RGL e-Book Cover©
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover©
All Around Magazine, March 1916,
with "The Adventure Of "J. Bird""
"The Amazing Mr. Bunn," Macdonald & Co., London, 1949,
with "The Adventure Of "J. Bird""
"IT'S a remarkable thing how proud and ambitious a few good hauls make a man," Mr. Bunn was musing one afternoon, soon after he had moved into a comfortable furnished flat in Ridgeford Mansions, Torrington Terrace. "Look at myself, for instance. A couple of years ago I wasn't capable of thinking in quids, and if I was I never had a chance. I was too busy hunting for bobs. And my clothes was nearly rags, my grub was trash, and me grammar was muck. Not that I reckon myself a duke, even now. But I do consider I've got on in the world. Worth a couple of thousand o' goblins anyhow, and my way of speaking has improved something astonishing. And me clothes is remarkably neat and classy."
He took up his bank-book and ran his eye affectionately over the total once again.
"Very well done indeed, Smiler," he soliloquized comfortably; "you have a very happy knack of putting your hands on the right thing in the right place at the right time, and it'll carry you a long way yet."
He got up from the sofa and locked the bank-book away.
"Yes, with ordinary care and a bit of luck you'll die a prosperous gentleman-farmer yet, my lad. And in the meantime you shall take an evening off, and have a special dinner. And we'll make it this evening, Smiler, if it's all the same to you," he continued playfully.
He strolled quietly into his bedroom and very leisurely proceeded to dress for the forthcoming "snack."
But as he rang the bell with the intention of desiring his landlady to bring him a slice of currant cake—there was nothing he enjoyed more than to beguile the tedium of dressing with a thick slice of cake—he made an alarming discovery. He looked at his reflection in the mirror very closely, and, turning repeatedly, surveyed himself at every angle. Then he heaved a profound sigh.
"Yes," he said reluctantly, at last. "I am getting stout —too stout!" He paused reflectively, smoothing his chin. "I shall have to go without any coffee to-night, and take more exercise!"
But the bogy of embonpoint was not to be so easily laid. It haunted him all through his dinner and the series of cigars which followed it, and an incident which he witnessed while strolling home, and which he chose to interpret into an omen, or a warning by Fate, decided him to take active measures to reduce his weight without delay.
It was quite an everyday affair, but one which no "crook" could witness unmoved.
A pickpocket of the "baser sort," attracted by a flashily-dressed lady, who obviously was the wife of a bookmaker (who probably ran a beerhouse also), had made a two-handed clutch at the very obese and silver-mounted bag which she carried by no means unostentatiously. He got it, and bolted for dear life, head down, and full pelt, for an alley some twenty yards up the street. He ran blindly into a policeman, who was just emerging from the alley in question, and that was the beginning of the end. As the man was led away to the haven where he fain would not be, Mr. Bunn, who had watched the episode, sighed.
"Poor bloke," he said, "that's what comes of holding your head down. Always bunk with your head up, lookin' the whole world in the face. If you do that you can see the cops and dodge 'em; and the man was too fat—too fat—and he forgot to hold his head up, and it might have been me! Wurr!" Smiler shivered. "I'm too fat, too. But I always holds me head up. But, all the same, I'll take more exercise. What's the matter with a bicycle tour? Just a week potterin' along and potterin' along; that'll get my weight down. It'll be pleasant, and I'll do it!"
He strolled leisurely home, ordered supper, and sat down to look at the late evening papers. There was nothing much in them. The police-courts were busy, as usual. Mr. Bunn noted with vague regret that an old friend of his had been involved in an argument with a judge, but had got rather the worst of it (six months), and after his usual survey of the personal advertisements, he had turned to the Society column. Here a paragraph arrested his attention at once.
"The Duchess of Cornchester, whose recent article on 'The Simple Life' will be remembered by our readers, left London to-day for Salisbury, from which town she proposes to start on her caravan tour through the New Forest. The tour will extend over two months, and her Grace will travel incognita."
Smiler Bunn frowned thoughtfully as he read the paragraph. "Cornchester—Duchess of Cornchester!" he muttered. "I've got her in my book, I believe. Let's have a look."
