THE MASTER CRIMINAL

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

• Gutter Tragedies
• Children of Earth
• The Folly of the Wise
• The Motor Pirate
• The Cruise of the Conquistador
• The Lady of the Blue Motor

"Five or seven? It won't matter much, will it?"

THE
MASTER CRIMINAL

BY

G. SIDNEY PATERNOSTER

Author of "The Cruise of the Conquistador,"
"The Lady of the Blue Motor,"
"The Motor Pirate," etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES JOHNSON POST

NEW YORK
THE CUPPLES & LEON CO.
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
G. SIDNEY PATERNOSTER

All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

THE MASTER CRIMINAL

CHAPTER I
"LET THEM GET WHO HAVE THE POWER, AND LET THEM KEEP WHO CAN"

The night was of velvety blackness—one of those soft, warm, dark nights of June when the southwest wind rolls a cloud-curtain over the stars, when the air is heavy with unshed rain, when lamps burn dully, and when a nameless oppression broods over the face of the land.

Seated at an open casement looking out into the London night was a woman. Her hands grasped each other over her knee with a tense grip which gave the lie to the calm of her face. Hers was a face to which in repose Rossetti would have woven an adoring sonnet, though not as to another "lazy, laughing, languid Jenny, fond of a kiss, and fond of a guinea," but a sonnet of purity and peace. Yet if the sonnet had been written, and the woman had read, the full scarlet lips which seemed to have gathered into them all the colour from her face, would have parted in scornful laughter.

Her eyes, a part of the night into which they gazed, had dull shadows beneath them, painted there by weariness, yet she still sat motionless in a strained attitude of expectation.

Her sole companion, seated a few yards away in an easy chair, looked up at her occasionally from a book which he held in his hand and smiled.

Lynton Hora, the Commandatore, as he chose to be called by the members of his household, was in quite another way an equally interesting type of humanity. He was a man of seventy inches, broad shouldered and lean flanked, with well-poised head. His hair was grey at the sides, his face was clean-shaven. Seen lounging in the easy chair, with his face in the shadow, he appeared to be a man of not more than forty—an old-young student, perhaps, for there were thought lines on his brow and his cheeks were almost as pallid as those of the woman at the window. Such an impression would, however, have been speedily put to flight, immediately he looked up. Then there could be no mistaking the man of action. The keen, hard, grey eyes, the domineering nose, the firmly cut lips, labelled him definitely—conclusively.

Presently the woman altered her position. The in-drawing of her breath, as she turned from the window, might have been a sigh. She looked around at her companion.

He seemed conscious of the movement, as, without lifting his eyes, he asked lazily: "Tired, Myra?"

She strove to reproduce the quietude of his tone as she replied: "A little. What's the time now, Commandatore?" but there was a tremor in her voice, which showed clearly that she was not so indifferent as she wished to appear.

The man tossed down his book.

"Listen," he said.

Almost as if in answer to his summons the voice of Big Ben floated softly in through the window—one—two.

"He ought to be back by now," she said, and rising, she began to rearrange the roses in a bowl on a table near.

"I don't expect Guy for another hour at least," said the man carelessly, though he watched the woman keenly as he spoke. "After that—well, if we don't see him in an hour, we shall probably not see him for five years, at least."

The woman winced as from a blow.

"Five, or seven? It won't matter much, will it?" she replied quietly. Then in a moment her self-control dropped from her. Her lethargy vanished. A light came into her eyes, her nostrils became vibrant. Without alteration of pitch her voice became passionate. "It is horrible—brutal of you—to send him on such a business. What can possess you to do such a thing—can you not spare even——"

"Hush!" The man's voice interrupted her. He spoke with silken suavity. "How often have I told you that the reiteration of facts known to both parties to a conversation is the hall-mark of the unintelligent!" "By Jove, Myra," he continued, changing the subject, "how really beautiful you are! What a lucky dog Guy is to rouse such an interest!"

The woman dropped her eyes and the man continued meditatively, "What a vast alteration has taken place in the ideal of feminine beauty since the fifteenth century! Do you know, Myra, while you have been sitting so patiently at the window I have been measuring you by the canons of beauty laid down by that sleek old churchman, Master Agnolo Firenzuola"—he tapped the black letter volume which lay beside him—"and though he, I'm afraid, would have many faults to find with your features——"

The levity of his tone roused her again to passionate utterance.

"No more," she cried. "Have you no heart left in you, Commandatore, that you can send your own son to such danger and sit there calmly reading while——" She broke off abruptly, her voice choked with a sob.

Lynton Hora rose from his seat and viewed the woman, who shrank from his steady gaze.

"Have matters gone so far as that?" he asked, and his lips smiled cynically.

She made no reply.

"You never asked my permission," he continued dispassionately. "Guy has said nothing. I am afraid, Myra, I shall have to see that he is protected from your influence."

She looked at him appealingly, and her eyes were as the night, heavy with unshed rain.

"He—is—your—son," she said slowly. "I—I cannot do him the harm that you can do him, and yet—I am afraid for him. Perhaps you had better send me away, Commandatore. My fears may make a coward of him."

The man spoke as if musing aloud. "Where shall I send you? Back to the gutter from whence I picked you? Do you remember anything of your home, Myra?"

"I know. I know," she protested. "You have reminded me often enough."

He paid no heed to her appeal.

"Yesterday," he said, "I visited the place. No, it has not tumbled down yet, my dear—the very house where your mother sold you to me for half-a-crown and a bottle of gin, a dirty child of five. That was fifteen years ago—fifteen years ago to-day. You were unwanted, uncared for—I wanted you, I cared for you. Let me tell you how I found your mother, Myra?"

She lifted her hands with a gesture of appeal, but he disregarded the action.

"She occupies the same old room. There's but little light finds its way through the dirty window, though enough to show that your mother has not changed her habits—nor her rags. She sat there alone, like a dropsical spider and cried aloud for gin. Would you like to change this"—his hand directed attention to the apartment—"for a share of your mother's abode, Myra Norton?"

Myra had seated herself. She made no answer for a while. Her eyes wandered about the long apartment, with its shaded lights and its flowers and its luxurious furniture. Her hand dropped on the silken gauze of her dress. The man watching smiled as he saw the flash of the diamonds on her fingers and noted the caressing motion of her fingers upon the shimmering fabric. At last she raised her eyes to her questioner.

"You could not send me back," she said.

"I could send you to a worse place," he replied coldly. "You know my power."

She shuddered.

His tone changed completely.

"You little fool," he said roughly, but with a kindliness his speech had lacked hitherto. "You know very well that I could never let you go back to the stews from which I rescued you. But I wanted to remind you, Myra, that you belong to me—that, like myself, you are pledged to war—a merciless, devouring, devastating war with Society; that you, even as I myself, are outcast—one from whom the world would shrink—you have been in danger of forgetting lately, Myra."

"I have not forgotten," she answered with comparative quietness, "but I have been thinking of what is the use of it all, this eternal warfare against the world. You have won again and again. You have told me that you are the richer by what the world has lost. You lack nothing that money may buy. There must come a time when the warrior must rest."

"Not while his arm retains its strength to lift his sword," replied Hora, "and by that time he should have provided someone to take his place."

"But if that person is unequal to the task?" Myra queried timidly.

"He pays the penalty," answered Hora.

"Even if it is your own son?" she persisted.

"Or your lover," he added coldly.

"Your heart is iron," she murmured despairingly.

He laughed aloud. "Or non-existent," he said. "It was stolen from me years ago, and I have forgotten what it was like to be possessed of one. Now I have only my profession—and in that I am first. You admit that, Myra?"

"I admit that," she replied sullenly.

"Why should I not train my successor to take my place when my day comes?"

