instantly convinced that the second
attempt would be a volley in spray. And that would
be the end of Gerry Owen. One chance, and he
boldly accepted it. He dived headlong down the
stairs.
His shoulder hit the thigh of the man below, and
together they crashed to the floor. Gerry was first
to recover his faculties, and his right hand swarmed
over the unknown in search of the gun. The other,
with an upheaval of astonishing power, considering
that the wind had been knocked out of him, threw
Gerry's body aside. But ere the gun could be fo-
cused, the two were at grips, and they rose simul-
taneously. No Louie Lavina here, thought Gerry.
Steel. With a superhuman effort he managed to
get hold of the other's arm—the gun arm—and threw
it back. From the metallic clatter which followed,


PRESTO!
247
Willard—boys together, man-comrades. Defending
his own home! Why hadn't he challenged? The
bloody face . . .!
Gerry heard a chuckle behind him.
"My word, the most amusing thing I ever heard
of! . . . Give it to him, Joe!"
A flash of excruciating pain; and Gerry Owen
slumped across the body of his friend.


XIV
Sounds and movements and a spot of light moving
inquisitively about.
"Bind their mouths with their hankies, Joe. That
damned pistol shot!"
"We better get a gait on, boss. They've picked
up the car and the chauffeur by this time."
"And, if you stop to think, Joe, that's how-come
we've got our birds right to hand. Perhaps the shot
wasn't heard. It's late, and the walls are thick. That
can I put at the top of the stairs! Joe, we've just
made it. All along I was afraid of this fellow Owen.
Did you hear anything before Owen hit the can?"
"Not a sound, boss."
"Willard did, or he wouldn't have left the library.
Our luck to be here first. But we wouldn't have been
lucky if Owen hadn't dropped in. Willard would
have stuck to his post till dawn. And then, we
would have had to hurt him. Do you get it, Joe?
Those two trying to kill each other! Ever hear any-
thing like it? I thought I had a perfect case. And
pure luck let me through!"
"There they are, boss; all tied up."
"Then let's get to the safe. Do your cutting ex-
248


PRESTO!
249
actly where I pencil-mark the wall. Been looking at
wall safes lately, and so I've a pretty good idea how
these fancy ones are protected. The girl's uncle was
one of the greatest inventors in the business. Two
things this safe will have—a shock wire and a
burglar alarm. But there may be something else.
Get the safe free from the plaster, where we can
dope out the wiring. Follow me."
In the library the man called Joe set down a
grip, which he opened—out of which he took a rub-
ber suit, shoes and gloves, and the sundry tools of
his calling. His companion drew a square about the
safe, the position of which had been pointed out to
him.
"Fast is the word, Joe."
Joe was a master workman. In less than half an
hour the safe stood in full view, with half a dozen
wires radiating from it. Each of these wires he
snipped, with all the caution of a linesman. The live
wires he bent into a safe position, beyond accidental
human contact; then, with a pull and a heave he
staggered back with the now harmless safe in his
arms. He deposited it on the floor and began to
manipulate the tumblers, while his companion
watched him from the comfortable folds of an easy
chair, from time to time studying the Rembrandt
(which had covered the safe) under the glare of a
powerful pocket lamp.
"Do you know, Joe, those two chaps? Bom New
Yorkers. Neither could find Broadway without a man