He took from a drawer a black note-book, and ran his finger down the index.
"'Collins, Carroway, Cornelius, Custard, Cornchester.' That's it! 'Cornchester, Duch. of, Em. and dia. neckl. Once belong to Sult. Turk. Val. Always wears. Never part. See Daily Whaup, May 18, '02.'"
Smiler closed the book and put it away. He remembered the story now. The Duchess of Cornchester, some years before, had saved the life of a young man who had been seized with cramp while bathing at a seaside resort. She was unmarried at the time. The young man had turned out to be the Duke of Cornchester, and, a week later, had presented his preserver with the most expensive diamond and emerald necklace he could find. For some vague feminine reason she had sworn always to wear the necklace, and when, some weeks later, the "beautiful and fearless girl" (vide Press) married the Duke of Cornchester, practically every newspaper in London chronicled the "romantic" vow—much to the interest of those of the London and Provincial "crooks" who read Society news. And there are more of them do this than many people are apt to realise.
Smiler smoked a cigar to the bitter end while he pondered the position.
"Well, now's my chance if ever I'm going to get that necklace," he soliloquised. "A caravan's no place for a thousand quids' worth of jewellery—not by no means. But very likely she's got out of the romantic stage by now. It's a good few years ago she got married, and marriage tells on a woman very nearly as much as it does on a man. Still, these Duchesses are rum 'uns—likely as not they keep their vows. Sometimes, anyhow; and as I'm having this bicycle tour, in any case I might as well have it in the New Forest as anywhere else. Might come across this caravan when I'm there. You never know. I'll swear it was never meant for me to be touring about on a bicycle in Wales, wherever Wales is, while a diamond necklace was touring about in a caravan in the New Forest. No, I must look into this."
And he rang for his supper with the air of a general about to cross the Alps.
SOME two days later a fat person in knickerbockers might
have been seen sitting on a chair outside the Red Deer Inn
in the village of Downton, Wiltshire, carefully dealing with
the contents of a large jug. Leaning against the wall was a
bicycle covered with white dust. It was mid-August, and the
English summer was excelling itself. Anyone riding a bicycle
in such weather was liable to be affected by the heat, and the
fat person with the jug seemed to be particularly distressed
about it.
"For two pins I'd give it up altogether," he was saying to himself. "Only I hate giving up; and heat like this can't last—that's one comfort, anyhow." He turned and stared along the Salisbury road. "They ought to be along pretty soon now," he said, and even as he spoke a pair-horse caravan rounded the bend.
"Thought so," said the fat person, and hastily went inside the inn, taking the jug with him. He sat down in the window-seat, from whence he could command a view of the road.
"Let's see, how far is the New Forest from here?" he inquired of the landlord, who appeared to be entertaining himself with a spirited imitation of the man in the Iron (or pewter) Mask.
"The Forest, sir? Well, some reckons it's twenty. Which end of the Forest, mister?"
"Which end? Why, this end, you fathead! The nearest end," said the stout person, with a stare.
"Oh, this end's two mile about, mister."
The fat person pondered.
"Um!" he said at last. "I'll stop here to-night. You can book me a bed. Name of Bird—J. Bird."
The landlord made a note of it, and J. Bird turned again to the window.
"Jay Bird," said the landlord, "Now, that's a Lunnon name, mister, I'll lay. There's some funny names about, ain't there? Now, what'd you reckon my name was?"
"Hogg," said J. Bird promptly—or Smiler Bunn, as hitherto he had been known.
The landlord chuckled.
"Noa," he replied, seeming pleased.
"Dogg!" said Smiler snappishly.
"Noa." The landlord's chuckle was less pronounced this time. The idea that J. Bird did not wish to talk to him was slowly grinding its way through his skull. "Guess again!"
"Devil, then. And Hog, Dog or Devil, it's all the same to me!" roared J. Bird, who wanted to think. "You shut up! I didn't ride seven miles in this weather to guess your darned name. I don't want to know your name. I don't care what it is. Any blooming name'd do you! You go out into the stable and call yourself by it—and mind you come when you're called!"
