The Yellow Face

Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: The Web Archive,
https://archive.org/details/yellowface00whit
(The Library of Congress)

2. Hyphenation of compound words is as presented in the original book.

THE YELLOW FACE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Crimson Blind
The Corner House
The Weight of the Crown

THE YELLOW FACE

BY

FRED M. WHITE

Author of
"The Crimson Blind," "The Corner House,"
"The Midnight Guest," etc.

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

18 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK

F. V. WHITE & CO., LONDON

Copyright, 1907 By R. F. Fenno & Company

"The Yellow Face"

THE YELLOW FACE

THE YELLOW FACE

[CHAPTER I.]

NOSTALGO.

The flickering firelight fell upon the girl's pretty, thoughtful face; her violet eyes looked like deep lakes in it. She stood with one small foot tapping the polished brass rail of the fender. Claire Helmsley was accounted fortunate by her friends, for she was pretty and rich, and as popular as she was good-looking. The young man by her side, who stood looking moodily into the heart of the ship-log fire, was also popular and good-looking, but Jack Masefield was anything but rich. He had all the brain and all the daring ambition that makes for success, but he was poor and struggling yet, and the briefs that he dreamed of at the Bar had not come.

But he was not thinking of the Bar now as he stood by Claire Helmsley's side. They were both in evening dress, and obviously waiting for dinner. Jack's arm was around Claire's slender waist, and her head rested on his shoulder, so that by looking up she could just see the shadow on his clean-cut face. Though the pressure of his arm was strong and tender, he seemed as if he had forgotten all about the presence of the girl.

"Why so silent?" the girl said. "What are you thinking about, Jack?"

"Well, I was thinking about you, dearest," Jack replied. "About you and myself. Also of your guardian, Anstruther. I was wondering why he asks me so often and leaves us so much together when he has not the slightest intention of letting me marry you."

The girl colored slightly. The expression in her violet eyes was one of pain.

"You have never asked my guardian," she said . "We have been engaged now for over six months, Jack, and at your request I have kept the thing a dead secret. Why should we keep the matter a secret? You are certain to get on in your profession, and you would do no worse if the world knew that you had a rich wife. My guardian is kindness itself. He has never thwarted me in a single wish. He would not be likely to try and cross my life's happiness."

Jack Masefield made no reply for a moment. It was perhaps a singular prejudice on his part, but he did not like the brilliant and volatile Dr. Spencer Anstruther, who was Claire's guardian. He would have found it impossible to account for this feeling, but there it was.

"My guardian has plenty of money of his own," Claire said, as if reading his thoughts.

"There you are mistaken," Jack replied. "This is a fine old house, filled with beautiful old things. Anstruther goes everywhere; he is a favorite in the best society. Men of letters say he is one of the finest talkers in the world. But I happen to know that he has very little money, for a lawyer told me so. That being so, the £2,000 a year you pay him till you marry or come of age is decidedly a thing to take care of. On the whole, dearest, we had better go on as we are."

Claire had a smile for her lover's prejudices. Personally she saw nothing amiss with her guardian. She crossed over to the window, the blinds of which had not yet been drawn, and looked out. She looked across the old-fashioned garden in front of the house to the street beyond, where a few passengers straggled along. On the far side of the road stood an electric standard holding a flaring lamp aloft. The house opposite was being refaced, so that it was masked in a high scaffold.

As was the custom in London, the scaffolding had been let out to some enterprising bill-posting company. It was a mass of gaudy sheets and placards puffing a variety of different kinds of wares. In the centre, bordered by a deep band of black, was one solitary yellow face with dark hair and starting eyes. At the base was the single word "Nostalgo."

An extraordinary vivid and striking piece of work for a poster. The face was strong and yet evil, the eyes were full of a devilish malignity, yet there was a kind of laugh in them too. Artists spoke freely of the Nostalgo poster as a work of positive genius, yet nobody could name the author of it. Nobody knew what it meant, what it foreshadowed. For two months now the thing had been one of the sensations of London. The cheap Press had built up legends round that diabolically clever poster; the head had been dragged into a story. The firm who posted Nostalgo professed to know nothing as to its inner meaning. It had become a catchword; actors on the variety stage made jokes about it. But still that devilish yellow face stared down at London with the malignant smile in the starting eyes.

"Jack, they have put up a fresh 'Nostalgo' poster on the hoarding opposite," Claire said. "I wish they hadn't. That face frightens me. It reminds me of somebody."

"So it does me," Jack replied, with sudden boldness. "It reminds me of your guardian."

Claire smiled at the suggestion. The guardian was a large, florid man, well-groomed and exquisitely clean. And yet as Jack spoke the yellow face opposite seemed to change, and in some way the illusion was complete. It was only for an instant, and then the starting eyes and the queer smile that London knew so well were back again.

"You make me shudder," Claire said in a half-frightened way. "I should never have thought of that. But as you spoke the face seemed to change. I could see my guardian dimly behind it. Jack, am I suddenly growing nervous or fanciful? The thing is absurd."

"Not a bit of it," Jack said stoutly. "The likeness is there. It may be a weird caricature, but I can see it quite plainly. Don't you recall how Anstruther breaks out into yellow patches when he is excited or angry? I tell you I hate that man. I may be nonsensical, but----"

Jack paced up and down the room as if lost in thought. The light was shining on the face on the hoarding--it seemed to look at him with Spencer Anstruther's eyes.

"There is something wrong in this house," he said. "I feel it. You may laugh at me, you may say that I am talking nonsense, but there it is. The strange people who come here----"

"Sent by the police mainly. Don't forget that my guardian is one of the greatest criminologists of our time. There is no man in London who can trace the motive of a crime quicker than Mr. Anstruther. There was that marvelous case of those missing children, for instance----"

"Oh, I know," Jack said, with some suggestion of impatience in his voice. "And yet, if you don't mind, we will say nothing of our engagement at present."

Claire contested the point no longer. After all she was very happy as things stood. She had plenty of chances of meeting her lover, and Mr. Anstruther seemed to be altogether too wrapped up in his scientific studies to notice what was going on under his very eyes. He came into the room at the same moment humming a fragment of some popular opera.

There was nothing whatever about the man to justify Jack Masefield's opinions. Spencer Anstruther was calculated to attract attention anywhere. The man was tall and well set up, he had a fine commanding face softened by a tolerant and benign expression. People looked after him as he walked down the street and wondered which popular statesman he was. In society Anstruther was decidedly welcome, amongst men of learning he was a familiar figure. His scientific knowledge was great, certain publications of his were regarded in the light of text-books. Altogether he was a man to cultivate.

"I am afraid that I am late, young people," he said in a smooth, polished voice. "I hope you have been able to amuse yourselves together in my absence. You look moody, Jack. Don't those briefs come in as freely as you would like? Or have you been quarreling?"

"No, sir," Jack replied. "We never quarrel; we are too good friends for that. We have not the excuse in that way that lovers are supposed to possess."

"We have been studying that awful poster," Claire said. "I wish somebody would take it away. Jack is always seeing some likeness in it. He says that you----"

The girl paused in some confusion. Anstruther smiled as he put up his glasses.

"It is a complex face," he said. "Whose features does it remind you of just now, Jack?"

"Yours," Jack said boldly. He flashed the word out suddenly. Half to himself he wondered why he always felt a wild desire to quarrel with this man. "I hope you won't be offended, sir, but I can see a grotesque likeness to you in the famous repellent Nostalgo."

Claire looked up in some alarm. She was wondering how her guardian would take it. The log fire in the grate shot up suddenly and illuminated Anstruther's face. Perhaps it was the quick flare that played a trick on Claire's fancy, for it seemed to her that suddenly Anstruther's face was convulsed with rage. The benign pink expression had gone, the features were dark with passion, the fine speaking eyes grew black with malignant hatred. Claire could see the hands of the man clenched so hard that the knuckles stood out white as chalk. And there with it all was the likeness to Nostalgo that Jack had so boldly alluded to. The fire dropped and spurted again, and when it rose for the second time the face of Spencer Anstruther was smooth and smiling.

Claire passed her handkerchief across her eyes to concentrate the picture of fiendish passion that she had seen. Was it possible that imagination had played some trick on her? And yet the picture was as vivid as a landscape picked out and fixed upon the retina by a flash of lightning on a dark night. The girl turned away and hid her white face.

"I should like to meet the artist who drew that face," Anstruther said, with a smile. "One thing I am quite certain of--it is not the work of an Englishman. Well, it has found London something to talk about, and the advertisement is a very clever one. I dare say before long we shall discover that it is exploited in the interest of somebody's soap."