PRESTO!
251
"And your get-away as well placed as mine."
"Uh-huh."
"Well, don't look back over your shoulder when
you blow."
"What do you mean, boss?"
"Did you ever kill a man, Joe?"
"Kill a man?" cried Joe. He stared at the other,
whose face was only a dim patch in the light of the
lowered torch.
"You have been anxious to learn who I am. But
your tailers, Joe, weren't clever enough. You thought
I had nothing on you. Bank murder, Joe. If I die
suddenly and violently, so will you later. In other
words, no blackmail. You named your price and I've
paid it. You and I alone knew what this job was.
The others work blindly because they must. The
only man I want hurt is Louie Lavina. He beats
that niece of his. That's all."
"You've got the say, boss," replied Joe, evenly.
"Let's get these bozos in the car."
"Give them both a shot first."
It was done.
It was a man's job to get Owen and Willard into
the big limousine; but that, too, was done. The ex-
haust barked, and the car rolled swiftly down the
street; but not too swiftly for Dodge's agile legs.
Dodge was no mean pupil. It was true that only
rarely did his Gerry Owen call upon his powers,
mental or physical; but he had learned and memor-
ized enough points in the game to carry him on his


XV
Ransom, thought Detective Heller, as his stride car-
ried him to Dr. Keen's. Ransom. A rich and beau-
tiful young woman: a hundred thousand, to be
placed in such and such a spot, or Mrs. Willard
would never be seen again. The toughest of all
police jobs. For abduction for ransom half the time
turned out to be murder and flight. And there were
worse things than death. It was natural that Heller,
having no clue, should fall back upon theory, gen-
erally so despised by Police Headquarters.
Dr. Keen greeted him gravely.
"Gerry may need me to-night, Doctor. So I'm
going to his house to wait. There's a queer job going
on."
"Any news of Mrs. Willard?"
"None. Got the car and the chauffeur, but no sign
of the wife."
Keen never thought to express his opinion—that
Willard's gem collection was at the bottom of every-
thing.
And Heller thought it best not to scare the doctor
with his own forebodings.
2SS


PRESTO!
257
He had not looked into the library, where there
was a remarkable collection of books on crime, psy-
chology, pathology, and biology. London, Paris,
Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg; Naples, Palermo,
New York, and Barcelona. So he went in, turned on
the reading lamp, and soon became absorbed in the
chronicles of the Chief of Police of Vienna.
For all his interest in the Viennese methods, his
ears were open; and he heard the hall door open.
In a flash the reading lamp went out. He heard a
light step in the hall. A pause. Then the steps pro-
ceeded down the hall, toward the kitchen. He si-
lently followed. Master or man, he would not have
paused; he would have turned on the hall light, with
hearty sounds. A match was struck. Heller's hand
drew out his gun. Suddenly the kitchen was re-
vealed by electric lights.
He beheld an amazingly pretty girl. He saw her
approach the kitchen table, take up a plate to in-
spect it.
Heller advanced. "Hello!" he said. "Where'd you
come from?"
She whirled. Tableau. "Are you Mr. Owen's
man?"
"That depends. I'm his man if he gets into trouble.
But as for being his chief cook and bottle-washer, no.
I am Detective-Sergeant Heller, from Headquarters.
Now, who the devil are you and how did you get in?"
The plate the girl was holding crashed to the floor.


XVI
The girl put her hand to her throat. There was less
fear than astonishment in her eyes. A dick! And
how could she answer his questions? Despair took
hold of her.
"Well," Heller said, affably. "What's the an-
swer?"
"Mr. Owen gave me his key."
"Oh, he gave you his key, did he? Where is he?"
"I—I don't know."
"Where'd you leave him?"
"He had to leave me, and sent me here. I was to
stay till he could find a place to send me."
"Maybe I can help him out. Come along. You're
the skirt who rang his bell the other night. Come."
"Where to?"
"For the present, in the study, where we can
chat more easily."
His amiability did not deceive her. A dick from
headquarters. She followed him listlessly into the
study. She did not care what happened. Owen had
framed her in this fashion! His key and his money!
Heller indicated a chair, and she sat down.
"Now, come across. Give me the story. If you lie
258