The landlord scratched his hair. His suspicion that his customer was not a chatty man was practically a certainty now.
"Oh, yes—certainly that's polite and civil," he said, vaguely sarcastic, and discontinued the conversation.
In a few minutes the caravan lumbered slowly past the inn, and Mr. Bunn—that is, J. Bird—surveyed it attentively from behind the curtains.
At the Salisbury Hotel, from which it had started, J. Bird had quietly interviewed an ostler that morning, and from this man he had been able to glean a fair idea as to the probable route upon which it would proceed. But he had seen nobody connected with the vehicle, nor had he troubled to wait until they put in an appearance. There was time for that and to spare—nearly two months, Smiler judged, for he did not expect to "come to grips" with the necklace for a considerable period.
But he did not expect, nor in his opinion did he deserve, the series of blows which Fate proceeded to deal him as he looked out of the window of the "Red Deer" at the caravan.
Walking slightly in front of the horses was a huge and extraordinarily offensive-looking boarhound—muzzled. There was something very ominous about that muzzle.
Following the caravan was that boarhound's wife, and she looked even more biased and quick-tempered than her mate. She was unmuzzled—and there was something very ominous about that lack of a muzzle.
A nervy-looking bull-terrier, with pink-rimmed eyes, padded along in the shade under the caravan.
J. Bird rubbed his chin very thoughtfully indeed, as his quick eye took in the canine escort. In his eagerness to see all that was to be seen he pushed the curtain clear away from the window. The movement of the white curtain caught the attention of a girl who was sitting next to a man who sat by the driver (there were three people sitting in front). She turned, and her eyes met those of J. Bird, who recognised her instantly. It was Fanchon—the girl from Westerton's, the great American detective agency.
Smiler saw her grip the arm of the man who sat next to her, and rapidly whisper to him. The man craned forward and round, staring at the window, and Smiler saw that it was Tony Bunn, his brother. Smiler was not surprised for more than a half-second. He saw instantly how it had happened that these two should be on the box of the Duchess of Corn-chester's caravan. It was perfectly natural that they should be there. He had realised this even before his brother had jumped down and started for the door of the "Red Deer."
Tony Bunn was a man who lost no time on any occasion. He was in the room almost before Smiler had decided upon his course.
"Hallo!" said Tony.
He was too cautious to use any name.
"Hallo!" said Smiler. "What'll you have?" and ordered another jug of gin-and-ginger beer without waiting for a reply. He bore it to the window-seat, and the two sat down.
"Look here, Jack," began Tony Bunn, in a half-whisper. "There's nothing doing in necklaces this trip."
Smiler smiled.
"How's that, old man?" he asked cheerfully. Tony looked serious.
"I'll tell you. When you met me last—a month ago—I was passing as a Baron, and I was a 'crook'?" Smiler nodded.
"Well, I'm not a 'crook' now. I'm a private detective. Fanchon and I are married, and in two months' time we sail for the United States for good. She wanted to see a bit of English country, and she got an offer from the Duchess of Cornchester's solicitors, who knew of her. The Duchess was going on a two months' tour, and wanted a clever and ladylike companion who knew—well, what Fanchon knows. Fan jumped at the offer, and dragged me into it. She told the Duchess that she couldn't take the responsibility of escorting a five-thousand-pound necklace about country lanes without a good man to help her. She recommended me. Westerton's cabled her two months' holiday to get married in, and her recommendation of me was good enough for the Duchess. And here we are. Now, Jack, you can't get that necklace anyhow. It's impossible. The dogs won't allow anyone near the caravan when we're camping, and even if you fixed the dogs, there's me, and even if you fixed me, there's the Duchess's coachman, and even if you fixed him, there's Fan, and I don't know of any man in the world who could fix her. She's as clever as paint and as good as gold, and I've got to keep 'good' too—for Fanchon's sake. See? After this trip she's going to get me a job with Westerton's, across the Atlantic, and we'll settle down in the States for good. That's all. You've got to give up the necklace idea, Jack. Here's luck!"
Tony drank airily, but his eyes were bright and anxious over the rim of the glass.
For Smiler was smiling a smile that was "childlike and bland."