"I am inclined to favor the view that Nostalgo is something novel in the way of a thought-reader or a spiritualist," Jack said. "It seems to me----"

The dining-room door was thrown open by a woman servant, who announced that dinner was served. They passed across the hall into a large dark-walled room, the solitary light of which was afforded by a pair of handsome candelabra on the table. There were not many flowers, but they were all blood red, with a background of shiny, metallic green. The woman who waited passed from one plate to another without making the slightest sign. As she came into the rays of the shaded candles from time to time Jack glanced at her curiously. She was dressed in sombre, lustreless black, with no white showing at all. There was no cap on her head--nothing but a tangle of raven-black hair. Her brows were black and hairy, her skin as dark, so that her faded eyes were in striking contrast to her swarthy appearance. Her hands were very strong and capable, the mouth firm to the verge of cruelty. And yet there was something subdued, something beaten about the woman, as if she had been taken in a wild state and tamed. Anstruther seldom addressed an order to her in words; a motion of the hand, the raising of an eyelid seemed to be sufficient for those pale, tired eyes, which somehow never for one instant relaxed their vigilance.

The woman was a mystery of the house; she seemed to be entirely dominated by her master's will. And yet there were strength and passion there, Jack felt certain. The fanatic only slumbered. A pansy fell from one of the flower vases, and Jack started out his hand to replace it.

"Did you ever see the evil face in the heart of a pansy blossom?" he asked, for there was a pause in the conversation. "It is a demon face--and familiar too. Miss Helmsley, whose face does this saffron heart of the pansy remind you of?"

Claire took the pansy from Jack's hand and studied it with a frown on her pretty face.

"Why, of course," she cried. "I see what you mean. It is Nostalgo, the man with the yellow face."

[CHAPTER II.]

THE CHOPIN NOCTURNE.

Claire gave the desired assurance, and rose from the table. She would have Jack's coffee saved for him in the drawing-room, she said. Anstruther lit a cigarette, and began to talk of crime. Crime and criminals had a fine fascination for him. Scotland Yard offered valuable inspiration for his new book on the criminal instinct, and in return he had been in a position to give the officials yonder one or two useful hints. The case he had on hand just now was a most fascinating one, but, of course, his lips were sealed for the present. Jack forgot his dislike in the fascination of the present.

"Stay here and finish your cigar," Anstruther said as he rose and pitched his cigarette into the fire. "I'll go into my study and work this thing out with the aid of my violin. I may be an hour or so, or I may be longer. If I have finished before eleven o'clock I'll come up with my fiddle, and we'll get Claire to play. If you require any more claret you can ring the bell."

Jack sat there for a time smoking and thinking matters over. Presently, from the study beyond, came the sound of music. Really, Anstruther was a wonderful man--he seemed able to do anything. He was not perhaps a great performer on the violin--his playing was a little too mechanical, and seemed to lack soul--but the execution was brilliant enough. Jack opened his cigarette case only to find that it was empty. There was a fresh supply in the pocket of his overcoat, which was hanging in the hall. He would be just in time for one more, and then he would join Claire in the drawing-room. The hall light had been turned low, so that, as Jack stood in the vestibule fumbling in his coat pocket, he was not visible, though he could see what was going on in the hall behind him.

There was a spot of light at the head of the staircase. Somebody was standing there looking down into the hall--somebody in a rough jacket buttoned to the throat and wearing a pair of rubber-soled shoes, for the intruder made not the slightest noise. Jack wondered if some impudent burglar was raiding the house at this hour. If so, he would get a warm reception presently. Jack stood there as the figure came down the stairs and turned along a corridor to the left of the drawing-room. But there was no challenge and no fight, for the simple reason that in the hall light, as the stranger passed, Jack recognized the face of Spencer Anstruther. There was no doubt about it; there was no possibility of a mistake here.

Inside the study the music once more began. Very gently Jack tried the handle of the door, but it was locked. Under ordinary circumstances this would have excited no suspicion; perhaps there was another way into the room by way of the corridor. But if so that did not explain why Anstruther was creeping about his own house in the semblance of a burglar, and wearing rubber-soled shoes. There was something creepy about the whole business. Jack returned to the vestibule again, and from there he passed into the garden. The study was at the side of the house, and a belt of shrubs outside afforded a pretty good cover. There was the study under with the blinds down and a strong light inside. Jack noted that it was a French window, a window frequently used, because the stone step outside had been worn by the pressing of many feet.

The smooth melody of Chopin was playing on inside. Jack stooped down to where he could see the lace flowers on the blind, and looked into the room. There was a little slit in the blind where the sun had worn it, and by this slit the whole of the room could be seen. The music had softened down to a piano passage taken very slowly. But Jack was not thinking of the music now at all, though the strains were soothing and flowing enough.

He rubbed his eyes to make sure that they did not deceive him. No, the room was plain enough, so was the sound of the music. And with it all the room was absolutely empty!

[CHAPTER III.]

THE MYSTERY OF THE STRINGS.

It was the most extraordinary thing in the world. Beyond question the room was absolutely empty. Jack could see to the far side; he noted the pictures and the flowers and the vases on the mantelpiece. His view was naturally narrowed by a small spyhole, but there was no portion of the room hidden from him, though he could not quite see the whole of it at one time.

The music was proceeding quite smoothly, though with pauses now and again. It was followed now and then by what sounded like subdued applause.

Jack stepped back from the window. He wanted to make certain that he had not mistaken the room. No, the sounds of music came from the study right enough. At the risk of being discovered he crept back into the house again and tried the study door. It was locked, and what was more, the key was in the lock, as the application of an eye testified.

And the music was proceeding quite swiftly again. The mystery was absolutely maddening. Jack wondered if there was some cabinet in the study hidden from view where the player had taken up his stand. At any rate somebody was playing Chopin's music--playing it very well. There was no magic about the thing.

The hall of the house was very quiet, nobody seemed to be about. Occasionally there came the sound of mirth from the servants' hall, but nothing more. Fully determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, Jack returned to the garden again. Once more his eye was glued to the slit in the blind. He could make nobody out in the room. There was little fear of his being detected, because a belt of shrubs hid the window from the road.

Without the slightest warning a figure appeared in the room. It was impossible to see where she came from, but of necessity she must have entered by the door. Jack was a little uncertain on that head, for his glance was not directed towards the door for the moment.

He saw the figure of a woman, young and exceedingly well dressed. She was wearing an evening gown of white satin that showed up the creamy pallor of her skin, for her neck and shoulders were bare. The neck was rather thin, Jack noted, and the shoulders more inclined to muscle than beauty. For a young girl it struck Jack that the upper part of her body looked old. But the face was dark and wholesome, and against the deep eyes and swarthy complexion the girl's hair was dazzling. It was beautiful, rippling hair, changing color as the light flashed upon it.

"Well, this is a bit of an adventure," the watcher told himself. "But where's the person in the room who let the young lady in? Somebody must have let her in, because the door was locked and the key on the inside. I saw it there, so I can swear to that fact. But who is she?"

There were many answers to the problem, for Spencer Anstruther was a man who had countless strange visitors. His vast knowledge of crime and the ramifications of human depravity brought him in contact with large numbers of people. Men and women in distress often came to him, and they came in increasing numbers since Anstruther had got the better of a gang of scoundrels in a recent famous blackmailing case. Sometimes these people came on their own initiative, sometimes they were sent by the police. But Anstruther never said anything about them. He looked upon himself as a confidential agent. Claire could have told of many curious visitors at all hours, though Anstruther never so much as alluded to them afterwards.

But this girl did not look in the least like anybody in trouble. Her dark features were almost expressionless; there was no display of violent emotions there. Her gaze slowly wandered round the room as if looking for something; she had much the aspect of a pupil whose attention is called to a blackboard by a master. As Jack watched, it seemed to him that he had seen this girl before. He could not recollect anybody in the least like her; that contrast of dark skin and fair hair was striking enough to impress itself upon the most careless mind, and yet Jack could not give the face a name. He could not permit himself to believe that he had made a mistake. He knew perfectly well that the expressionless features were quite familiar to him.

The girl stood for some little time, as if waiting for her lesson. Jack's eyes were glued so closely upon her that he did not notice the coming of another person--a man this time. He was a young man, with sleek, well-brushed brown hair, and dark, well-groomed moustache turned up after the fashion affected by the German Emperor. The man was perfectly well appointed, his evening dress and white waistcoat were faultless. His face was strong, but it did not convey anything intellectual. There were scores of such men to be seen any day during the London season, all groomed the same, all apparently finished in the same machine.

The man bowed and smiled to the lady, and she bowed and smiled in return. It was rather a graceful bow; it seemed to Jack that she looked at her companion to see if it were quite correct. Then the two proceeded to talk in dumb show, partly by signs and partly by fingers. The mystery was getting deeper--one of these two was a deaf mute, perhaps both of them. Was this one of Anstruther's cases, or did it possess a far deeper significance?

The solution was beyond Jack Masefield. He might have been on the track of a mystery, and on the other hand he might merely be doing a little vulgar eavesdropping. If it was the latter, and Anstruther found him out, he need not hope to visit Claire at home any more. Anstruther was most particular about these things, as Jack knew; but he set his teeth together and decided to take the risk. He felt pretty sure that there was something here that touched the household deeply.