The woman in the listener cried out instinctively "Because he has what you lack—a heart."

He smiled grimly. "It is easily lost, Myra. What if I should say to you some day: Take it from him, toss it away, trample on it, break it, or store it away and treasure it with your trinkets—do as you like with it?"

"You would——" She rose from her seat and faced him with extended arms. Her lips were slightly parted. The shadows had flitted away from her eyes. Her bosom rose stormily from its gauze veilings. Her lithe form was poised expectantly.

"By Jove, you are beautiful, Myra," he answered.

"I am glad of it—glad," she cried exultantly.

Hora stood in a thoughtful attitude.

"Myra—Myrrha," he half-mused, turning the name about, "a good name for a love-potion, there's a foreshadowing of the bitterness of love in it."

Her brow clouded and she turned away. "You are always mocking me," she muttered.

"No," he said, and he stepped across the room to her side. There was something strange about his walk. He passed across the room with the swift, stealthy swing of a panther—a wounded panther, for one foot dragged after the other and robbed his progress of complete grace. He came to her side and laid his hand on her arm.

"I am not mocking, Myra," he said seriously. "I have long wanted to know exactly where Guy was placed in your thoughts. You have never revealed yourself until to-night. Even now I am not quite sure——"

Myra's countenance cleared and a happy smile shone on her face. She looked up at him expectantly.

"You can tell me how much you care for him," he continued. "I shall not reveal your confidence to Guy."

She dropped her eyes.

"I cannot tell anyone," she whispered with a strange shyness.

Hora smiled whimsically. "What liars love makes of us all," he said. "Yet perhaps you are speaking truthfully. You cannot tell me what you do not know."

"I could die—die happily—for him," she murmured softly.

"Fools sometimes die for utter strangers," remarked Hora sardonically. "That's not love. Could you live for him, could you give yourself to another for his welfare, could you——"

"Not that, no, not that!" The cry was wrung from her lips. "You would not condemn me to that, Commandatore?"

"Hush, Myra," he said. "I was merely speaking of possibilities which might arise in the future."

"I thought," she faltered, "that some scheme had crossed your brain, which would necessitate—I could not do it now."

"I have thought of no scheme," he replied reassuringly, "which would wither this new flower which has blossomed in your heart."

"You are mocking again," she remarked.

"I am speaking seriously," he retorted, "of possibilities which might occur. Guy's mate must be prepared for anything—for everything. You must remember that I am not to be turned aside from the object I have in view. Nor is Guy to be turned aside either. His will is as inflexible as mine. The woman who mates with him must be at one with him in his purpose, and, if need be, must be ready to sacrifice herself. Tell me now, Myra, if you can do that, or must I find a mate for him who will?"

She did not hesitate a moment. The blood rushed to her face. "For Guy I would do anything," she cried. "All that I ask is to be near him to help him to——"

"To weaken him with your woman fears," Hora interpolated.

"No," she cried. "He would never know that I feared for his safety. Let me try, Commandatore. Give a fair chance—only that!"

He meditated a while, then he tapped Myra's arm with his finger.

"You shall have your chance," he said. "But remember it is your business to keep him to his profession. He has no time for lovemaking. You shall have your chance, but be sure you use it wisely. If you do, the day may come when I shall say to Guy, there is your wife—and the wife will be the child I have picked from the gutter and educated and treated as my own."

There was a brooding menace in the tone in which he finished, and the woman feared to waken him to speech again. At last, he said harshly:

"Have you no thanks, Myra?"

"You frighten me sometimes, Commandatore," she answered timidly. "I cannot understand you."

"You will do so some day," he replied. He seemed amused at the idea, for he laughed and spoke good-humouredly. "If you make good use of your chances, my girl, everything will become clear to you. You have wit as well as beauty, Myra. Make use of them both. He is of an age to be caught."

Through the open window the voice of Big Ben solemnly tolled three.

The light died out of the woman's face. "Cruel," she murmured in a tense, hoarse whisper. "It was cruel to mock me so. Something has happened to him. The hour has passed. Oh! Guy, Guy!"

Lynton Hora turned upon her fiercely. "Is this a specimen of your self-control?" he said. "Haven't you learned that in the profession Guy has adopted a thousand trivial events may supply reason for delay? Mind, if I have any snivelling I withdraw my promise."

Myra was constrained into silence. She went to the window. Already the black night had given place to the grey mists of coming dawn. She looked out over the park. Uprising from the sea of shadows objects began to emerge. From the near distance the music of violins and harps throbbed to a waltz measure. She stood there unheeding while the light strengthened, and the dawn came up from the east in a glory of crimson and gold. She stood there unseeing, her heart throbbing with agony, yet with face schooled to complete apathy.

The rose and the gold faded from the sky. Another day had begun. She had forgotten Hora's presence, forgotten everything. She closed the window and lifted her hand to pull down the blinds and shut out the day. Hora's voice awakened her.

"Listen," he said, and, rising swiftly from his chair, he pushed Myra aside and threw open the casement again. The sharp sound of the bell of an electric brougham entered that window on the eighth storey just as the voice of Big Ben proclaimed four.

"Only somebody's brougham," said Myra listlessly.

"My brougham," replied Hora curtly. "Bringing Guy home."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Coming back without him, most likely," she said. Still, in spite of the remark, hope showed itself in her expression. The carriage stopped. For five minutes a strained silence endured. It was broken by the sound of an outside door opening and shutting. Another pause! Both were looking towards the door of the apartment in which Myra and Hora stood expectantly. Hora held up his finger warningly to his companion.

The door opened and there entered a young man in evening clothes, his coat was over his arm, upon which an umbrella was hooked, and his hat was in his hand.

"Hullo! I didn't expect anyone to be waiting up for me," he remarked cheerfully. "I thought that was a privilege reserved for the reprobate sons of evangelical households. I suppose you haven't been praying for the success of my undertaking."

He laughed joyously. His high spirits seemed infectious. Hora smiled responsively. Joy illuminated Myra's expressive features like sunlight on the woodlands after an April shower.

"You surely did not think that I should fail?" he asked, looking from one to another.

"I did not," replied Hora drily. "Myra scarcely shared my confidence though. She seemed to think that it was brutal of me to give you a chance of showing what you could do, when working on your own account."

The young man laughed again.

"These women—these women," he said. Then he turned to Myra. "I thought that you, at least, would have had confidence in me." He tossed his coat on to a chair, and going to her, encircled her waist with his arm. "Did you really think I should fail in my first coup?" he asked.

"No—no—no," she cried vehemently. "But, oh, Guy! I was afraid. If I could only have come with you—to have shared in the danger."

"Then I probably should have failed," he added. "As it is——"

He turned to Hora and there was a proud gleam in his eyes. "You must set me a more difficult task next time, Commandatore," he said.

"Then you have secured the picture?" asked the elder man eagerly.

For reply, Guy lifted the umbrella from the table where he had laid it down. To all appearance it was merely a specimen of the article it pretended to be, but in the young man's hands the handle unscrewed, revealing the fact that it was a sham. Instead of an umbrella, a long narrow case was revealed, and from within it Guy coaxed with infinite care a roll of canvas.

"It was rather a tight fit," he remarked, "but I don't think I have damaged the picture." He unrolled the canvas carefully on the table.

Hora's eyes sparkled as he looked down upon the painting.

"How I have longed for a genuine Greuze to add to my collection," he remarked, "and this—this is the most perfect specimen in the world. My dear Guy, how can I ever be grateful enough to you?"

Was there a dash of sarcasm in his voice? If so, the young man did not notice it. He was moved to genuine emotion.

"It is a little thing in return for all you have done for me," he replied earnestly. He laid his hand on the elder man's arm as he continued, "There's nothing I would not do which would add to your happiness—you have given me so much."