"Well," said Tony, a shade stiffly. "You don't mean to say you're still going to try for it?"
Smiler nodded, filling his brother's glass.
"Fair warning's fair warning, old man," he said. "Ain't it? Now, you know perfectly well that I'm part mule and part fool and part man. That's me. Now, you listen. I want that necklace, and I've got to get it." Tony shrugged his shoulders. "Wait a minute. Now, there's no need for you and Fanchon to work on your honeymoon. I've got a bit, and you can have five hundred any day. Now, you take this five hundred, and chuck the job, and have your honeymoon in a motor, properly. Fanchon'll see more English country that way, too. You see, if you and Fanchon were going to settle down in England as private detectives I'd get out of this job at once. But you ain't. You're leaving England for good in' a few weeks. And Fanchon's reputation isn't even at stake, either. She's not working for Westerton's at all now. She's on a holiday. So her reputation won't suffer with her employers, if I get the jewels, I don't suppose Westerton's would ever hear of it, anyhow. See? Well, then, don't you consider it's a darn selfish thing to ask me to sacrifice a chance of a five-thousand-pound necklace for the sake of—nothing, except Fanchon's and your reputations on a two months' holiday job, for which I'll bet a fiver you aren't being paid more than a hundred quid, if that? And I'm offering you, as a brother, five hundred quid freely and fully. So the money you're earning's no excuse. You reckon I can't get that necklace. I reckon I can, for I'm improving, and I'm only going in for big things now. So if you stand in my way, Tony, it's darned selfishness, and that's all there is in it."
Put that way, it certainly sounded convincing. After all, there was no real reason why Tony and his wife should work on their honeymoon instead of doing rural England properly in a motor-car. Tony's face showed indecision as Smiler firmly filled his glass.
"Think it over, old man," said Smiler. "You ain't the man to be a dog in the manger, and interfere with your own brother's private affairs, I know that. Sit down and think it over."
With a gesture of confidence he turned, staring out of the window. Tony pondered. Was the five hundred Smiler offered him a bribe, or was it just genuine brotherly affection? He believed it was the latter. He remembered that Smiler had not hesitated to tell him of the schemes of a certain adventuress whom, not long before, he, Tony, had been about to marry for the sake of the money she did not possess. And Smiler had warned him at considerable personal risk. For the adventuress—who had posed as an American heiress—was a dangerous criminal, who ultimately had been arrested by Fanchon, a lady detective from New York. It was during this affair that Tony had met Fanchon, fallen in love with, and, it now appeared, subsequently married her. Tony had been a "crook" also in those days, but marriage seemed to have reformed him.
He thought it over.
"After all, it's rough on old Jack. There is no need to consider the money the Duchess is paying us, or Fanchon's reputation as a 'star' lady 'tec' This isn't a Westerton contract she's carrying out—it's a holiday task. Still—"
Smiler turned again.
"Well?" said he.
"I don't know," answered his brother. "I can't decide. I'll mention it to Fanchon, and let her decide."
"Oh, all right," replied Smiler; "just as you like. It's all the same to me. I've got to get that necklace, so Fanchon can decide whichever way she thinks she'd like to. You can tell her this, Tony. I'm out for the necklace, but I ain't going to hurt anybody. I ain't a violent man—it's bad for the stomach. So if Fanchon thinks she'll go on guarding the Duch, she can—knowing that neither she nor you nor the coachman nor anybody else'll get hurt or have any rough business through me. You put it to her, and if she's willing to resign, send me a wire saying just 'Mine's motors.' If she means to go on with her two months' job, wire 'Caravans.' Then I shall know where I stand. See?"
Tony nodded gloomily.
"You're a rum card, Jack—you always were. Suppose we decide to stay on, how're you going to get the necklace?" Smiler smiled yet again.
"I don't know," he said simply, "no more than the man in the moon." He refilled his brother's glass. "But I don't let a little thing like that worry me. Here's luck! Don't forget to send the telegram—to J. Bird, at this inn. And now I'm going out to the poultry-yard to pick a nice bird for dinner—unless there's such a thing as a duck about. Will you stop and have some dinner? Duck, say, and a green pea or two, and a gooseberry puddin', and a bit of Wiltshire cheese, and a pint or two of real home-brewed? That'd go pretty well, I reckon, wouldn't it?"