He turned just for the moment, with an idea that somebody was behind him. But the strip of lawn was quite clear. Jack could see through the belt of trees to the street again beyond, with its great arc light flaring on the yellow face of the mysterious Nostalgo and his starting, half-laughing eyes. That weird face seemed to form a fitting background to the room mystery.

But Jack had his eyes to the slit in the blind again. Inside the pantomime in show was still going on. The girl seemed to be getting a lesson of some kind, and her tutor appeared to be pleased, for he smiled and clapped his hands from time to time. Then he took out his watch and consulted it with a frown. As he glanced up the girl crossed the room to the mantelpiece and opened the face of the clock. With a quick movement she put it back half-an-hour.

The man in the faultless evening dress nodded approval. There was a little pause before he approached the window and stood so that his shadow was picked out clean against the strong light of the room. Then he rapidly signaled with his arm. One arm went up, there was a noise of rings and a flutter of drapery, and then a heavy curtain was jerked over the window, and Jack could see no more. Try as he would, no ray of light could he make out. It was as if the lights had been switched off, leaving the room in utter darkness.

What on earth did it all mean? Beyond doubt the young man in evening dress had signaled to somebody outside when he stood close against the window and raised his arm. Jack congratulated himself on the fact that the slit in the blind was low down, so that he had not to stand against the light. He slipped into the belt of shrubs and watched for a moment, but no further sign came.

What were those people inside going to do? The solution flashed upon Jack instantly. They had not come there so perfectly dressed for the mere sake of seeing Spencer Anstruther. They had not been spending the evening anywhere, dining and that kind of thing beforehand, for they looked too spruce and fresh for that. The woman's toilette in particular had evidently been just donned, as if fresh from the hands of her maid. And she had put the clock back half-an-hour.

"They are going somewhere in half-an-hour," Jack decided. "Hang me if I don't follow them. By the right time it is half-past ten. Anstruther said he should not come up if he failed to get his business finished before eleven, at which time he will expect me to go. I'll go up to the drawing-room and talk to Claire for a little time just to avert suspicion."

He crept back into the house without being seen, he finished his claret, and dropped the stump of his cigarette on to his dessert plate. As he made his way up the stairs the music began again. That music was not the least maddening part of the mystery.

"What a time you have been," Claire said as she tossed her book aside. "All by yourself down there! Really, Jack, you modern young men are so cold-blooded that----"

"I'm not so far as you are concerned, dearest," Jack, said as he kissed the girl. "I had something to do; I was working out a case that puzzled me."

"A case in some way connected with the law, I suppose?" Claire asked.

"Well, yes," Jack replied. He quite believed that the case was connected with the law. "I begin to see my way to its solution. I suppose there is not the slightest chance of your guardian coming up to-night?"

Claire replied that it did not look like it. Evidently the solution of the music problem was not an easy one, for the violin was going again as if it had only just begun.

"It makes me feel creepy," Claire exclaimed. "Fancy the idea of tracking a criminal by means of divine melody like that! Jack, don't you notice something strange about it?"

"I should say that I do," Jack said. "Why, the whole thing--really, I beg your pardon, darling. I--I was thinking about something else. It was the case I alluded to just now."

"My dear boy, you are very strange in your manner to-night," Claire said. "You look pale and distracted. Trust the eyes of love to see anything like that. You haven't bad news for me, Jack?"

Masefield forced a smile to his lips. It was hard work to maintain his ordinary manner in the face of the strange scene that he had witnessed that night.

"I have certainly heard no news since dinner time," he said. "What did you expect me to say?"

"I thought that perhaps you had mentioned me to my guardian; that you had changed your mind, and told him that you and I were going to be married some time."

"No, your name was never mentioned, dearest. Anstruther was full of his case and gave me no opportunity. He went off directly he had finished his tobacco. As a matter of fact, Claire, I am more resolved than ever to say nothing about our engagement to Mr. Anstruther."

"It is very strange that you mistrust him like that, Jack."

"Perhaps it is, little woman. Call it instinct, if you like. I know that women are supposed to hold the monopoly of that illogical faculty. They dislike a man or a woman without being able to say why, and in the course of time that man or woman turns out to be a villain. There is no denying the fact that I feel the same way towards your guardian. I am convinced that once he knows the truth you will be in danger. I said before that he is a poor man, and the enjoyment of your £2,000 during the time----"

"My dear Jack, you are perfectly horrid," Claire murmured. "If I were a nervous girl you would frighten me. As it is, I feel certain that you are utterly wrong. My guardian is one of the most delightful of men. If he were not, plenty of clever people would have found it out. And, besides, why do so many unfortunate people come to him to advise them, which he does with great trouble to himself and no hope of reward?"

Jack admitted that perhaps he was wrong. And he had no desire either to frighten Claire. He had not the slightest intention of telling her what he had discovered that night.

"Let us be less personal," he said. "What was the strange thing that you noticed about your guardian's playing?"

"That it is so much better than usual," Claire said. "There seemed more passion and feeling in the music. My guardian is a brilliant violin player, but I have not hitherto noticed much feeling in his style. Now, listen to the thing that he is playing at present."

"Chopin's Fantasie in F," Jack muttered. "I know it very well indeed. It is a favorite of mine."

There was certainly plenty of expression and feeling in the music. Jack was bound to admit that. The fantasie came to an end with a crash of two chords, and Claire clapped her hands.

"Beautiful!" she cried. "I must really compliment my guardian on the improvement in his style. You are not going already, Jack? It's not quite eleven yet."

"I'm very sorry, dear, but I have that case to look into to-night," Jack said, with perfect truth. He saw that the hands of the big clock on the mantelpiece were creeping on to the hour. "Anstruther won't come up to-night; he said he should be here by eleven if he were. And he gave me a hint not to stay later. I shall see you at the Warings' to-morrow night. Good-night, darling."

Claire put up her red lips to be kissed. She would have seen Jack to the door, but he pointed out that the night was chilly and Claire's dress thin. Neither would he have the butler summoned. His coat and hat were in the hall, and he would get them himself. A moment or two later and he was standing in the garden behind the strip of shrubs. He was quite free to act now; he had nobody in the way. As he stood there, a distant church clock boomed the hour of eleven.

"Now we shall see what we shall see," Jack muttered. "I'm going to find whether there is a mystery of the house or whether these people are merely Anstruther's clients. Oh!"

As he spoke the dark curtain over the study window was pulled back, and the figure of the young man in the evening dress was clean cut against the light. Then a black arm pulled for the catch of the window, and the young man, pushing the blind aside, came out. He was wearing an overcoat now, and a tall hat. He seemed to be waiting for somebody.

Then the figure of the dark-faced, fair-haired girl came out. She was cloaked from head to foot in a blue wrap trimmed with feathers; her fair hair was not covered. No word was spoken, but Jack could see that they were conversing still by signs.

The watcher wondered if he had time to get inside the room. But that little idea was dismissed at the outset, for the young man pushed the window to carefully and the latch clicked. It was quite evident that the long sash closed with a spring lock, which was a most unusual thing for French windows to do. As the strange pair went down the side path Jack stepped into the open. He wanted to assure himself as to the window being fastened. He pulled at it hard, but it did not yield. At the same moment from the window of the room came a strange, brilliant crash of music. Yet that room was absolutely empty, as Jack would have been prepared to swear in any court of England.

"I'll wake up either from a dream or in a lunatic asylum presently," he muttered. "And now for those other people. Good thing they had no idea of being followed."

Jack was in the road now, and taking his way through the quiet nest of squares between Bloomsbury and Regent's Park. He could see his quarry a hundred yards or so before him; there was nobody else, and there was not the slightest chance of those in front being lost. A horse's hoof clicked on the wood pavement as a well-appointed hansom passed the tracker. Then he saw the hansom pull up by the curb and the deaf mutes in front jump in, as if the whole thing had been arranged, and drive off.

The thing was so sudden and unexpected that Jack was nonplused for a moment. There was no chance of following these people, for there probably was not another hansom within half-a-mile of the spot. Jack stood hesitating in the silence of the road; he could hear the steady flick-flack of the horse's hoofs as the rubber-tired hansom hurried on, and then suddenly the horse's hoofs stopped. They had not died out in the distance; they had merely stopped.

Jack hurried forward; he had not given up all hope yet. He might overtake the hansom and by good luck meet an empty one going towards the Strand. As he turned a corner, he saw to his surprise the figure of the young man in evening dress come silently towards him on the other side of the road. Then the stranger crossed the road and turned down the far side of the square as if he were going to complete the circuit and join his cab again. As the man vanished Jack heard a thudding sound, followed by a sound like the tearing of stiff paper, like the rattle of peas on a drum, a queer stifled cry, and then silence. On the impulse of the moment, Jack turned and followed.

At the angle stood a row of houses, some of them being repaired. Jack heard somebody speak to somebody else a little way down the road. He looked across at the opposite houses to see that they were in scaffolding and that they were plastered with bills. A little way above the ground in front of the centre house being repaired was one of the repulsive, clever Nostalgo posters with the yellow face looking out.

But there was something else lying there at full length on the pavement, the body of a man with his face up to the stars. With a little cry Jack crossed the road. Almost instantly a policeman stood by his side.