Hora shook off the grasp.

"The air is overcharged with sentiment," he said lightly. "Myra here might have been trained in an English boarding school for young ladies, she is so full of it. And now you." He held up his hands in derision.

Guy laughed gaily. He was used to Hora's moods.

"Sentiment does sound a little incongruous from the lips of a successful burglar, doesn't it?" he said, and he laughed again at the whimsicality of the idea. "Yet you know that at heart, Commandatore, you are just as much of a sentimentalist as either Myra or myself. What else can be the motive of your perpetual enmity with the world?"

"What else; ay, what else," murmured Hora musingly, a bitter smile about his lips. "But, all the same, there's no need to debauch our minds with contemplation of sentiment. It's dangerous."

He returned to an examination of the picture.

"The fool who owned this," he said, "would have sold it. He's no poorer for the loss. It is not the loss of the work of art that he will regret, but the loss of the ten thousand guineas he gave for it."

"It is in really appreciative hands now," remarked Guy after a pause. "By the way," he added, picking up his overcoat from the chair, "I could not resist the temptation of bringing away a few of the best examples of Flurscheim's snuff-boxes. I know you have a vacant corner or two in the cabinets upstairs, and if you think they are not worthy of being placed in them, well the brilliants in the settings will make a necklace for Myra."

He thrust his hand into the pockets and took out a number of superb specimens of the art of a bygone age.

"It was very thoughtful of you," said Hora, as he lifted each box lovingly as Guy laid it on the table. There were twelve in all, and eight he placed on one side. "These are really artistic productions," he said, "and I shall keep them. The others are worth no more than the intrinsic value of the stones and of the gold of which they are made."

Guy turned to Myra. "What will you have them made into, Myra, a necklet or a bracelet?—I must give you a keepsake to wear in memory of my first big exploit."

"Anything you like, Guy," she answered softly, while her face flushed with delight.

"Then we will think of something," he observed carelessly. He picked up one of the boxes which Hora had placed aside. "I think I should like to keep this one myself, Commandatore," he remarked, "as a souvenir of the occasion."

Hora took it from his hand and looked at the box curiously. In the lid was set an exquisite miniature on ivory of a young girl, with regular, delicate features and a cloud of golden hair.

"You have good taste, keep it, by all means," urged Hora carelessly. A slight hesitation in Guy's tone as he proffered the request was evidence to his swift brain that the young man had not revealed the whole of his reason for the desire to retain that particular box. He knew that he could when he liked elicit that reason. But the morning was advancing. He began to feel wearied. He would have plenty of time on the morrow to learn all that he desired to know.

"Come, my children," he said, "it is time we went to bed. Guy, you will help me put these new possessions of ours into a place of security. Sleep well, Myra."

The woman accepted the dismissal submissively. She re-echoed the wish, and, with a last glance over her shoulder at Guy as she swept out of the room, she left them.

"Myra's getting very fond of you, Guy," remarked Hora when the door had closed behind her.

"Indeed," he answered carelessly, for his mind was running on other matters.

Hora laughed at the tone, but he did not renew the subject.

"What made you so late?" he asked.

"Some jolly people I met at the ball," he answered absently. "I stopped an hour longer than I intended."

"H—m, business before pleasure is as good a motto for your profession as for any other," said Hora.

"I know," answered Guy, "but still——"

"You are young," commented Hora, "I hope that in your haste you left no clue."

The young man laughed. "Plenty," he said, "but all false ones."

"Well, you shall tell me all about it in the morning," said Hora. "Bring the stuff along."

Guy gathered up the sham umbrella and the jewelled snuff-boxes, slipping the one he had decided to retain for himself into his pocket.

Hora raised the picture reverently and led the way out of the room, Guy following him.

CHAPTER II
CONCERNING THE GREUZE, SOME GENTILES, AND A JEW

Later on that same morning all London was thrilled by the story of a sensational burglary at the house of Mr. Hildebrand Flurscheim, the noted connoisseur and dealer in objects of art.

Just at daybreak Mr. Flurscheim had been aroused by the ringing of the burglar alarm, and, throwing on his dressing-gown, he had rushed downstairs. There he had found the front door open, and, running into the street, he commenced to blow frantically the police whistle which he had in his hand—he always slept with a police whistle attached to a ribbon round his neck and with a revolver under his pillow.

He had not been compelled to waste much breath before the summons was responded to, for a constable was almost instantly on the spot.

Mr. Hildebrand Flurscheim dwelt in a quarter of London greatly favoured by rank, fashion, and the children of Abraham. His house was at the corner of a street turning into Park Lane, and at the shrill sound of the whistle there emerged from turning after turning helmeted men in blue who with one accord made their way at paces varying with each man's temperament to the place where the excited art dealer stood beckoning vigorously.

Mr. Flurscheim had speedily revealed his reason for giving the alarm. The house was surrounded by constables, and two of the force accompanied the owner back into his house, which they proceeded to search systematically. At this time, Mr. Flurscheim had not discovered his loss and was disposed to think that the electric alarm had frustrated an attempt of someone to enter his abode. But when he arrived, in the course of the search, at his drawing-room on the first floor, he learned that the thief had been only too successful in the object which had brought him thither. From the place on the wall where the gem of his collection, the Greuze, which he had sworn should never leave his possession until £20,000 should have been paid into his banking account, had hung, only an empty frame confronted him, while tossed carelessly aside on the table was an ordinary table knife which had been used for the purpose of cutting the canvas from the frame.

Upon the discovery of his loss, Mr. Flurscheim had for a while been bereft of speech and movement. When volition returned to him, he behaved as one demented. He wrung his hands, he tore his hair and his clothes, and he called upon the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to visit his despoiler with condign punishment.

When a little later he discovered that some more of his choicest treasures, the jewelled snuff-boxes of which he had the finest collection in the world, had been carried away, he became absolutely frantic with grief, so that even the policemen felt moved in their hearts to pity him.

The frenzy did not endure long. A thing trifling in itself was sufficient to restore the dealer to full possession of his senses. The sergeant of police who had accompanied him into the room had pulled out his note book in readiness to make notes of the occurrence, when a clock on the mantel-shelf struck four. At the sound, Flurscheim became still.

"Four o'clock," he murmured. "Four o'clock. There's no time to lose. We must be doing." He turned to the policeman. "Sergeant," he said dejectedly, "I shall trust you to forget the exhibition I have made of myself—I——"

The sergeant answered briskly. "Very natural, I'm sure, sir. Should have felt just like it myself, though I must admit I've put the bracelets on many a man who hasn't said half as much as you have done—of course, in the public streets, sir."

There was a sickly smile on Flurscheim's face as he answered: "I hope none of them had such good reason for cursing as I have."

He did not pursue the topic. With an effort he forced his mind from contemplation of the loss. "Hadn't we better leave things in this room untouched, while we search the rest of the house? There may be some one of the burglars, if there was more than one, still on the premises."

The sergeant agreed. But the search was a fruitless one. Mr. Flurscheim's butler and his four women servants were the only other persons found on the premises, and after their unsuccessful search the uniformed members of the force withdrew and the dealer sat down to await the arrival of the detective with what patience he could summon to his aid.

It was the bitterest moment in Flurscheim's career. Despite Lynton Hora's sneer, it was not the monetary value of his loss which troubled him, for though he dealt in pictures and other art objects, yet he never parted with any of his treasures without a poignant feeling of regret. When he sold them, however, he knew that they would pass into appreciative hands, that they would be guarded carefully and preserved jealously. To him they were what horses are to one man or dogs to another. They were his companions, his friends, his children—and to have the chief of them ruthlessly cut from its frame and carried away, he knew not where, was as if his household had been robbed of an only child.