PRESTO!
259
I'll be sure to find it out. Come clean. What's your
name?"
"Jenny Lavina."
"Lavina? Any relation to the bouncer who works
at the Pink Oven?"
"I am hostess there. Louie is my uncle."
"Oh-ho! Where does Louie get his coke?"
"Coke? Coke? I don't know anything about coke."
"Come across. We're all alone; and it looks like
we'd be alone for some time yet."
"Mr. Dick"—her eyes blazing;—"if you lay a
hand on me, Mr. Owen will break your neck. I'll
tell the truth, but you keep your paws off me."
"Well, break the news."
"You're right. I'm the girl he was looking for.
But I don't know why they wanted Mr. Owen.
Neither does my uncle. Mr. Owen wasn't to be hurt.
He was just to be locked up for a few days. My share
in the game was to get him to the door. But he got
away."
"Ye-ah. Where was this place he was to be hid-
den?"
"That I don't know either. They tried to get him
to-night; but I tipped him off, and he got away.
There were five of them, at the street door. There
wasn't a fight; he got through. He gave me his key
and his money, and I was to wait for him."
"Where is the money?"
She rose and turned her back to him. "Here it is.
And listen. I'm not one of those girls, Louie takes


PRESTO!
couple of hundred together I'd beat it where he'd
never find me. But, except for the other night, he'd
never asked me to do anything wrong."
"You may have heard some of the talk. Did you
ever hear the name Willard spoken?"
"No."
"Well, I'll tell you what's happened. Mrs. Willard
has been kidnaped for ransom. They wanted Owen
out of the way so that he couldn't help his friend
Willard. But Owen didn't have time to pick up a
clue to what was going on. Now, if nothing happens
to Mrs. Willard, why, you can blow the scene. But
if she's injured, Jenny, you'll have to stand your
chance."
"Abduction for ransom!"—bewildered. "I don't
understand!"
"I've been after your uncle for a long time, but
I've never found any dope on him. And that's what
he is, a dopester. He passes it to the peddlers."
"I don't know a word about it. But I've seen the
dopes. Poor things! But I never knew where they
got it."
"Well, if that red-head says you're all right, it
goes with me. What you tell me sounds like him.
See? It's the way he does things. A philanthropist,
trying to make the world free for democracy by hunt-
ing down crooks and then handing them over to me.
A couple of wildcats in one suit of clothes. Jenny,
something big is on."
"There's a strange man none of us knows," she


presto! 265
The wife and the butler. But why the butler? What
was a decrepit old butler doing on a ransom case?
Or was it ransom?
Heller pulled his gun and dropped through the
trap. He had the highest authority to act as he
thought best, and he could shoot straight. He banged
into trunks and the usual garret lumber, but he did
not care how much noise he made. A cold dread fell
upon him. Willard was downstairs somewhere—dead.
A deadly enemy—Willard had a deadly enemy. Kid-
naped both the wife and butler to clear the decks.
And Willard had known. That killer look on his
face!
Resolutely Heller turned on any light he could
find. He found a master key in one of the bedrooms
and flooded the house. Then he started down the
hall stairs. He discovered a huge brass can and an
overturned chair: Willard had put up a fight.
Room after room Heller entered, and at last the
study. He sat down, limply. He saw the whole
story. Loot. To kidnap everyone so he could ex-
tract a deadly safe without interruption—this Mr.
Bleak-eye of Jenny's. A new kind of job.
Why hadn't that fool Owen told him that there
were jewels in the house? No, no. He couldn't blame
Owen, who'd only been trying to find out why any-
one should try to kidnap him. Gerry Owen had been
utterly in the dark.
Ships. Heller sought for and found the telephone,
got Headquarters and gave the story as he saw it.