"Drunk," he said. "A gentleman who's just gone down the road told me a man was lying drunk on the pavement. My word, sir, but he's got the complaint pretty bad."

"He has," Jack said, with a catch in his voice. "The man isn't drunk; he's dead. He's been murdered. Shot through the head and breast. Show your lantern here, officer."

The officer flashed the strong, searching rays on the face of the dead man. As he did so he gave a cry, and pointed to the hoarding behind him with a finger that shook a little.

"Dead, sir, and murdered, beyond doubt," he said. "But that's not the strangest part of it. Look at his face and the expression of his eyes; look at the yellow face and----"

"Good heaven!" Jack cried. "The yellow face, the face of the diabolical poster behind you. As I am a living man, we have found Nostalgo in the flesh."

The dead man grinned up, the poster grinned down. And the face of the dead and the face in the print were exactly the same!

[CHAPTER IV.]

THE SPEAKING LIKENESS.

Masefield looked at the figure on the pavement in a dazed kind of way. Beyond all question there lay the embodiment of the famous Nostalgo poster. London had been discussing the mystery of the poster for weeks already. The amazing hideous cleverness of it had struck the popular imagination, the artistic side of it had appealed to those of culture. Nobody had the least idea what it was intended to convey. Every daily paper promising a correct solution on a certain day would have added tremendously to its circulation.

Then there had been those who had declared that the poster was a portrait; they had held that no artist could imagine a face quite like that. And here was dread confirmation of the theory. Absolutely the poster and the dead man were identical. The same long, thin nose, the same starting eyes, the same suggestion of diabolical cunning in the smile.

In the poster Nostalgo wore a turn-down collar and a loosely-knotted red tie. It was the same with the dead man on the pavement. As to the rest, his dress was conventional enough--a frock coat and gray trousers, a tall silk hat which had rolled into the road.

"Don't you think that you had better search his pockets?" Jack suggested.

The constable replied that it was not a bad idea. But a close examination produced no definite result. There were no papers on the body, nothing beyond a handful of money--gold and silver and coppers all mixed up together in the trousers pocket. There was not even a watch.

"This game's beyond me," the officer muttered, as he blew his whistle. "We must get this poor chap conveyed to the police station. Foreigner, ain't he?"

But Jack could not say. The sweeping, coarse black hair pushed back from the bulging forehead, and the yellow, guinea-colored face suggested the Orient. But the lips were thin like the nose, and these might have belonged to some Spanish hidalgo. It was impossible to decide.

"You were close by," the policeman said. "Didn't you see anything, sir?"

"Nothing whatever," said Jack. "I was just passing along on the side of the square at right angles with this spot. I certainly saw a young man come along, but I didn't notice him much. I expect he was the young man who told you that a 'drunk' awaited you here."

"I expect he was, sir; young man with his moustache turned up like the German Emperor's."

Jack started, but said nothing. It was not for him to say anything of the strange sight that he had seen in Spencer Anstruther's study. The young man in question had left his hansom; probably he had come back for something forgotten; therefore, on the whole, Jack felt that he could not in any way connect him with this mystery.

And yet Spencer Anstruther's young friend must have been close by at the very moment the murder was committed. It seemed impossible to believe that he had not heard that choking cry, and that strange noise like the tearing of calico or the scatter of peas on a tray. But, on the other hand, the murdered man had been shot, and shooting implies noise. Certainly Jack had heard nothing that in any way would be connected with the firing of a revolver.

And yet there was that tearing sound, and the strange fact that the Nostalgo of the poster had tears in him in exactly the same place as the real man who had been wounded. There was a plot calculated to puzzle Spencer Anstruther himself, and Jack said so aloud.

"I don't think as even he'd guess this," the policeman said. "Friend of yours by any chance, sir?"

"I had not left his house five minutes before I found that body," Jack said. "If you like, I will go back and bring Mr. Spencer Anstruther here."

Here was a chance to get at the other business, the mystery of the strange music. It was a legitimate errand enough, but the policeman shook his head. He did not want to take anything so important upon his own shoulders, his inspector being "down on that kind of thing." Two constables with the ambulance came at length. They asked no questions, but hoisted the body up and turned immediately in the direction of Shannon Street police station.

"I think you had better come along, sir," the first policeman suggested to Jack. "It's just possible that the inspector may want to ask you a few questions."

Masefield followed. He smiled just a little as he noted the speaker's tone. If not exactly in custody, he was at least expected to give a good account of himself. To his great relief he found the inspector not in the least disposed to assume the official manner; on the contrary, he seemed rather a timid man, though his eyes were steady enough.

"I have told you everything, sir," Jack said at length. "I only wish it might have been more. If there is any further way in which I can be of assistance to you----"

"You are very good, sir," the inspector said. "What we have to do now is to push the matter forward before the scent gets cold. It is very imperative that we discover who this man is. The first person to apply to is the firm of advertising contractors who posted those bills. Did anybody happen to notice the firm whose hoarding the deceased man was found against?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," Jack said, as the officer shook his head. "Not that that is a sure find for you, Mr. Inspector, seeing that those bills appeared on the hoardings of all the bill-posting firms in London. Still, they may have emanated in the first place from one firm, and perhaps that firm was Freshcombe & Co."

"That being the name on the top of the hoarding we are speaking of?" the inspector asked. "You have a keen eye for detail, sir; it was very smart of you to notice that."

"Not at all; it was almost an accident. The mere fact of finding the prototype of the famous Nostalgo poster was sufficiently startling to brace all one's faculties. In glancing at the hoarding I saw the name of Freshcombe & Co. on the top. The name was impressed upon my memory by the fact that quite recently I appeared for Freshcombe & Co. in an action they brought against a rival firm for damages. That is why I have the name so exact."

The inspector smiled with the air of a man who is well pleased with himself. In that case Mr. Masefield practically knew the head of Freshcombe & Co., and where he lived. In that event the inspector proposed to go direct to the gentleman in question and ask for a few particulars.

"There I can help you again," Jack said. "I had several interviews with Mr. Freshcombe through his solicitor, and one of them took place in Mr. Freshcombe's own house in Regent's Park Crescent."

The inspector waited to hear no more. One of his men would call a cab, and perhaps Mr. Masefield would be good enough to go as far as Regent's Park Crescent and smooth the way. It was getting late now, but Jack had no objection. He was keenly interested in this mystery, and he must get to the bottom of it if he could. He had a few questions to ask as the cab rolled away, but none of them struck the inspector as being to the point. But Jack knew better.

Fortunately Mr. Freshcombe had not gone to bed, though the house was in darkness. The stout little prosperous-looking man of business started as he caught sight of the inspector's uniform. Something in connection with burglary rose uppermost in his mind as he asked his visitors' business.

"I hope there is nothing wrong," he stammered. "Ah, how do you do, Mr. Masefield? Will you gentlemen be so good as to step inside. There is a fire in the dining-room. Anything in the way of a cigar, or----"

But the inspector came to business at once. It was plain that his story interested the listener, for he followed with eyes of rounded astonishment. He punctuated the story with surprised grunts.

"Bless my soul!" he explained. "Whoever would have thought it? I never expected that there was anybody like that famous poster. I had two thousand of them through my hands in the way of business, and they struck me as clever, very clever indeed. Personally, I regarded them as theatrical bills."

"Then you can't tell us anything about them?" the inspector asked, with an air of chagrin.

"Nothing whatever," Freshcombe replied promptly. "As I said before, the posters came to us in the ordinary way of business. There was an air of secrecy about the whole thing."

"Which did not attract your attention? Did not appeal to your suspicions, I mean?"

"Not a bit of it. The advertiser wanted to create an air of mystery and sensation. How well that has been managed I leave you to guess. Being, moreover, exceedingly shrewd, the advertiser did not mean his name to leak out. I received a note one day asking my terms for displaying a thousand of those posters on all the hoardings in London, and my people sent in a quotation."

"That letter came from another business house, I presume, sir?" the inspector asked.

"No, it didn't. It was from a certain Mr. John Smith, and was written from the Hôtel Royale, and on the official paper of the hotel. Three days later the posters arrived per a firm of carriers, and the same afternoon a check drawn by John Smith on the City and Provincial Bank. We cashed the check and posted the bills. I may say that, in the usual course of business, I should not have known this; but I was a little struck by the posters and their mystery, so I made inquiries. I assure you that I have not time to go into these minor details as a rule."

"I am rather disappointed," the inspector said. "I hardly expected this. The mystery of the posters----"

"Was part of the cleverness of the scheme," Freshcombe interrupted. "As a rule, these things leak out and spoil the game. Why, half-a-dozen newspaper men have been asking questions in my office."

"Then you don't even know who printed the posters?" Jack asked. "Have you any more left?"

"I fancy the posters were French," Freshcombe said. "They had evidently been repacked before they came to me. No, we have none left; they were all posted last week. I haven't even one as a specimen."