He gazed forlornly at the empty frame. Since the Greuze had come into his possession, never a night had passed without his taking a last glance at it before going upstairs to bed, never a morning dawned but he had feasted his eyes upon it before sitting down to his breakfast. To live alone without the Greuze seemed to him an unthinkable existence.

Yet the frame was empty. There took root in his heart a desire for revenge upon the man who had robbed him.

That thought matured in the days which followed—the days which came swiftly and passed swiftly, but without bringing him any trace of his treasure, days in which the detectives continually buoyed him up with hopes that his picture was on the ace of being restored to him.

They had indeed thought that the task would not have proved a difficult one. Their inspection of the room from which the picture had been stolen had led to the discovery of a number of clues to work upon. They decided that an entry must have been effected through a window which opened upon the portico over the front door. At that window were a number of scarlet berried shrubs, and some of the berries were found crushed on the carpet inside. On the balcony they discovered a palette knife, with smears of cobalt and chrome upon it, which obviously had been used to force back the catch of the window. For days afterwards, detectives might have been observed knocking at the doors of London studios and offering themselves as models to aspiring Academicians, in the hope of ascertaining the whereabouts of the missing picture. But they found no trace of the Greuze.

On the knife-handle too, were unmistakable finger-prints, and on the empty frame were others. All were photographed, and hope was strong that the identity of the thief would be disclosed thereby, through comparison with the records of convicts at Scotland Yard. But when the first comparison seemed to point to the fact that every print was that of a different person, and closer investigation proved that the dirty smudges were not finger-prints at all, the problem became indubitably more complex. As for the knife which had been used to cut the canvas from the frame, that was an ordinary table-knife, of which counterparts might have been discovered in every mean house in the metropolis, and it supplied no basis for any theory as to the owner. The one fact which chiefly puzzled Scotland Yard, however, was the fact that no suspicious characters had been observed anywhere in the neighbourhood, while the position of the house was such that it was particularly open to observation.

Standing at the corner of two streets, in a neighbourhood where all the houses would be described in a house agent's catalogue as "highly desirable family town residences," it was under observation from at least three quarters. The streets at three or four o'clock were at that time practically empty of all pedestrians save the police. Yet not a member of the police on duty in the vicinity had seen a suspicious looking character.

This was the more astonishing, because two extra constables were on duty that night in the near neighbourhood. They had been detailed for duty at the town mansion of one of the most popular of society hostesses, Lady Greyston, who was giving the first of her dances for the season. Lady Greyston's house was only six removed from Mr. Flurscheim's, and until three o'clock one of the constables had been stationed at the corner of the street, practically at Mr. Flurscheim's front door, in order to direct the carriages arriving to pick up departing guests. The stream of carriages had thinned shortly after three, and then the constable had joined a colleague at the door, but at no time during the night had anything out of the way attracted his attention. The police were quite at a loss for an object of suspicion.

But while Scotland Yard was hopelessly at a loss for a clue, the newspapers had been busy printing stories of the crime, which did great credit to the fertility of the imagination of the reporters who were detailed to work up the case. Those who read these stories might have had warrant almost for believing that each writer must have been the principal, so intimately and minutely was the crime reconstructed.

But throughout the public excitement and conjecture which the burglary created, Lynton Hora and Guy remained entirely undisturbed, or, at the most, merely stirred to mild amusement as each new theory was evolved—each was so very wide of the mark. Yet audacious as many of these theories were, none of them paralleled the audacity of the real attempt.

How the burglary had been carried out was explained by Guy when, refreshed by six hours' sleep and a cold bath, he joined Myra and Hora at the breakfast table.

"I followed your plans almost exactly," he said to the elder man, "and I found the interior of the house precisely as you described it."

"H—m," chuckled Hora, glancing at a print hung upon the wall opposite him, "that Morland would have been a cheap investment, even if it had been a fake. As it is——"

"As it is," laughed Guy, "your capital has returned to you more than a thousandfold. Still I can't help marvelling at your wonderful eye for detail. You could not have been in Flurscheim's house more than an hour, and yet I found every wire, every lock, every catch, exactly where you told me I should find them. Some of the doors and windows you could never have seen? How could you know?"

"It was not through any capacity for seeing through brick walls," said Hora drily. "But merely a deduction from what Flurscheim himself did not tell me. He was very proud of a system of alarm designed by himself for the protection of his treasures. He told me that it was impossible for a window sash to be lifted or an outer door to be unlatched without setting off the alarm—I observed from outside that the attics were fitted with swing casements and I drew my own conclusions."

"You omitted to inform me that the servants slept in those attics," remarked Guy. "I nearly stepped on the bed of one of them when I entered the window."

"So that is why you left by the front door, was it?" enquired Hora. "It was a little bit risky, wasn't it?"

"No," said the young man. "I calculated that I should get a minute's start, and thirty seconds was quite enough. As a matter of fact, I had a clear minute. I looked out into the street from a window and saw that the coast was clear and the brougham was waiting. There were two or three parties just leaving Lady Greyston's and I calculated upon being able to join them without exciting observation. The street was very much in shadow, and just between lights, after a dance, you know, no one observes very clearly."

"Still it was a risk," observed Hora. "I should have returned by the way I had gone."

"I still think I took the lesser evil," replied Guy. "Besides the chance of finding Flurscheim's servants awake, there was the possibility of being seen from the street as I passed along the parapet back to the window of the Greyston's house. Then suppose I had met someone on the stairs at the Greyston's. The function was practically over. There was every likelihood that some of the servants would be going to their quarters—it would have been deuced unpleasant to have had to explain what I was doing there."

"At all events," remarked Hora, "you ought to have cut off the alarm. Did you forget how to do it?"

A smile flickered across the young man's face.

"No," he said, "I left it in position on purpose. I thought I should like to give Flurscheim a sporting chance of getting his own back. There were just two flights of stairs and a bedroom door between us. I thought that if that were not sufficient to enable me to get away I should deserve to be captured."

Myra, who had been listening to the conversation in silence, half uttered an exclamation. But she checked it so that only Hora's keen ears heard. He smiled, but said nothing. Guy continued lazily: "You see that I did not misjudge the conditions. I am here." Then he repeated the words he had used a few hours previously. "You must set me a more difficult task next time, Commandatore."

"What an enthusiast you are," remarked Hora. "If you go on at this rate, there will be nothing left for you to do."

"I hate being idle," remarked the young man.

"Never fear, never fear," said Hora, "I have no doubt you will manage to amuse yourself. You did so last night, did you not?"

Although the question was asked carelessly, the young man flushed slightly as he answered: "Tolerably well."

"Only tolerably well?" asked Hora, "and yet you postponed your enterprise until almost too late, for only 'tolerable' amusement."

"Admitted, Commandatore," answered Guy gaily, "the adverb is not sufficient. To tell the truth, I met some very pleasant people, and the time passed swiftly."

Myra sprung the next question.

"Who were they, Guy? Anyone I have met?"

"No," he answered. "A Captain and Mrs. Marven and——"

He did not get to the end of his sentence. Lynton Hora had risen from his chair and interrupted him: "Who did you say? Say the name again," he cried hoarsely.

Both Myra and Guy looked at him in amazement. Hora was not given to showing emotion, and there could be no doubt but that he was deeply moved. His lips were drawn closely together, beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead, every line in his face deepened.

"What's the matter, Commandatore—father?" cried Guy in alarm, as he sprung to Hora's side and laid his hand on the elder man's arm.

Hora shook off the touch roughly.

"Say the name again," he repeated.

"Marven," repeated Guy, "Captain Marven."

Gradually Hora regained control of himself. His features resumed their normal air of petulant acquiescence with the world, but there was a gleam in his eyes which revealed a very different spirit within him. Presently he spoke.