PRESTO! 267
the country. The diamond called the Blue Rajah
is known all over the world. He would keep 'em in
the house."
Heller shook his head dismally. "I thought it was
a ransom case. They kidnaped Mrs. Willard to-
day. Anyhow, she won't be hurt. I'm going to tele-
phone."
But from Gerry Owen's he got no reply. For the
simple reason that Jenny Lavina had found a sun
parlor off the dining room, found a wicker lounge
with abundant pillows, and had stretched herself
out on it. It was exactly four rooms removed from
the telephone; and Jenny's sleep was profound.
In the rising winter's dawn Dodge entered home
by the front door. He was nearly frozen. His fingers
were bruised and bleeding. His bones ached, his
muscles cried out. He walked straight to the kitchen,
his feet dragging like those of a deep-sea diver. He
was all in. The boss wasn't back, evidently. If he
went to the police, they'd take all the credit. All
right; he'd wait till Gerry Owen returned.
He found two bottles of beer in the refrigerator;
he emptied them and curled upon the study lounge
for a short snooze.
We all make mistakes.
Dodge awoke because a beam of sunshine had
struck his eyes. He sat up, blinking, not quite ready
to swear where he was, till the muscles in the back


268 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
of his neck loudly proclaimed the adventure of the
preceding night. He must get the news to the boss.
He pulled himself up figuratively by his bootstraps.
Holy mackerel!—two o'clock in the afternoon!
"Boss!" he yelled at the head of the stairs. "Hey,
boss!"
Silence. Dodge ran all over the upper part of the
house. No Gerry. Then downstairs again, to dis-
cover in the sun porch a girl asleep on the wicker
lounge—a girl as pretty as they came. A kind of
momentary trance held him. Something darned
wrong! The boss had evidently come and gone with-
out discovering his aide. The trance fell away.
He stepped forward and shook the girl. She awoke.
"Where's Gerry Owen?"
"I don't know. He sent me here to await his re-
turn. You are his man Dodge?"
"Ye-ah." Dodge sat beside her, his head in his
hands. "Then they've got old Gerry, too!"
"What?"-
"Anybody here last night?" /
"A detective named Heller. He fixed the tele-
phone."
Dodge rushed out to the telephone and got Head-
quarters, Jenny Lavina at his shoulder, gone white
with cold. Dodge began to stutter his information.
"I tell you, I don't know the street or the number.
. . . You dumb-bells!. . . Send half a dozen men and
Art Heller. ... Of course I can take you to the
place. . . , Brooklyn, but I can't tell where. But


PRESTO!
269
everybody's there. I can lead you to the spot. . . .
Did they see me? Would I be telephoning to you if
they had?... For the love o' God, get busy and can
the questions!" Dodge turned to Jenny. "They'll
be right up. . .. What are you crying about?"


XVIII
In the enemy country.
Elsie was asleep, but lightly. All at once she sat
up, listening. From the window she could see that
it was still dark outside. She had heard something
fall—it might have been two heavy bags. A door
slammed. She had noted particularly that the rogues
were indifferent about noise. This would be an un-
occupied building. It puzzled her, however, how she
had been carried to this height. The noise had taken
place in the room at her left. Henry was a prisoner
in the room at her right.
She rubbed her arm tenderly. There was a large
inflamed spot above her elbow: where the sleep-
producing needle had entered. Presently she slid
off the cot and approached Henry's door.
"Henry, are you awake?"
"Yes, Miss Elsie. There was a noise."
"In the room at my left. Couldn't you possibly
break in this door?"
"I am too weak and old. I think the men meet
in the room at my right. I've heard someone laugh
two or three times. What did the noise sound like?"
"Something heavy, falling to the floor."
"They may have got Mr. Willard this time."
270 •


PRESTO!
Elsie flew to the other wall, beating upon it with
her fists. "Hello! Hello!"
"That you, Elsie?"—faintly.
"John, John!" she cried, frantically.
"No, no! It's Gerry. Chick is here with me, but
he hasn't come around yet. They gave him more
dope than me. We are both bound. Where are we?"
"In Brooklyn, near the river. Tell John, when he
comes to, that I'm free and unhurt."
"Buck up!"
"How did they get you?"
"That'll keep, Elsie." Gerry grinned painfully
in the dark. Ay, it would keep. Better never tell
either the truth—that Damon and Pythias had tried
to kill each other in the dark. "Get all the rest you
can," he advised. "There'll be a scene or two in the
morning."
"Gerry, is he badly hurt?"
"No. He just got one more punch than I did."
"Do you know what it's about?"
"I do now. That dear Mr. Roger Berks has joined
the Welfare Club. Reprisal. Wanted me first—and
got me last."
"Roger Berks! Why, he came to the house and
asked John to sell the Rajah!"
"He likes a joke, Elsie, even if it takes a year to
spring it."
"Berks." She spoke the word levelly. "Then this
is his revenge?"
"Evidently. We didn't give Berks his right meas-