Mr. Freshcombe would have pushed his hospitality, but the others declined. The inspector was not going to give up the chase like this. Could Mr. Freshcombe find a London Directory, or in any way help him to ascertain the name and address of the manager of the City branch of the City and Provincial Bank? Mr. Freshcombe could supply both details. The bank manager in question was a large shareholder in the firm and enjoyed an important position. As to his residence, it was in Piccadilly, over the bank's branch there. Mr. Carrington was a man of fashion, so that, if he were at home, it was unlikely that he had gone to bed. A moment later and the cab was proceeding towards Piccadilly.

Mr. Carrington was not only at home, but he was entertaining friends. There were lights in all the windows of the handsome suite of rooms over the bank, and a chatter of voices assailed the ears of the callers as soon as the mahogany door was opened. Mr. Carrington was giving an evening party, the footman explained, and he did not like to be disturbed. But the sight of the inspector's uniform was not without its effect, and the intruders were ushered into a little room at the top of the stairs. The door was not quite closed, so that the strangers could see down a handsome corridor into a fine drawing-room beyond. Jack could recognize some of the guests, whereby he knew that Mr. Carrington kept very good company.

"I feel like an intruder," Jack said, as he stood looking out of the room. In his evening dress he might have passed for a guest himself. "If Mr. Carrington is in a position----"

Jack paused suddenly. He was face to face with the third great surprise to-night. For there in the corridor, and coming towards him now, was the fair-haired, dark-skinned girl whom he had seen with the young man in Spencer Anstruther's study. There was no mistake here, no illusion. The girl walked along with her head down, making a sign from time to time to the man by her side. He was a perfect stranger to Jack, who dismissed him from the situation altogether as a mere vacuous man about town. If the woman was here, the youth with the imperial moustache was not far off, Jack thought. "I think that you were going to say something, sir," the inspector ventured. But Jack had quite recovered himself by this time. He made some commonplace remark, and then Mr. Carrington came into the room. He was polite, but not at all anxious for his visitors to remain. Would they be so good as to get to the point. The inspector told his story with considerable brevity. Mr. Carrington was pleased to be interested. It was a strange and startling romance as it stood, but the bank manager did not see his way to afford any solution of this mystery. "I haven't quite finished, sir," the inspector said quietly. "That bill-posting was paid for by a check drawn on your City branch, of which you are manager, by one John Smith. Now, this John Smith----"

"Which John Smith?" Mr. Carrington asked, with a smile. "My good sir, do you know that we have some two thousand five hundred accounts at our City branch? Probably the name of John Smith is the commonest in the world. Without making any very definite statement, I should say that we have over two hundred accounts in the name of Smith, and probably a third of them John Smith. I can quite understand your anxiety to get on the track of the right man without delay, but that could not possibly be done to-night. I could not even get at the ledgers without two of the cashiers being present. But I will make it a point to be at the bank at ten o'clock to-morrow morning and meet you there. It is impossible to do any more to-night."

The inspector nodded his head somewhat sadly. He quite saw the force of what Mr. Carrington was saying. He could do no more than make an appointment for the following day. He wished Carrington good-night and turned to go, followed by Masefield. In the corridor somebody called Jack by name. He turned to see a colleague of the junior Bar standing before him.

"Hullo!" the latter said, "where did you turn up from? I had an idea that you were a friend of Carrington's. Get your coat off and join us in a game of bridge." The situation was just a little embarrassing, but Carrington came to the rescue. Masefield was dressed for the part, so to speak, and would he not remain? There would be dancing presently, and----

But Jack decided promptly. He whispered the inspector to precede him and wait for him in the cab. Carrington passed on as Jack stood just a moment chatting with his old friend and school-fellow.

"I came here to-night on rather important business," he said. "There is no occasion to go into that now. But I want you to do something for me, my dear fellow. In hunting up one mystery I feel pretty sure that I have come on the track of another. There is a deaf and dumb girl here--there she is, with that Johnny chap in the resplendent white waistcoat. I want you to find out who she is and where she comes from."

"That's all right," Richard Rigby responded. "Nice-looking girl, with fair hair and dark eyes. Sort of striking theatrical get-up, don't you think?"

"Well, now you mention it, perhaps it is rather in that way. But that isn't all, Dick; unless I am greatly mistaken, the girl came here with a fair chap whose moustache is turned up after the fashion of the German Emperor. Find out all about him, too, and I'll look you up at your chambers the first thing in the morning. I must not keep my friend waiting. Good-night."

Jack passed along the corridor in the direction of the staircase. There were many palms and ferns there, with screens behind which people could sit and not be seen except by their partners. Jack paused with his foot on the thick pile of the carpet, for just in front of him was the girl with the southern face and fair hair. Her head was still bent low, her fingers were working. What her companion was like Jack could not quite make out, for his back was turned. The girl looked up at him with a flash of anger in her eyes, her lips moved, and sound certainly came from them. Jack could just catch the words.

"Don't drive me too far," she said. "Take care and not drive me too far, because----"

The girl suddenly lapsed into silence again and her fingers began to work. The couple passed behind a screen of palms and ferns, and Jack could see them no more.

"Well, this has been a night and a half," he said. "Where is it going to end? I wonder if my friend the inspector will be disposed to accept my suggestion?"

The inspector gave Jack's suggestion the most careful attention. He had not thought of it before.

"We'll go back to the scene of the murder," Jack said. "There is a strong electric light in front of the hoarding, and the Nostalgo poster is only a few feet from the ground. Moreover, it has only recently been put up, and it is quite clean and fair. Depend upon it, there is some trade-mark upon the bill, even if it is only a cipher. Of course, you see the importance of finding out who posted that bill?"

"Of course, sir. How do you propose to get at the facts?"

"By examining the bill with the aid of a strong magnifying glass. I have no doubt that, being a detective, you have such a thing in your pocket at the present moment? Good. Then, all you have to do is to order the cab to drive to the corner of Panton Street and stop there."

The cab arrived at length and the occupants dismounted. They did not take the cab quite as far as the scene of the murder for obvious reasons, but walked on there alone. It was quite still now, and nobody was about save a passing policeman, who had orders to give notice if anybody was coming. It was just as well that the curiosity of passers-by should not be aroused.

"Now for it," Jack said, breathing a little faster in his excitement. "Perhaps we had better have the assistance of your lantern as well. I thought that the poster was there. It was there. I'll swear that that is the very spot, just where that picture of the pretty girl taking the pills is. Good heavens, man, the poster has gone! It has been covered up since we were here before by that mustard advertisement. At the hour after midnight the thing has been done. But the right thing must be underneath. See! The poster is wet!"

Jack advanced to tear the poster down, but the inspector pulled him roughly aside.

"Don't touch it," he said hoarsely. "Whatever you do, don't touch it. Wait!"

[CHAPTER V.]

A VANISHED CLUE.

Jack Masefield paused for Inspector Bates to say more. Possibly the officer was possessed of some brilliant idea, but after the first glance at his face it was easy to see that he was as nonplused as Jack himself. It was only the professional caution that spoke; there was no illumination at the back of the policeman's brain.

"I had hoped that perhaps you had discerned something," Masefield said.

"Not quite that, sir," Bates admitted. "So far I am as much in the dark as you are yourself, but my experience is that nothing is to be gained by haste. What I mean is that a thoughtless movement often destroys a clue of the utmost value. I should like to stand here for a moment and consider my position."

Jack drily remarked that there could be no objection to the course proposed by Inspector Bates. It was very late now; there was nothing to be seen, so that the train of thought of the inspector was not likely to be interrupted. He stood facing the great boarded hoarding with its wealth of gaudy pictorial advertisements, but his face did not lighten, and the moody frown was still on his brow.

"Blessed if I can make anything of it," he said in vexed tones. "Here's a man found dead under the most amazing circumstances. There seems to be no motive for the crime; nothing has been removed from the body so far as we know; the man evidently died where he fell. That he was killed I dare say the medical examination will show."

"So far the crime is commonplace and vulgar enough," Jack Masefield suggested. "Scores of these things happen in London every year. Some are found out, but some remain mysteries to the end of time; but this particular crime seems to be peculiarly terrible. First of all, London for some time has been doubly attentive to the yellow-faced posters. No greater advertising circular has ever appealed to the public. Nostalgo is a personality about as great as some of our leading actors. Still, nobody has really regarded Nostalgo as a living force, and I find him dead on the pavement here right in front of one of his own posters. Is that coincidence or an amazing happening?"

"Both, I should say, sir," Bates replied. "An amazing happening in any case. But to find the man dead in front of one of his own posters may be no more than a coincidence. You see, there are so many Nostalgo posters about."

But Jack was loth to give up his point.

"I admit that," he said; "but the particular poster we find up is a fresh one. It was more or less shot-marked, as I pointed out to you; it was marked much as the body of the dead man was marked. If you remember, I suggested examining the poster by means of a magnifying glass, in the hope of finding some kind of printer's trade-mark, and we come back here for that purpose. We find the poster pasted over with a commonplace advertisement of somebody's mustard. Surely that is not coincidence. For some reason or other the poster was covered by design. It is not the habit of the bill-poster to go about the work at midnight."