"You are surprised to see me so much moved by the mention of a name. You would not be if you knew what reason I have to hate the possessor of it. So you found Captain Marven very good company, eh, Guy?" He laughed sardonically.

"Why, yes," replied the young man.

"I wonder," he mused, "if you would have thought him as entertaining if you knew the part he has played in my life."

"In your life?" queried Myra and Guy in the same breath.

"In my life," repeated Hora with deliberation. Then he continued in accents which showed how deeply memories of the past rankled: "That is the man, Guy, to whose actions my quarrel with the world is due. Owing to him I found every man's hand raised against me. Owing to him I was compelled in self-defence to raise my hand against every man. Owing to him I became another Ishmael—thrust out into the world, branded, a mark for every man's scorn and every woman's jeers. Oh, I have taken my revenge upon the scorners," he laughed harshly, "but not upon him—not upon him—yet."

He paused, and once more, it was only with an effort that he regained control of himself. He did not again trust himself to speech. He turned on his heel abruptly. At the door he paused.

"You have given me much to think about, Guy," he said. "At present I am unable to think calmly. Some other time I will discuss the matter with you."

He left the room swiftly and the firm step of his sound leg and the following shuffle as he dragged the other foot along after it was the only sound to be heard until the closing of another door told Myra and Guy that he had shut himself in his own apartment.

CHAPTER III
THE MAKING OF A CRIMINAL

The philosophy of Lynton Hora had for once given way under the stress of a deep emotion. There could be no doubt about that, and no doubt either that the emotion which had strained the philosophy to breaking point was the emotion of hate.

Never before had Guy seen him so wrought upon. Often he had regretted that the man he called father should have been of so calm a temperament—regretted even while he admired. Himself of an impulsive, even ardent nature, he had longed to express his feelings to the one being who had been his sole companion from infancy, who had treated him with unfailing and unvarying kindness, but who chilled, with what appeared to be temperamental coldness, any expression of affection.

Guy was thrilled with the discovery that a deep sea of passion underlay Hora's cold exterior. If Hora hated, of necessity he must love.

He must love him, Guy Hora, his son. Did not every action in his life show it?

The thought awakened Guy's memory actively. His earliest memories were of the Commandatore. He had no knowledge of a mother, or but shadowy recollections, and those might merely be the offspring of his own imagination. Lynton Hora had been father and mother both. Guy could recall Hora's face bending over his bed in the days of his babyhood. He had one vivid recollection of being parted from his father when he himself was about seven years old. He had been left in the charge of some dark-haired, swarthy-faced people, and they had neglected him—had beaten him. How he had cried for his father, and when his father had returned, he remembered running to him and sobbing out his tale of misery. He remembered how Hora had told him that men never cried when they were hurt, and that he, stricken with shame, had answered that it was not the beating but the loneliness which had brought the tears to his eyes.

Hora had smiled and had left him alone for a few minutes. He had smiled still more when he had returned. Guy remembered seeing the man who had beaten him later that same day with a bruised face and an arm hanging helpless in a sling from his neck.

But that was not his most vivid memory of Hora's return. Chiefly it was a conversation that took place when Hora had taken the boy's hand and led him up into the mountains. Often the boy had recalled the words which had been spoken to him. He could never see a pine tree without their being fresh spoken to his ear, for they had been uttered beneath the pine woods, on the edge of a translucent mountain lake, which mirrored the snowy peaks above it so perfectly that it seemed strange that the pebbles at the bottom could not be counted.

Hora had taken the boy's tears as his text.

"Women weep when they are hurt," he said. "Men strike back. Remember that, Guy; remember too that if you cannot strike with the arm, there are other ways of driving the blow home."

Though Guy had understood the meaning of Hora's words but dimly then, he had remembered them, and later he understood. Hora had often given him practical illustration of his precepts. He never forgot an injury or a slight, and Guy was often allowed to see how Hora avenged either. Memory has no chronological exactitude, and as Guy allowed his thoughts to drift, an instance occurred to him which had happened some years later. They had been travelling in France together and had been hurrying on to Italy. The one other traveller in the same compartment had been a blusterous Englishman of the most unpleasantly self-assertive type. Hora had attempted to engage him in conversation and had met with a surly repulse. When the frontier was reached, the assertive person was asleep. Hora had dexterously possessed himself of the man's watch and when the custom's official made his appearance had transferred, with equal dexterity, the watch to his pocket, leaving a portion of the chain visible. When awakened, the Englishman discovered his loss almost immediately. The official was before him asking him in a language he did not comprehend, whether he had any dutiable articles to declare. The visible piece of chain caught the eye of the excited passenger. He made a grab at the presumed thief. The official, thinking he was being attacked by a madman, made a wild dive for the door and reached the platform. The Englishman followed in pursuit and captured his man. There was a wild melée, from which the victim did not emerge victorious. When the train moved on, Hora was gratified by seeing their late companion ineffectually struggling in the grasp of half-a-dozen stalwart carabinieri.

Guy was fifteen years old when this event had happened, and long before then he had imbibed from his father ideas of morality which were directly at variance with those generally accepted. Guy could never remember a time when Hora had bade him restrain any desire. How well he recalled a day, he could not have been more than six, when they had passed a shop wherein a basket of golden oranges were displayed. "Buy me one," he had cried. Hora had stopped. There was no one in the shop. "I'll teach you a new game," he said. "Go and fetch a couple, Guy. Mind you choose the best," he said.

Guy had obeyed and Hora had praised him. As Guy ate the oranges he thought the game the best he had ever heard of. Next day they had passed the shop and Guy was about to repeat the foray, but Hora had restrained him.

"Look, Guy," he said. "There is somebody there now; when you want oranges or anything else without paying you must be quite sure there is no one about, or you will lose the game."

Guy remembered the precept and acted upon it. It was a delightful new game for anyone to play, if you were only clever enough to play it properly. He used to beg Hora to take him out for a day's stealing, and sometimes, as a reward for perseverance in his studies, Hora would accede to the boy's request. He had no notion that he was doing anything wrong, though he had been taught that there were things he must not do. He knew that he must not tell his father a lie; he knew too that he was to be silent when bidden.

Of course a time had eventually arrived when he had become conscious that there was some lack of harmony between the life he and his father led and the lives of those upon whom they preyed. Hora had taken the boy to see a big penal establishment and his curiosity had been stirred as to the reason of this gathering of men in mud-coloured garb, marked all over with broad arrows. "Why are they all dressed alike? Why do their masters carry guns?" he asked.

Hora had silenced him with a sign at the time, but later, when they were alone, he had explained.

"They are all men who have been trying to play the game of stealing and have lost," he said. "If you were to get caught, you would be taken away and shut up at night in a cell all alone, and dressed in ugly clothes, and when you went out men with guns would be set to watch you so that they should shoot you if you tried to run away."

"Have you ever been caught, father?" Guy asked.

Hora had never replied to that question. His face had grown so dark that Guy had forborne to press for an answer, and the memory of the singular expression which had passed over his countenance had been sufficient to prevent Guy ever repeating the enquiry.

After the visit to the convict establishment, Guy had been timorous at playing his new game, but Hora had chaffed him, advised him, stood beside him, protected him, until he became exceedingly dexterous in a variety of forms of petty larceny. He was never allowed at this time to mix with other boys. Hora had him always under his own eye, educating him according to a system which was a fair sample of the average boy's education as regards matter, but differing vastly from the average boy's education as regards the application of the knowledge imparted to him.