T]2 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
ure; but he had ours. One thing: Chick will never see
the Rajah again."
Elsie shuddered. Then she laughed, wildly.
"Hey, there!" called Gerry. "No hysterics, now!
Get yourself together. The show isn't over yet."
Gerry—for all his splitting headache—pushed
himself along by the heels of his stockinged feet. For
his shoes were still on the Willard roof. He came into
contact with Willard's body. Alive, anyhow. They
had probably given him a big shot of the stuff. A
belt on the - head hadn't been sufficient for the
quietus of Gerry Owen; they had stuck the needle
into him, too. Having a head of cast iron, wood, and
ivory, he had come out of it more quickly than Chick.
But what a head it was! Gerry groaned softly. Still,
he was in luck. In ordinary circumstances he would
be in a hospital, with a nip-and-tuck sign over the
bed. Gerry lay still for a while, his eyes closed. By
and bye he spoke.
"Chick?" Gerry waited. "Chick? A long sigh.
"Snap out of it, Chick!" Gerry rolled his body
against his friend's.
Willard murmured something. Gerry couldn't catch
the sense of it.
"I say, Chick!" Gerry waited what he judged to
be ten minutes. "Hey, Chick!"
"Who? . . . Who is it?"—definite and sharp.
"Gerry. Roll over on your tummy while I have a
try at the ropes with my teeth. Understand me?"
"Yes.... They got me . .. pretty good."


274 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"Elsie! Dear God, Gerry, they got her! Elsie, man-
handled by rats!"
"She's all right, Chick. In the next room, and she
can hear you if you talk loudly enough."
"Which wall?"
"Right."
Willard stood up, but his knees buckled; so he
crawled to the wall.
"Elsie, Elsie?"
"Oh, John! You're all right?"
"Yes, but groggy. How did they treat you?"
The woman on the other side of the wall did not
purpose to put murder into the heart of her man,
not even the thought of vengeance.
"Under the circumstances, they treated me care-
fully and respectfully. Henry is in the room next
to me. Forgive me!"
"For what?"
"For running away for the day—to punish you.
I was very angry." She wanted to cry out: "I love
you!" But she did not want Gerry to think she was
silly.
Gerry stared at the fading night. Jenny. Had she
got to his house safely? A hostess in a gunman's club.
Damn funny world, when you came to think of it.
"Honey," Gerry heard Willard say, "don't worry
about the gems. They're gone by this time. You were
right and I was wrong."
Elsie smiled. She could never say to him now:
"I told you so."


276 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
the cockeyed world! And in this queer game of his,
Chick, he's had all the luck, all the breaks. Roger
will be a vain man. He'll write. And while we're
reading the scenario, he and your gems will be upon
the billowy sea. He's got us, Chick. He won't have
to sell those jewels to a fence. He'll sell 'em, first-
chop price, to European collectors. Kiss 'em good-
bye, old-timer; kiss 'em good-bye. Now, let's turn
in."
Elsie pressed her ear to the wall; but Willard did
not reply to his friend's prophecy. He saw the fu-
tility of it.