"Ah, there you are not altogether correct, sir," Bates exclaimed. He felt that he was on pretty safe ground now. "The working bill-poster is not tied to time. He has a certain amount of work to do, and he does it pretty well when he pleases. Sometimes they have to work very late. For instance, a stock piece put up at a theatre may prove a draw, and the management desire to keep it going for a time. Then there is work late at night for some firm of the paste-pot."

"Quite so, inspector; but does that apply to the harmless, necessary mustard advertisement?"

"Not directly, perhaps. But suppose there had been a sudden rush of new and urgent work, the routine would have fallen behind. Please understand that the bill-poster does not career round in a casual way, sticking up a poster just where it suits his fancy. All these hoardings are rented, and big advertisers contract to have so many sheets displayed every week; in fact, it is a most desultory business. Depend upon it, the bill-poster who so lately posted up that alluring mustard tin had nothing to do with the business."

It was all so logical and conclusive that Jack was compelled to drop further argument. At the same time, it seemed rather foolish to stand there doing nothing.

"Look here," he said, struck by a sudden idea; "why not pull that mustard poster down, and get at the real source of the truth. The paper is still wet, and I dare say we might find a ladder behind the hoarding. Let us pull it down, and take the whole thing to the police-station and examine it at our leisure."

There was no objection to this, as Bates was bound to admit. It was a very easy matter to find a way behind the hoarding and secure the firmest of many ladders. A short one was sufficient for the purpose, and very soon the great sheet that contained the mustard advertisement was pulled off the wooden hoarding and lay in a heap on the pavement. In the place of it, fresh and strong, was the yellow face of Nostalgo. Jack took the inspector's lamp and regarded the poster carefully by the magnifying glass. But there was no imprint to be seen, nothing to lead to the identity of the firm who printed the placard.

"I can make nothing whatever of it," Masefield was fain to admit at last. "There are the shot holes plainly marked, as if somebody had used an air-gun or a pea-rifle. Beyond that I can see absolutely nothing of the slightest significance. The best thing for us to do is to see the contractor who has the job in hand in the morning, and get him to saw the poster out of the wooden hoarding for you. The strong light of day may make a difference; but I am not as yet absolutely satisfied that that mustard poster was placed exactly on the top of the yellow face quite by accident."

Bates did not contest the point. He was getting tired and sleepy, and it was very late. "Very well," he said, "we will return to the police station in Shannon Street and have another look at the dead man. It is just possible we may find something there. At the same time, it may be just as well to be on the safe side. I'll get one of my men to come here and keep an eye on the hoarding to-night. It is on the cards that he may see something suspicious. I'll send a plain clothes man here to watch."

As Bates blew softly on his whistle a constable turned up and saluted. He was to stay where he was until relief came, Bates explained. Then he and Jack Masefield went off in the direction of Shannon Street station. The place was perfectly quiet; nobody had been brought in lately; there was no sign of the tragedy here. In a rack near the back, lighted by a skylight some six feet from the ground, lay the murdered body of the man with the yellow face. The malignant look had gone from his face; he seemed calm and placid. As Jack bent over him it seemed to him that there was a movement of the heart. He pointed this out to the inspector, who shook his head.

"People not accustomed to these things often make the same mistake," he said. "I have heard witnesses swear that the body of this or that man was not bereft of life, and in this belief they have been quite certain. Then a doctor comes along and proves beyond a doubt that death has taken place perhaps five or six hours before. Muscular action is what probably deceives people. That poor fellow is dead enough."

Masefield did not argue the matter. It was a sickening business, and he felt that he would gladly see the end of it. Not so Bates, who was inured to this kind of thing. Very rapidly and skilfully he went over the body in search of anything that might be likely to lead to the identification of the deceased. But the pockets were doubtless empty; there was no watch or chain, or purse, no marking on the linen.

"Not even a laundry mark?" Jack suggested. "If my reasoning is correct, a laundry mark has frequently proved of the greatest assistance."

"No mark whatever," said Bates. "The shirt, for instance, is of ordinary make, the class of thing that one buys ready-made at a shop, and which has usually its maker's mark on. There has been a mark of some kind on the neck band, but it looks as if it had been blocked out with chemicals. See how much whiter and thinner the neck band is. We are simply wasting our time here."

Jack said nothing; he could only shake his head sadly. The more the mystery came to be probed the more maddening did it become. A close investigation of the clothing presented as little result; there was nothing even about the boots to prove where they had been made. If the man was a criminal, and his general air suggested that, he had taken the most amazing precaution to prevent identification in case of accidents. Jack looked at the clear, dark features. This was no man to take anybody into his confidence. Success or failure, or crime, must all be undertaken alike alone and unaided. This face would never have led anybody to rejoice with him in good fortune, or sympathize with him in failure.

"Well, I think I had better be getting to my rooms," Masefield said. "I have given you my name and address. I'll come round to-morrow and see if you have made anything out of the poster in the daylight. One thing is pretty certain--there should be no difficulty, if a determined effort is made, to discover the people who printed the picture of the yellow face. There are not many firms in this country capable of such work."

"There is the Continent," Bates suggested. "I'm afraid that it will be very much like looking for a needle in a hayrick. Still----"

What deep philosophical remark Bates was going to make Masefield was not destined to hear, for at the same moment there was the sound of a sudden disturbance in the office beyond. The hoarse voice of a sergeant was heard demanding to know what this little game meant, there was a groan, and the collapse of a heavy body on the floor. Bates strode into the office.

"What is all this row about?" he demanded.

"It's Gregory, sir," the sergeant replied. "Went off half-an-hour ago on some special work for you, or so he said,and here's he back as drunk as a lord; regularly collapsed on the floor, he did. It's not the first time, either."

A sudden suspicion burst upon Masefield. He knelt by the side of the plain clothes man and felt his heart. There was a peculiar red mark round the man's neck as if something had been pulled very tightly round it.

"The man is no more drunk than I am," Jack said. "He has been attacked, and his breath is wholly free from any suspicion of drink. Look at that mark round his neck."

Very slowly the prostrate man struggled to a sitting position. When the fact had once been ascertained that there was no suggestion of intoxication, brandy was administered to him. He had a strange story to tell. He was carrying out instructions when suddenly somebody came behind him and placed a rope round his neck. Before he could recover himself he was partially strangled; he lost consciousness and lay on the pavement. When he came to himself again he was quite alone. He had managed to struggle back to the station, and once there had collapsed on the floor. Robbery was not the motive, for he had lost nothing.

"It's all part of the same mystery," Jack decided. "Something was going on behind that hoarding, and the criminals did not want the policeman to see. I shall walk back to my rooms that way. No, you had better not come along, inspector, in case you are spotted. I shall just walk very coolly by and keep my eye on that hoarding. Good-night!"

There was nothing more to be done, so Masefield was allowed to depart. He had ample food for thought as he walked along the deserted streets. He came at length to the great hoarding where the poster had stood. He stopped just for a moment, almost too amazed to move; then he forced himself to go forward again. For the striking Nostalgo poster was gone. It had been sawn neatly out of the boards of the hoardings leaving a blank square eye in its place!/p>

[CHAPTER VI.]

VANISHED!

It was not to be supposed that this had happened without attracting the Argus eye of the Press. The nightbirds of journalism had been hovering about, seeking their prey of sensational copy. They haunted the police station with a hope that something might turn up--the hope that every reporter has that sooner or later he may happen on a good thing that has in it the making of some columns of red-hot descriptive matter.

One of them, hungry and lynx-eyed, had seen the body of Nostalgo carried to Shannon Street station. There might have been a paragraph then; there might have been a column. At any rate, the chance was too good to be lost. The reporter was on the best of terms with the police for a square mile or so; indeed, his living more or less depended on the good fellowship of the local authorities. The sergeant had first of all set the ball rolling; the reporter had seen the body; he had no difficulty in recognizing the striking likeness between the dead man and the poster. Younger men would have rushed off at once and made a long paragraph of this, manifolded it, and sent it broadcast along Fleet Street.

But not so the old and cunning hand at the game; his instinct told him that there was more to come. There was more to come, probably in the shape of the shaken Gregory, who presently told the reporter his part of the story. This was a case when a cab was justified. Half-an-hour later the reporter was closeted with the chief sub-editor of the Daily Planet,a halfpenny morning paper dealing largely in sensations. The sub-editor's eye gleamed as he listened to the reporter's story. This was something after his own heart.

"Write two columns of it," he said. "You can use Daly's room. Serve it up as hot as you can with plenty of scare heads. We'll give it the first place on page five. You had better have a stenographer, as time is pressing." Therefore it came about that the half million or so of readers of the Planet had the shock at breakfast the following day. With its tally of many dazzling sensations, the Planet had never been more successful than in this. The thing was admirably done. The mystery was puzzling to a degree. Before ten o'clock the following morning London was talking of little else. It was discussed in the train, on the top of the omnibus, in City offices. The name of Nostalgo was on every lip.