Cæsar was never to him a mere handbook by which the intricacies of a dead language were revealed, but a wonderful history of a man who played the game of stealing in a great way. Hora made quite clear to the boy's mind that there was only a difference in degree between the stealing of oranges and the stealing of kingdoms, but that if one wanted to steal kingdoms it was just as well to begin early and learn the principles of the art by stealing oranges. He explained, too, that the world looked with very different eyes upon the theft of a crown and the theft of an orange or an apple. The man who annexed an empire was an emperor whom men acclaimed and set on a throne in a garb of purple, while the man who stole a loaf of bread to assuage his hunger was a petty thief at whom the world hurled opprobrium and thrust into a prison, garbed in mud-coloured clothes and covered over with broad arrows.

Guy began to comprehend what Hora intended him to comprehend, that there was something mean about petty theft, and he no longer found pleasure in his game, but turned instead to the weaving of romances of magnificent depredations.

Even the fiction which was supplied by Hora for the boy's amusement was insidiously utilised for the inculcation of the same perverted morality. With Robinson Crusoe, for instance, it was easy for a man of Hora's equipment to make fun of Crusoe's naïve dependence upon Providence and his exhibition of piety in moments of stress. Hora pointed out that Crusoe's prayers were mere expression of the terror of an uneducated mind when confronted with personal danger—of a mind which had been trained in youth to rely upon supernatural agencies for relief and comfort. He pointed out that Crusoe really secured his own safety through the exercise of his own constructive and observatory powers, and through no other agency.

As Guy grew older, Hora sedulously built upon the foundation of disbelief which he laid down as the basis of the boy's education. Guy was taught that religion was merely the means by which a priestarchy levied toll upon the body corporate by playing upon inherited superstitions—while history supplied him with plenty of illustrations. History supplied him, too, with plenty of examples to point the arguments with which he supported what was in effect a complete criminal philosophy. Guy was not taught only that atheism was the hope of humanity. Hora had read much of Nietzsche, and he skilfully adopted the Nietzschean philosophy to his purpose. A particular appeal to Guy's mind was to be found in Hora's definition of virtue, as a thirst for danger and courage for the forbidden. As translated by Hora, both in precept and in practice, the highest virtue was to be found in the breaking of laws. He imbibed the doctrines with avidity, for Hora had a persuasive tongue. He learned at the same time to keep them to himself, for, as Hora explained, if sheep knew as much as men, men would have no mutton.

Until eighteen, Guy's education progressed under his father's tuition, and then, feeling sure of him, Hora thought it time to launch him on the world. Guy went to Oxbridge to make acquaintance with his fellows, to survey the flock of sheep which were to supply him with mutton in the future. The time then passed pleasantly enough, and plenty of active exercise supplied him with a vent for his energies. He did not shear any of the sheep, for Hora had bidden him stay his hand. A blameless university career would, he knew, be of great value in the future.

When Guy came down from the University it was with the reputation of being one of its wildest spirits. Great things were predicted of him. Others might excel him in individual efforts in the field and the schools, but none could excel him in fearlessness of demeanour. Besides, Hora's education had supplied him with a serene belief in himself, which had been communicated to those with whom he came in contact. He had been the leader of a set, the model for the freshman, the autocrat of his time. Like most autocrats, he cherished a profound contempt for those who bowed down before him. He was to them as his father was to him, something so much greater than they that their tribute became merely a thing of no account. He understood why his father had no affection for him. How could anyone love the thing beneath; the moth could love the star, but the star could not love the moth—and——

Guy awoke from the reverie into which he had been betrayed by his father's emotion on hearing the name of Captain Marven mentioned. He was quite alone. Myra had left the room after vainly trying to engage his attention. His hand unconsciously sought his pocket, and, when he drew it out, he held in his palm the snuff-box he had reserved for himself from the booty he had brought home on the previous night. He gazed earnestly at the miniature set in the lid.

"So Captain Marven is father's enemy," he muttered, "and this—this must be a portrait of Captain Marven's daughter."

His face grew troubled. His brow puckered. He thrust the box back into his pocket and rose impatiently from his seat.

"Bah!" he said, "what says the Commandatore? Man is trained for war, and woman for the relaxation of the warrior; all else is folly."

CHAPTER IV
THE REFLECTIONS OF LYNTON HORA

There was undoubted reason why the name of Marven should move Lynton Hora to emotion. It swept him back over the thirty years which bridged him from his youth. He would not have answered to the name of Hora in those days; the days when he and Richard Marven—"Gay" Marven—had been subalterns together in the same cavalry regiment. But the name he had borne then was buried and forgotten long since, and the young man who had borne it was dead to the knowledge of the world, though his virtues and his sins, his memories and hatreds—most certainly his hatreds—lived actively in the recluse connoisseur and antiquarian, Lynton Hora.

He had had good reason for burying his earlier self—an all-sufficing excuse for blotting out his existence from his regimental companions, from the friends of his youth, from the parents who had wept over his downfall perhaps even more than they had mourned the presumed death which had followed his punishment.

The name of Marven had brought vividly before his mind a picture of the bitterest moment of his life. Never could the memory of that moment lose the poignancy of its sting. The hollow square in the barrack yard, the epaulets he had once worn on his shoulder lying on the ground, the look of scorn on the faces of his brother officers and reflected on the faces of the men who had been till then beneath him, for the convicted thief, he saw these things clearly at the mention of Captain Marven's name.

He had always held that Marven was responsible for his dishonour, Marven who had everything which he, Hora, had desired and which fate had denied him. On the day he had first met him envy had entered into his heart. The contented smile on Marven's face, the expression which declared that everything is the best possible in the best possible world, had irritated him. Hora had not shown his irritation! Early in his youth he had learned to control the expression of his feelings. But companionship had deepened the irritation day by day. Gay Marven was the most popular man in the mess, Hora the least. Marven was wealthy, a credit to a smart cavalry regiment; Hora's allowance barely sufficed to meet the bare necessary expenditure, and so he was debarred from indulging in the extravagances which his comrade affected.

Some of them sneered at him and Hora attributed the sneers to Marven's influence, though wrongfully, and his irritation became anger.

Later, a greater cause of jealousy arose through the interposition of the essential feminine element in all drama. Hora had fallen hopelessly in love, and he had reason to think that the affection he had bestowed would be returned. Then Marven appeared on the scene, and Hora's hopes had vanished. Marven had only to be natural to dazzle the eyes of all beholders with the rays of his sunshiny disposition. Hora's temperament was of an intellectual coldness more likely to provoke esteem than love. The attack of aerotitis which affected both of them accentuated in each his natural characteristics. Marven became more brilliant than ever, Hora more passionately reserved. Then Hora, his natural judgment in suspension, had imagined that it would be possible to out-dazzle Marven. Reckless of consequences, he joined in all the pursuits from which he had hitherto stood aloof. His useful charger had been replaced by two magnificent mounts. His tailor had been made temporarily happy by a swiftly swelling account. He had begun to entertain lavishly—a year's income, apart from his pay, would not have met one single week's expenditure. He had known that the pace could not last, but fate had been kind to him at the outset. He had speculated on the turf and had won. From the card table, too, he rarely rose a loser and the play that went on in the card room of the mess, when the Colonel was not there, would have genuinely shocked the commanding officer, had he been aware of the amount of the stakes at issue. Hora's comrades thought he had come in for a legacy, and he was no longer deemed a discredit to their ranks.

Though delayed, the day when the inevitable reckoning was to be met could not be averted forever. When fortune frowned, instead of smiling upon his turf speculations, he was forced to visit the Jews. There he could obtain but trifling accommodation, for he had never had any expectations, and was heir to nothing but an unstained name. Even the five hundred pounds he had ultimately raised was only advanced at ruinous interest on a three months' bill. He had plunged more wildly than ever. He had lost. He had become short of cash to meet his daily out-of-pocket expenses. Even then, he might have been saved from utter extinction had not he imagined that he had succeeded in putting his rival in the shade. He had staked everything upon one last hazard. There had been under his control certain regimental funds. He had made use of them, knowing full well that so soon as his anticipated engagement was announced he would have no difficulty in obtaining a further loan, since the object of rivalry between Marven and himself was wealthy, as well as beautiful. With that loan he had counted on being able to replace the money he had embezzled. But Marven was before him, and the day Marven's engagement to Beatrice Challys was announced an unexpected investigation of Hora's accounts by the Colonel of the regiment disclosed the defalcation. Hora was placed under arrest, and the torrent rushed over him.