XIX
The sun came into the window obliquely. Slowly it
moved across the floor to the spot where Willard
lay in a dreamless huddle. The sharp brightness
awoke him; and he blinked, not sure of anything.
He moved to get up, and then facts returned to him,
mental as well as muscular. His neck and his jaws
ached; he could barely see out of one eye; his lips
were cut and his torso was sore all over.
Little by little he got up to a sitting position. It
was very painful. Then he saw Gerry's face. A black
and blue cheekbone, puffed lips, a black eye and a
bloody ear, and a thumb that ought to have imme-
diate attention.
Both of them had been somewhere.
There was a table without chairs, but upon this
table was a pitcher of water. Willard managed to
get to his feet and stagger to the table. He drank
slowly and frugally. It was his mouth and throat
that needed the soothing touch, not his tummy:
though his tummy was in what might be called a
balancing condition—the after-effect of the drug,
probably. »
He touched Gerry carefully with the toe of his
shoe.
277 ~


282 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
denizens from the Hall of the Mountain King de-
parted. The door was shut and locked. Willard
leaned down and kissed Elsie's ruddy head.
"Both of you, beaten and bloody, and I can't
help you!" cried Elsie, with a sob.
"Sit loose in the chair—relaxed," was Gerry's
advice. "Don't try to get free. Leave the Houdini
stuff to me."
"You've been tied like this before?" asked Elsie,
fighting to get her voice under control.
"Nothing in my young life," said Gerry. "When
they tie you, you strain all your muscles. When
they're through you suddenly relax. I've always
found a hole somewhere. Once they had me with my
back to the wall. But an air bomb spoiled the pic-
ture."
"The wall?"
"Why not? They caught me with the goods. I'd
done a good deal of damage, and they knew it. All
in the game. But what gets me is an empty building
with a lift running. For we're up twelve stories.
See the envelope, propped against the gavel on the
table? There's the whole yarn—if we can get to it."
"All bloody and hurt!" whispered Elsie.
"Keep your hair on, sister. Soap and water will
take care of that. But it will take a tub of lini-
ment"
"They tell me you're something of a detective?"
interrupted Willard, ironically.
"Where'd you hear that?"—surprisedly.


presto! 285
His several lines of retreat would be perfect. All the
breaks in luck, too.
From time to time Gerry was forced to desist in
his labors; and it was then that he too nodded—only
to bring up his head with a jerk which spangled the
hall with stars. Indeed, fighting the ropes helped
him to fight sleep. He was determined to miss
nothing of the show.
He knew that they would not be held here long;
and that all five of them—that would be including
Berks—would dine comfortably that night.
One by one the gems would vanish and Berks
for them would receive certain sums. The police of
America and of Europe would never learn what
had become of the collection. Gerry could visualize
the rogue. He would probably die in bed somewhere
near Dijon, of apoplexy, induced by an overdose
of Romanee Conti. A noble death, at that. Gerry
chuckled softly. There was something like stage
scenery in it all.
There would be a strenuous job, too. There was
hot blood in Chick Willard. Could he be made to
see that he would spoil Elsie's life if he started out
to hunt Berks down? Perhaps his fury would die
out after he got home. After all, Berks had only
evened up the score—elaborately and profitably.
The rogue would, in all probability, never commit
another theft. If he avoided the tripper routes, he
would live grandly and safely till he took to his
bed for good.


286 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
Jenny. Gerry knew that he wanted her more than
any other thing on earth. Damn funny, wasn't it?
Seen her three times, and the first didn't count.
Kissed her, scared half-way out of his boots, when
it had been stage kissing to allay the suspicion of
Uncle Louie! Hooey!—and here he was, up to his
neck! All these years, making adroit detours—to go
bang into Sentimental Ditch this way! He hadn't
been hooked, palavered; it was just one of those
things. Oh, well . . . His chin touched his crumpled,
bloody shirt and stayed there.
The four of them slept, as soldiers after battle
sleep, for hours. It was after two o'clock in the after-
noon when a helloing awoke Gerry, and he stiffened
in his chair.
"Hello!" he called out raucously. "Hello, hello
there!"
Hurried tramping of feet.
"Hey, Gerry?"
"Smash in the door with the glass. That you,
Art?"
The door crashed, with a splitting and a jingling
noise; and Detective Heller, with Dodge and five
plainclothes men, entered. They did not ask ques-
tions till the ropes lay on the floor.
There followed a rubbing of numb arms and stamp-
ing of half-paralyzed feet—actions which were rem-
iniscent of something out of a cinema comedy.
"Va bene?" asked Willard, with a grave smile.