The editor-in-chief and the chief shareholder in the Planet Company came down to the office very early in the forenoon, an action quite unusual with him. But his keen instinct scented a good thing for the Planet here. The thing was exclusively his own, and he meant to work it to the last ounce. The little man with the bald head and gold-rimmed monocle had created a pretty scheme by the time he had reached his office. Without loss of time he sent for Mr. Richard Rigby. Rigby came in response to the summons. He found journalism more remunerative than the Bar.

"This is the best thing we have ever had," Mr. Van Jens said in his staccato way. "I'm just going to show the British public what an American journalist can do with the thing. It's pretty clear to me that the police have blundered, as they always do, and that they have got right off the track of the truth. We're going to solve the mystery, Rigby, and you're the man I have picked out to do it. In the first place, you are a clever actor, and you have pluck. Go about it in your own way, and take your own time. Never mind the expense; spend £1,000 if necessary. Only get to the bottom of the thing, if it's merely to prove to the police that they can't do without the Press. By the way, isn't Masefield a friend of yours?"

Rigby admitted that such was the case. He did not pretend to follow the quick working of his chief's brain; few men were competent to do that. Van Jens was leaning over the Planet in order to read the report of the Nostalgo affair.

"I saw Masefield last night," Rigby said. He did not tell Van Jens that Jack had met him at Carrington's, for that was a matter concerning Masefield alone. "Do you think he is likely to be of any assistance to me?"

"It is just possible. You see it was Masefield who actually found the body of the man who we call Nostalgo. It is possible also that Masefield knows more than our reporter got to find out. You had better hint to Masefield that there is a chance of getting a commission from us to write a serial for one of our weekly journals--he is in the way of doing that kind of thing. Anyway, get him to regard it in a favorable light. If you handle the man properly, I feel quite sure that he will offer you valuable information."

Rigby nodded. He did not tell Van Jens that Jack Masefield was a close friend of his, for that point had nothing to do with Van Jens, who regarded Rigby as the typical smart unit of the smart paper, and none too scrupulous where men were concerned. As a matter of fact Rigby had his code of honor; possibly his chief would not have considered it. Come what might, Rigby was not likely to take any advantage of Masefield.

"All right," he said; "you may rely upon me to do all that I can. By the way, if I am to take this case in hand, I must not be tied as to time. I mean, that somebody else must be drafted out to do my regular work and--and to say nothing if I don't show up here regularly. I think that only fair."

"Only fair, it is," Van Jens replied. "I'll see to all that. And I'll leave instructions with the counting house that you are to draw on me to the extent of £1,000 if necessary. And now you had better go off to Masefield without delay."

It was not yet eleven o'clock, and Rigby felt pretty certain of finding Masefield at home. He was perfectly correct in his conclusions, for Jack was busy just putting the finishing touches to a short magazine story. The morning papers lay in a pile on the table, but as yet he had not had time to open them. Rigby helped himself to a cigarette.

"Hope I don't intrude," he said. "If I am in the way, kick me out at once."

"You are never in the way here, Dick," Masefield smiled. "As a matter of fact, I have just passed the last page of this story for the Grasshopper. It's always a pleasure to sit down and write a story when you have a fair commission for it."

"You will soon have plenty of them, my boy," Rigby said cheerfully, "especially now that you've got your name in the papers. Seen the Planet to-day? You haven't? Well, you are pretty prominent on page five, let me tell you. One of our men got hold of that sensational Nostalgo business, and then made a picture of it. Just run your eye along the report, and tell me what you think of it. Pretty hot, isn't it? Now can you tell me anything?"

"Anything fresh in regard to the affair you mean?"

"You've got it first time. As a matter of fact, Van Jens has placed the thing in my hands, and I'm to get to the bottom of it if it costs the paper £1,000. Van Jens suggested that I should come and see you and pump you. The bait to you is a commission for a big serial in one of our weeklies. But apart from all that, Jack, I'm quite sure that you will be ready to help me for old sake's sake."

"Of course I will," Masefield said heartily. "Really, there is very little to tell; your man seems to have got it down very fine. But I can tell you all about the shot marks and the missing poster, only you must not publish that."

"My dear fellow, you don't quite understand my position. I'm not sent as a mere scare writer in this business; I'm more of an amateur detective, with a pocket full of money. My task is to beat the police at their own game, and prove the superior intellectual force of the Press. Then I shall write the whole story, and the Planet
circulation will go up to a million."

"Then I'll tell you all that there is to know," Jack replied. "When I have finished my story, I shall have a few questions to ask you. Get your note-book out."

Rigby had no cause for complaint on the score of Masefield's narrative. In the description of the shot marks and the subsequently missing poster he felt that he had conquered a fine point of the situation. He took another cigarette, and Jack did the same. "Now I'm going to ask you a few questions," the latter said, "and I should not be surprised that in replying to my queries we throw some fresh light on the object of your search. You will recollect meeting me at Carrington's last night?"

"Of course I do. I took you for a fellow quite above that kind of thing--playing the amateur detective."

"Notably, as I was in evening dress. As a matter of fact I had been dining with Spencer Anstruther, and it was in leaving his house that I found the body of the man we had better call Nostalgo. Of course I recognized him by the likeness to the poster. Subsequently Inspector Bates and myself discovered the name of the firm who posted the creation. We went off to see the head of the firm, and he could tell us very little, except that the placards came from some John Smith, who had an account with the City and Provincial Bank. The latter fact accounts for my being at Carrington's last night."

"Exactly. And you asked me to keep my eye on a pretty girl, who was deaf, and who had for attendant cavalier a chap with a moustache like that of the German Emperor."

"I am coming to that," Masefield went on. "I told you that I had been dining with Anstruther. Now these two people left Anstruther's house, for I followed them. I will tell you a more striking thing about them later on, but I want to have my side of the affair cleared up first. Tell me what happened after I left Carrington's with Inspector Bates.

"Well, I kept my eye on these people, as you asked me. I tried to get some information about the fair one from Carrington himself, but he didn't seem to like the subject. He seemed depressed and a little bit uneasy, I thought; said it was a sad case, sort of relation of his, and that the man with the moustache was a foreign count or something of that sort. I wouldn't press the matter, as it would have been in bad taste, you see. But, all the same, I did keep an eye on these people, as you asked me, and the end of it was that I followed them when they left the house. I don't know what made me do it."

"At any rate I'm glad you acted in that manner," Jack said. "Did they go back in the direction of Anstruther's house? Did they take a cab?

"Not in the ordinary acceptance of the word," Rigby explained. "They walked as far as the top of Regent Circus, where a private growler was waiting. The cab was all black, the driver had a black livery. I could not see his face, as it was tied up with a silk handkerchief as if the fellow had toothache or something of that kind. The four-wheeler was evidently waiting for them, for they got in at once."

"Anybody else inside the cab?" Jack asked.

"By Jove, I was nearly forgetting that!" Rigby exclaimed. "I was just flush with the cab as it passed a lamp. There was another figure in the cab, a man, and as the light shone on his face I was about staggered by his resemblance to the poster of Nostalgo. I only saw the face just for an instant, but it is impressed upon my mind as if the man were standing before me at this very minute. Singular, was it not?"

Jack nodded dumbly. This was another new departure in the strange mystery. For the man seen by Rigby in the black four-wheeler could not possibly have been the same Nostalgo that Jack had found, seeing that the latter had been lying in Shannon Street some hour or two before the time that Rigby was speaking about.

"You did not follow them further, I suppose?" Masefield asked.

"No; I didn't go as far as that. And at the moment I didn't think anything as to that Nostalgo business No. 1, so to speak. If I had, you may bet your bottom dollar that I should not have lost the opportunity. The cab drifted away without any direction being given; so I went along, without giving it more consideration, to my club. Eh, what?"

Inspector Bates had hurried into the room without ceremony. His face was pale and agitated.

"Something strange come out at the inquest?" Jack asked.

"No, sir," Bates gasped, "for the simple reason that there has been no inquest. You can't hold an inquest without a body. What do I mean? Why, that the body has vanished from the room, leaving not a hint of a clue behind!"

[CHAPTER VII.]

NO. 4, MONTROSE PLACE.

The inspector stood there with his hand on his heart, as if he had run far and fast. So far as Jack could see, Bates was suffering from some strong emotion. He flopped down in the chair indicated for him, and took Jack's proffered cigarette with a shaking hand. Although his feelings were not exactly under the control one would have expected from one of the leading lights of Scotland Yard, there was at the same time a certain suggestion of grim humor playing about the corners of his mouth. Jack looked across at Rigby and smiled significantly.

"Evidently a new development of the case," Jack said, glancing once more at his friend. "As a matter of fact, inspector, I have just been telling Mr. Rigby all about last night's ghastly business. By the way, you will recollect, of course, that Mr. Rigby is my friend whom we met at Mr. Carrington's last night. Not to make too long a story of it, there are sidelights of this business of which you are not at present aware--but all that is beside the point. What I want you to tell me is about this disappearance of the body of Nostalgo. Seriously, do you want my friend and me to believe that the body of a dead man has disappeared from Shannon Street police station right under the eyes of the authorities?"