When he had reached his own apartment, Lynton Hora spared himself not a single pang of bitterness of the memories of what had followed. The weary days under arrest, the long-drawn-out inquiries, the court martial, the day of the promulgation of the sentence, when he was drummed out of the regiment, and had walked out of the barrack yard into the hands of the civil police, who were awaiting him to bring him to further trial.

He had been spared nothing. There was no influence which could have been exerted to save him from any one of the ignominies which he had incurred. He had supplied an excellent example for exhibiting the impartiality of the law. No private in the ranks should be able to say that he received harsher treatment than the officer of a crack cavalry regiment.

He had faced his punishment bravely, indeed, he had welcomed the solitude of the cell when he had eventually exchanged his cavalry dress for another of H. M.'s uniforms. There he had not to meet the scorn of men's eyes.

One by one he recalled the incidents. They had never ceased to pain him, even though he tried to laugh at his weakness in imagining that the wound to his pride still rankled. But he would not have been without that smarting sore. He took the same fierce satisfaction in the pain with which the martyrs of Smithfield solaced themselves as they thrust their arms into the fire. He told himself always that the mental suffering, the intolerable scorn he had faced, had shown him the world as it is, and not as it pretends to be. He postulated a deceitful, hypocritical world with a smile on its face for the man of wealth, and a frown and a brick for the poor devil who had the will to enjoy and not the means to gratify his longings.

Before his disgrace he had hated only one man—afterwards he hated all men, and at least one woman—she who preferred Gay Marven, fortune's favourite, to himself, fortune's scapegoat. But in addition to enabling him to appreciate the smiles and frowns of the world at their proper worth he told himself that his experience had made a man of him. It certainly left him a purposeful, resourceful, scrupleless being, with a definite object in existence.

That object was revenge. Revenge on the world which had scorned him, revenge on the world which had labelled him criminal, revenge above all upon Marven.

He had made all his plans long before his sentence had expired. He saw that he must die to the world if the future was to have any promise at all, for a past, such as his, would have been an incubus no man might carry for long. So, when his term of imprisonment was over, he disappeared in the broad light of day. At least the ex-convict disappeared from English eyes when he sculled out to sea in a fair-weather craft from a south coast watering-place. A day or two later the overturned boat was picked up with the ex-convict's coat still entangled in the seat, and with his ticket-of-leave still in the pocket. There was nothing to connect the Lynton Hora who a few weeks later landed from an English tramp steamer at an Italian port with the missing man.

Hora had not found existence present many difficulties. He had buried his scruples with his identity, and a man of brains, with courage and no scruples, need never look very far for the means of subsistence. For a while he preyed on British tourists. They were of his own race, and, therefore, his chiefest enemies, and, besides, he knew that, since he would need a place where he might build a reputation and a new identity if his purposes were to be fulfilled, it would be unwise to prey upon the inhabitants of the selected spot. Italy appealed to him. He became to all intents and purposes Italian. An English soap-maker's wife, "seeing" the Eternal City, supplied him, unwittingly, with funds to purchase a vineyard in Tuscany. He stocked his farm and furnished a house with the contents of a duchess' jewel casket. The capital necessary for pursuing his agricultural operations was provided indirectly by the Casino authorities at Monte Carlo. Hora had ventured no stake at the tables. He had merely relieved a successful gambler of his winnings. Thus provided with a home, he had paid a visit to England. When he returned, six months later, he brought his reputed son with him, a child of three; and away in England, his old comrade, now Captain Marven, together with Mrs. Marven, had mourned beside an empty cot in their nursery.

Hora had succeeded in the initial step towards the accomplishment of his revenge. But this had been only the first step. His appetite was not to be sated with one simple meal of vengeance. His rival, like himself, should never be allowed to forget his loss. So punctually every year, on the anniversary of the stolen boy's birthday, Marven had received a brief type-written note stating that the child was alive and well—nothing more. Hora would gladly have signed the note with his forgotten name, but that thereby he might have incurred danger to himself and the overthrow of his whole scheme of revenge. When the appointed time came, when the child was full grown, when by his own acts the child should be damned beyond all redemption—then the woman who had refused his offer of marriage should have her son restored to her, the rival who had won that woman's love from him should have the paternity of the criminal thrust upon him, and the whole world should be made aware of Guy's real parentage. That was the complete scheme of revenge Hora contemplated; to consummate which he had instilled into the baby ears the subtle poison of his perverted morality, had skilfully taken advantage of the boy's adventurous nature to interest him in the romantic possibilities of a criminal career, had laboured and watched the unfolding of a mind with the patience of a Japanese gardener producing a dwarfed and twisted miniature of a fair tree of the forest.

He had been discreet in his work. He had no intention of making of his pupil a rod for his own scourging. His conception of the great criminal he desired to make of Guy had nothing in common with the average conception of a person given to indulgence in all the commonplace vices of humanity. Self-control he had early realised was of more importance to the man who was waging single-handed warfare with the world, than to the units of the community with whom he was at issue. His own predilections, too, were instinctively refined. The grosser forms of self-indulgence had never appealed to him. He was an epicure of life, and had no desire to spoil his palate with a surfeit of coarse pleasures. Clean living himself, he demanded cleanliness of life in those about him. To what happened outside of his own household he was cynically indifferent.

Guy had proved a credit to his training. He was healthy in body, full of the enthusiasm of living, and possessed of a fine rapture for the profession to which he had served his apprenticeship. Almost the time was ripe for the consummation of Hora's revenge, when chance had brought Guy into contact with his real parents. This was a contingency Hora had not foreseen, and it needed careful consideration. He did not fear that the relationship would be disclosed. Guy himself had no suspicion of the facts. He knew no parent but Hora, though he believed that he remembered the mother whom Hora had invented for his benefit, whose portrait hung on the wall of his bedroom, and of whom Hora had spoken to him on many occasions. Yes, Guy Marven's real identity was sufficiently sunken in that of Guy Hora to ensure him against discovery, even though physical likeness should lead to comment.

Yet, Hora's first emotion, on learning that his foster-son had met his father and mother, was one he thought he had banished forever. A sensation of fear had passed over him, a dread lest the natural inclination of son to mother should manifest itself, lest the blood which pulsed eagerly in the son's arteries should cry out to the blood which ran more sluggishly in his father's veins, and, his own mock relationship disestablished, there be destroyed the living instrument for his revenge he had spent so many years in fashioning. Nor had his only fear been for the loss of his whole scheme of revenge. He realised, for the first time, that his interest in Guy was more than that of the artist in his artistry. Guy had always looked to him, had repaid him for his attention with all the warmth of an affectionate nature. He was the one being in whom, save Myra, Hora had taken a personal interest. Suppose someone else were to take his, Hora's, place in the young man's thoughts? The dread was in his mind, though he would not acknowledge it—though he denied its existence. That would be a piece of sentimentalism utterly foreign to his whole nature. He told himself that he had no affection for the child of his adoption, save that of the master craftsman in his tool. Of course he would regret the necessity, when it arose, of giving the tool to destruction, but he would admit to himself no warmer interest in Guy's fate than that.