29O THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
and offered to buy the Rajah? And the joke of it is,
I have a customer for it!
"'I wanted your friend Owen out of the way, tem-
porarily. Rather shrewd. He slipped the net because
I didn't know that he was a Dempsey in dinner
clothes. But the point is this: he thought that at-
tack was the beginning of things, whereas it was the
finale. You see, I knew all about the little safe in the
wall. So I struck.
"'You have imagination, and I built on that.
Your agony as to what was happening to your beau-
tiful wife—the thought of that agony—will comfort
me in my old age. Presto!—now you see it, and now
you don't. Your butler, your wife, your friend, your-
self, your gems! As they used to chant at the county
fairs: "The hand is quicker than the eye." You
know the sleight-of-hand stuff yourself pretty well.
"'They tell me that dramatists write the last
act first. So, months ago, I planned my retreat. It
is perfect.
"Til admit that you had me in a corner last night.
You came into the house after we were already in.
As you did not turn on any lights, as you went di-
rectly to the study, I understood. You were armed -
and murder bent. I and my companion were in the
music room, not knowing just how the devil to
handle you in the short time I had. But the amateur
detective took care of that contretemps. He would
guard his friend's treasure. The unexpected pleas-
ure! Damon and Pythias, at each other's throat!


2,92 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
could scrap like that," he added dropping his hand..
"I always had the edge on you when we were kids."
Something inspired Heller to send his men out
into the corridor. There were no criminals to guard;
and there might be some intimate scenes.
Gerry threw his arm across his friend's shoulder.
"What's a bullet and a few punches among friends?
Here we are, all alive and kicking. Only, I'm sorry
Berks nicked you so badly. I was in a blind alley
till Jenny mentioned Bleak-eye. And Berks' eyes
were gray and bleak. Then I tumbled. Ye-ah. All
the way down the stairs."
"Jenny? Who is Jenny?" asked Elsie. When
would the moment come for her to speak? Any tem-
porary diversion!
Gerry heard himself speaking, suddenly and in-
explicably, before them all, as if some Cagliostro,
standing behind him, had willed him to utter the
surprising torrent of words.
"Jenny is the girl I'm going to marry, Elsie. She's
the niece of a dope thug. She's been earning her liv-
ing as hostess in a bootlegger's night club called
'The Pink Oven.' The underworld—the most sordid
side of it. And she has kept herself clean and straight.
The girl who rang my bell the other night. And ances-
tors and society and all that can go to hell for all I
care!" Gerry glowered, ready to fight all and sundry.
Tableau.
Willard's eyes opened widely. Heller grinned.
Dodge the chauffeur let down his lower jaw. And


PRESTO!
293
Elsie laughed—hysterically. Gerry drew back, his
jaws hard.
"You don't understand, Gerry," she said. "I
love you for what you have just said. That's love.
Or it used to be. It made me laugh because you
sounded as if you were ready to bite us."
"Hey, Jenny!" bawled Heller, considering himself
master of ceremonies.
Jenny? Gerry silently damned the detective and
then damned himself. It was horribly embarrassing
all around. What, in God's name, had impelled
him to shout like that ? With those booming acoustics!
Jenny, who couldn't help hearing Gerry's ex-
plosion, came in, pale. She turned at once to Eslie.
"I can't marry him!"
"And why not?" Elsie asked, gently. The child
was lovely!
"I hate men. I like to hunt them. He was differ-
ent, that's all; and I couldn't stand by and see him
beaten up."
"And you don't love him?"
"No"—stoutly. "Why should I? What the big
game was I didn't know. But I couldn't stand by and
see a brave man beaten by a lot of rats. And then,
I'm not his kind—your kind." Jenny spoke bruskly.
But Elsie, through her own agony, saw the agony
in Jenny's eyes.
"Owen's a good guy, Jenny," said Heller. "Your
protector will go up for a long stretch. You'll be all
alone. What'll you do?"