"Well, that is about the size of it," Bates admitted ruefully. "Naturally enough, we look forward to important developments at the official inquiry. I had a chat late last night with the doctor, who seemed to be of the opinion that the dead man had been shot with something quite new in the way of a weapon."

"What, do you mean a new projectile or a new sort of small arm?" Masefield asked.

"Well, not exactly that," the inspector replied; "but something quite new in the way of a missile. There were marks on the breast of our unfortunate friend which indicated the presence of a shot of some kind that did mortal damage without leaving traces of anything material behind."

"Oh, that is all very well, so far as it goes; but what I want to get at chiefly is the cause of the disappearance of the body," Rigby put in impatiently. "What is the good of trying to establish all sorts of new theories when you have not so much as a dead body of the deceased man before you? It seems incredible to me that this outrage could have been committed in a police station. Was no one about--was the whole place deserted, whereby some stranger could have coolly stepped in and walked off with the body of a powerful man?"

"Well, that is not so difficult as it might seem," Bates said eagerly. "As a matter of fact, our mortuary is merely an outside room which at one time had been used as a kitchen. Mr. Masefield will recollect last night noticing that the light of the room consisted entirely of a kind of skylight. The ceiling is exceedingly low, so that it would be quite possible for a tall man to lift the body through and carry it away without the least trouble, provided, of course, that he had sufficient strength. At any rate, there it is, and we have to make the best of it."

"I hope that you have managed to keep this matter from the public so far," Masefield said. "I don't think anything will be gained by allowing this new sensation to get into the papers. The best thing we can do is to come round to Shannon Street with you and see if we can lay our hands upon anything in the way of a clue. My friend Mr. Rigby has had a lot of experience in amateur detective work; I dare say you recollect his success in the matter of the Mortlake coiners, on behalf of the Planet."

Bates expressed his willingness to fall in with this arrangement. Not that he had any particular confidence in amateur detectives generally; but he was so bewildered and disheartened at present that anything was preferable to his own painful thoughts. The police station was reached at length, and a thorough search of the shabby little apartment at the back of the office made. But no amount of investigation served to throw any light on this new phase of the mystery. It was even as Bates had said: with the darkness of the night, and expecting no developments of this kind, a bold and unscrupulous character might easily have entered the room and taken away anything, however bulky, without much chance of detection.

Nothing daunted by the want of success attending his efforts, Rigby climbed on to the roof and looked around him. He was particularly struck by the deserted area at the back of the police station. It was some distance from his coign of vantage to the nearest house. No doubt at one time the open space had consisted of fertile gardens, but the same space was now given over to arid grass and a few stunted trees--a scene of desolation indeed. On the opposite side, some two hundred yards away, the backs of a terrace of large houses looked blankly on the scene. Rigby, with a new idea entirely in his mind, inquired the name of the terrace. Bates smiled with the superior air of the professional, and replied that it was Montrose Place.

"And what class of people live there?" Rigby asked.

"Well, rather mixed, I should say," Bates replied. "There was a time, not so many years ago, when Montrose Place was quite fashionable. Mind you, they're exceedingly good houses, quite good enough for any moneyed class; but I understand that the landlord is by no means a liberal man, and, as the houses have fallen out of repair, they have become void."

Any further information on this head was cut short by the sudden calling away of the inspector. It seemed to Masefield that Rigby was by no means disposed to mourn for the official's company. He stood with his brows bent frowning at the sombre row of houses in front of him, but, from the quick working of his hands, Masefield could see that his versatile friend's brain was busy.

"I see you have made a discovery," Masefield said quietly. "Would you mind telling me what it is?"

Rigby pointed to the fourth house from the end of the terrace. Did Masefield notice anything about it peculiar? he asked. But Masefield did not see anything about the house at all ominous or suggestive, except that the windows were grimy and dirty, and that the erstwhile fashionable silk blinds were hanging in tatters like banners behind the murky glass.

"But surely you see something?" asked Rigby impatiently. "For instance, take the third window on the left over the ledge, which probably is that of the bathroom. Don't appear to be looking, and, at the same time, keep your eye casually on the window."

With a quickening of his pulses, Masefield glanced up in a vague kind of way in the direction of the window. He felt instinctively that in some way the deserted house was involved in the disappearance of Nostalgo. There was not much time for speculation on this point. Very slowly and cautiously the blind was raised, and a haggard face peeped out. It was like a picture from some old print, this strange weird yellow face behind the grimy glass. So thick was the murky dust upon the casement that it was impossible at so short a distance to decide whether the features were those of a man or a woman. Anyway, the face, if it were that of a man, was clean-shaven, the pale head half hidden behind a tangle of thick black hair. It was only for a moment that this weird face presented itself to the eager eyes of the spectators below; an instant later and the whole phantom had vanished.

"Now, what do you think of that?" Rigby asked eagerly. "Don't you agree with me that this strange apparition has something to do with the story? Now, supposing you or I had some powerful inducement for getting hold of the missing body, could we find a better place to work from than that deserted house?"

"Provided always that it is deserted," Masefield said guardedly. "Don't let's go quite so fast. Surely your own experience must have taught you what strange creatures one often sees as caretakers in good houses?"

"So much the better for me," Rigby replied. "If you are correct in your suggestion, it will make my task all the more easy; for, come what may, I am going to see the whole inside of that place before I sleep to-night."

Rigby walked back into the police station with the air of a man who has said his last word on the matter. It was no advantage to him, working as he was on behalf of his own newspaper, to mention his discovery to Bates. Possibly Masefield's common-sense view of the problem might have been the correct one, after all, in which case Bates would have had the laugh of his unprofessional ally. But Bates had evidently been called out on other business, so that there was no occasion to say anything to him at all. Declining to return to Masefield's rooms and there discuss the matter further over tea, Rigby went thoughtfully back to the office of the Planet. He dined alone at his club, lingering till about ten o'clock over the evening papers, and then proceeded on his way to Montrose Place by the somewhat circuitous route of Covent Garden.

But there was more method in Rigby's madness than met the eye. The sleek, well-groomed barrister and journalist who entered the shop of Jonas the costumier shortly after ten o'clock, emerged a little before eleven carefully and effectually disguised as a seller of newspapers. Then, with the fag-end of a cigarette of doubtful quality in his mouth, he slouched along towards his destination.

Montrose Place from a front view was considerably more prepossessing than the similar outlook that presented itself from the back. At least half the houses were tenanted by people of means, judging from the neatness of the blinds and the amount of light displayed in the various windows. Yet, at the same time, it was quite evident that Bates' estimate was fairly correct.

The first three houses in the terrace bore plates of highly polished brass, testifying to the fact that doctors were not lacking in the locality. No. 4, however, stood out in marked contrast to its neighbors. There was no chance of Rigby's presence there exciting undue suspicion, for there was not a soul to be seen in the terrace.

Emboldened by this fact, Rigby had no hesitation in lighting a vesta and making a comprehensive examination of the door-steps. They were dirty enough in all conscience; no housemaid had knelt there for many months or even years past; but Rigby's sharp eyes did not fail to note the fact that some one more than once recently had left footprints on the grimy flags. They were not dearly indented footprints; indeed, there was a misty hesitation about them which at first puzzled the amateur detective exceedingly.

He struck another match after looking cautiously up and down the terrace. Nobody was in sight; the precaution was quite unnecessary; the blue flame picked out the misty footprints grimed into the filthy steps, and then Rigby understood. Whoever made those marks had been wearing rubber-soled shoes.

"And new shoes at that," Rigby muttered to himself. "I can see the pattern in the centre of the sole clearly indented now. And the prints go and come up and down the steps quite regularly. Now, the fact that somebody comes here and wears new rubber shoes makes it clear that the wearer has been here very recently. It is also evident that the wearer wears rubber-soled tennis shoes so as to make no noise. I feel pretty certain that I am going to learn something now."

But Rigby was a little too sanguine. In the first place, he had to gain admission to the house, the front door of which was locked. It was perhaps a significant fact that, though the lock of the door was green with rust, the edge of the rim of the hole where the latch-key indented was bright and clear at the edges.

"Evidently used regularly," Rigby went on. "Now, the ordinary caretaker does not usually sport a latch-key; he or she generally uses the area door. I should not wonder if the area window was open; I'll try it."

The area window was not open, but the loose catch had been carelessly pushed to. The blade of a stout penknife sufficed to prize the catch, and a moment later Rigby was in the housekeeper's room, safe from all outside observation.

There was no sign of life here; no vestige of it on the stairs leading to the big rooms overhead. Rigby could not but notice what a fine house it was; the last tenant had evidently been lavish in the way of decorations. With a match in his hand carefully shaded from the window, Rigby crept up the stairs. He could see in the dust lying there the constantly repeated footprint of the rubber shoe, indicating that the owner of that shoe was in the habit of spending a great deal of time there.