Self-persuaded on the point, he considered whether the meeting, of which he had been apprised, might not be utilised for the furtherance of his plans. Nor was it long before he became persuaded that Fate was playing into his hands. Supposing that the acquaintance developed into intimacy. A thousand vague possibilities floated, shadow-like, before Hora's eyes. He determined that the acquaintance should be continued, but still fearful, he determined also that Guy should be plunged more deeply into the vortex of crime than hitherto, so that, struggle and strive as he might, he should find it impossible to escape. Fortunately for his purpose, Guy had expressed himself as hungering for further adventure. Well, Hora was fertile of plans, and he saw very good reasons why Guy's desires should be humoured. His household saw nothing more of the Commandatore that day. He remained alone with his thoughts.

CHAPTER V
THE COMMANDATORE MAKES A DEDUCTION

"We are getting near the end of our resources, Guy," remarked Hora quietly, as he held a glass of port up to the light, sipped the wine, nodded his head approvingly, and set the glass down gently.

It was the evening of the second day after Hora's exhibition of emotion upon hearing the name of Marven. He had not referred again to the object of his hatred, and neither Myra nor Guy, who sat with him at the table, had prompted his memory.

Guy looked round the room before he answered. He had been well trained in the observance of caution. But the servants had retired, the door was closed. The three were alone.

"All London offers replenishment of our empty coffers," he answered light-heartedly. "Who is to have the honour?" He turned to Myra. "Shall I peel a peach for you?" he asked.

The woman seemed not to hear the question. She was looking at Hora, with an appeal in her glance.

Hora answered her glance. "Myra is tired of London," he remarked. "What do you say, Guy? Shall we finish the campaign now, strike our tents and retire like contented bourgeoisie to our vineyard to watch the grapes ripen?"

Guy's eyebrows arched in surprise. "Retire empty-handed?" he asked incredulously. "Why, what has come upon you, Commandatore?"

"Myra is tired," he answered briefly.

Guy looked, smilingly, at her. She flushed slightly. "Not a bit of it," he answered. "I am quite sure she does not desire to exchange the delights of a London season, even for the dolce far niente of an Italian summer."

"I should not mind," she answered. "London is a beastly place. The Commandatore is right. I am sick of the sight and sound of people, and of the perpetual menace of our life—I——"

Hora checked her speech with a gesture. The door opened and a servant entered with coffee, and while he was present the conversation passed lightly over topics of the day.

"I don't like that man," said Guy, as the servant withdrew. "I caught him prying about amongst my belongings the other day when I returned to the flat unexpectedly."

"All servants do that," murmured Hora indifferently. "Curiosity is the mental badge of servitude. The servant is never happy until he has surprised one of his master's secrets. It would be just as well, Guy, if you were to supply him with a few facts to exercise his imagination upon. Get some girl to write you a few love letters and hide them where he can find them. He will never be at a loss then to supply a reason for any erratic movement of yours."

Guy laughed. "Not a bad suggestion," he agreed. "Do you adopt the same plan to protect yourself?"

Hora shrugged his shoulders. "I carefully built up my own reputation in advance," he remarked. "Haven't I told you? I suppose not, for you were both too young when I first located myself here." He looked round the pleasant dining-room complacently. "I've had the place for ten years now, and for one's name to be for ten years in the London directory, at the same address, is a certificate of respectability which is not easily discredited."

"Still I wonder that you did not seek greater privacy," remarked Guy, as he lit a cigarette.

Hora smiled. "A decision for privacy always awakens suspicion, and thus in our profession privacy de facto is perhaps the one luxury we cannot afford. Nevertheless a greater degree of privacy is possible in the midst of a crowd than would be possible anywhere else in the wide world. This is not such a paradoxical statement as it sounds. In the crowd no one is intent on the doings of his neighbours. Put a ring-fence round a man, and every eye would be fixed upon him. Thus you see my reason for selecting a residential flat for my London residence. The servants are not mine. Each of them has half a dozen other objects of curiosity. When they have attended to our requirements they disappear."

"But, nevertheless, they must be curious concerning the contents of the art gallery?"

The allusion was to a portion of the abode into which the servants were not supposed to enter. Though situated on the eighth story, Hora's flat at Westminster Mansions was not the ultimate achievement of the builder. Above were attics to which a narrow staircase gave entrance. The stairs were shut off by a door, and the door was always locked.

"When I see any signs of curiosity I always take an early opportunity of gratifying it," said Hora. "Every one of the servants who has ever waited upon me has had the privilege of inspecting that chamber, and not one of them has ever been sufficiently interested to enter it a second time, except at my especial request. You see they are all aware why I took possession of the attic. They think it is the fad of a nervous invalid. Those attics were entered from another staircase when first I took the flat, and some of the servants slept there. I complained of the noise, continually. Half a dozen of the poor devils must have been dismissed at one time or another for purely imaginary offences in consequence. Then I declared I could stay no longer, and I gave notice to leave. The agent for the landlord was apologetic, and asked if there was no way in which he would not be able to meet me. I offered to rent the place, saying that I would make it into a storeroom for the books and trifles which I am continually accumulating. He jumped at the offer I made, and I know he thought me a fool." Hora chuckled. "How surprised he would be to learn that the proceeds of many a rich haul have been stored there for months. But I have drifted away from my original point. I was telling you of the manner in which I built up my original reputation for eccentricity, the safest cloak a man may wear. It was a simple matter. I merely answered for myself the references I gave to my landlord. I described myself as an unfavourable tenant from every point of view, but the pecuniary one. My habits I described as irregular, my requirements exacting to a degree, my manner brusque and overbearing, and my disposition faddy and changeable, and further said I was given to making continual requests for structural alterations in any dwelling place that I occupied in order to make accommodation for any new collecting craze which seized me."

"I wonder any landlord ventured to accept you," laughed Myra.

"The London landlord has a high opinion of his capability for withstanding the demands of his tenants," said Hora drily. "He is a man lavish of promises, but meagre of fulfilments, and possessed of a genius for extracting the uttermost farthing of his rent. Moreover, he would take Satan himself as a tenant if he offered to pay six months' rent in advance. Naturally I proved acceptable, and not turning out to be the terror I depicted myself I am now looked upon as the best tenant in the whole building. I am free to do as I like. My treasure-house ceases to excite curiosity, and I believe if I were to place the crown jewels upon one of the tables up there they would be undisturbed, so long as my rent was paid regularly, until they were hidden beneath the accumulated dust of ages."

The allusion gave Guy an idea.

"Do you contemplate an imitation of Colonel Blood's exploit for the replenishment of our empty exchequer?" he said, smiling.

"I have often envied Blood's opportunities," answered Hora thoughtfully, "but at the present day there are much greater difficulties in the way than Blood had to contend with. Some day, perhaps, but just now I have another scheme in my mind." He rose from the table. "I have something to tell you," he remarked. "You will excuse me for a minute."

He left the room. As the door closed on Hora, Myra turned eagerly to her companion. She felt that, despite her promise to Hora, she must give utterance to the fears which once again possessed her mind.

"Guy," she said, "I wish you would persuade the Commandatore to leave London for a while. He would listen to any wish of yours."

"Do you think so?" he asked. "I don't think that any expression of mine would turn him from any purpose he has in view."

"But can you not try?" she persisted. "For my sake, Guy."

"Why, whatever is the matter with you, Myra?" asked the young man, his attention captured by the obvious anxiety in her voice. "Surely you are not becoming afraid?"

"Becoming afraid?" she repeated after him mechanically. "No, I am not becoming afraid. I learned what fear was long ago, when first I ventured to put my own desires in opposition to the will of the Commandatore. I have always been afraid since then." She fell to silence.

"There's no reason to fear the Commandatore," answered Guy cheerfully. "You are growing morbid, Myra."

She paid no heed to his comment. "It is not fear now, or at least not what is generally understood by fear. There is an oppression in the air, the weight of something unseen and unknown presses on me."