296 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
been hurt because of that stone. To all who have
owned it—evil!"
"But Gerry did not own it"—mildly, which Elsie
knew to be a bad sign.
Thousands and thousands of words, and somehow
she could not seize upon the right ones: like a little
schoolgirl who had forgotten her piece!
"You were friends," she went on. "Men and wo-
men, down the ages, have gone mad over that stone.
And that night perhaps I, too, went a little mad—
for the hate and fear of it!"
Gerry shook himself out of the hypnosis this queer
confession had set upon him, beckoned to Jenny
and Detective Heller; and the three of them si-
lently departed. Those two would be saying things
no other humans ought to hear.
"Hate?" said Willard, with a shrug.
"Yes," said the resolute Elsie.
"Where is the Blue Rajah?" he demanded.
"Where it belongs. No more murder, battle, and
sudden death."
"Where is it?"—in a sharper tone.
"In the mud of the Hudson River, where I threw
it the day you gave Berks the order to buy my
uncle's emeralds."
Come ill, come good; there it was, in the clear.
Willard sat down, his head in his hands.*


THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
proud. But it should have been enough for you that
I hated them. You might have killed your best
friend."
"Did I know it was Gerry?" To him, too, there
were many elusive words. "I was not to defend my
home, then?"
"Which is better—that the stone should lie at the
bottom of the Hudson or in the palm of Berks, for
him to gloat over?"
"To destroy a thing of beauty! You had no right.
I can't quite forgive this. I had rather Berks had it,
with the chance of getting, or hoping to get, it back
some day."
"Even from the river mud, then, the Rajah mocks
me!"—bitterly. "Come, Man-child. I'm tired, and
my arm, where they thrust the needle, is painful.
What we both need is a bathtub and Dr. Keen. This
isn't the hour for Big Talk; rather when we are
rested. Come along."
He could argue with her! Instead of taking her
weary body into his arms, he could criticise the
ethics of her acts! So be it. All of him, or none of him.
Elsie disappeared from the house in Park Avenue
that night. Willard made no effort to find her. Even-
tually she would soften and return to him; or she
wouldn't. He knew Elsie. Woman she might be, but
the fibre in her was as tough as his own. He offered
no rewards for the recovery of the gems. Nor did he
make inquiries at headquarters for information as


300 THE BLUE RAJAH MURDER
"I don't know, sir."
Dialogue of this character; scarcely conversa-
tional.
Henry waited but waited in vain for Willard to
ask him if he knew where his mistress was.
Henry always answered the telephone joyously
and departed from it most dejectedly. He missed,
too, the cheerfulness, the bubbling energies of the
red-headed young man; but Gerry Owen was away
on his honeymoon. Henry did not approve of this
marriage. But then, since the war, was there any-
thing left to approve of?
The piano could be heard at all hours of the day
and the night. The passionate fury began to die
away, and a singular sweetness and majesty took
its place. Daily Henry waited for the Fantasie
Impromptu; but Willard never played it.
In front of one of the great concert halls in New
York City a woman paused one afternoon. It was
in January; it was snowing; the street scenes were
lively and moving. But this woman observed only
the printed sheets of paper, framed each side of the
entrance. There was no portrait:
JOHN MURRAY WILLARD
FIVE PIANO RECITALS
FOR THE BENEFIT OF DISABLED WAR VETERANS
FIRST RECITAL
THURSDAY NIGHT