But Tony Bunn refused. He wanted to get back to the caravan. For he had a worrying notion that Smiler would not be the only gentleman of fortune after that necklace. The Duchess had been paragraphed too freely for Smiler to be the only one to recall her vow never to part with it.
"Ah, well!" said Smiler "Good luck to you, Tony! Take care of the necklace. I'll see you in town before you go to America. Don't forget the telegram. And, mind, in case I don't see you again, I shan't bear you any malice if I don't get the stones."
Then they shook hands on their curious compact, and parted.
Some hours later J. Bird, toying with the unimportant end of his dinner, received a telegram. He opened it. On the limp form he read one word only:
CARAVANS.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Ain't that just like a woman?" he said. "Obstinate as mules, that's what women are!"
He leisurely finished his meal. Then he lit a cigar and looked at his watch.
"Half-past seven," he muttered, and rang the bell. "I'm going to bed," he said to the astonished landlady. "You can send a pint of home-brewed beer up at eight sharp, and a goodish-sized Welsh rabbit, and another pint at half-past nine. I've got a lot of thinking to do, and a man can't think on an empty stomach." And he added, under his breath: "This job will want all the thinking I can spare, too!"
Then he went reflectively up the stairs.
NEXT morning J. Bird was up at six sharp and caught the first train to town, leaving his bicycle at the "Red Deer," with instructions that it should be handed over to the person presenting a signed order for it. Two days after the departure of J. Bird, a fat gipsy, with an extraordinarily dark complexion, little gold rings in his ears, keen twinkling eyes, and dressed in a lamentably shabby velveteen coat, old tight riding-breeches and cloth gaiters, with a slouch hat of the slouchiest kind, and a bandanna handkerchief round his neck, called into the bar, and after two swift pints of beer, made a few cautious inquiries concerning a certain amateur caravanning party, which had recently passed that way. He failed to glean much news, but that did not seem to worry him. He absorbed a further pint of beer, with surpassing skill and precision, and left. The landlord, watching him from the door of the inn as he got his rather heavily-laden pony-cart under way, was afflicted with a vague idea that he had met the gipsy somewhere before, but he could not recall the meeting, and so, with a gesture of absolute indifference, returned to his bar. And the gipsy, trudging slowly along by the side of his "outfit," jogged away in the direction of the New Forest.
"Well, I ain't so badly made up if Hogg, or whatever his name is, couldn't recognise me," said the "gippo" aloud to himself, as he drifted round the corner. And his voice was the voice of J. Bird, other wise Smiler Bunn.
The shades of night were falling with their customary speed and accuracy before the gipsy had passed through the wide heathery expanse which marks the beginning of the New Forest, on the Wiltshire border, and pulled off the road into a glade of beech trees not far from the wood in which is placed the triangular iron-cased stone marking the spot where the Red King was killed. Smiler was about to camp for the night. He had travelled rather farther that day than he had expected to, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that his forced march had landed him within comfortable distance of the Stoney Cross Hotel—that hostelry which looks out over the site of Rufus' Stone.
He speedily had a fire built and burning, and having filled his kettle from a big jar of water, he attached a generously-distended nosebag to his pony's face, and turned to his own lavish stores. First, he deftly pitched a small patent tent, and removed from his cart a number of neat cases and packages, including a crate containing, among other things, a twelve-pound ham, a couple of boned chickens, two Armour-plated tongues, a slab of pressed beef, many pickles, much grocery: a dozen fine blood-oranges, a middling-sized pineapple, half a dozen jars of bloater paste and other "relishes," tins of condensed milk, a string of Spanish onions, four Camembert cheeses, a big bar of chocolate, a double handful of mixed dried fruit, an assortment of cans containing lobster, salmon, prawns, oysters, mushrooms, and so forth, a tin of golden syrup, a big currant cake, two loaves, a chunk of streaky bacon, five tins of Fry's cocoa, a pint bottle of liquid coffee, a cold steak and kidney pudding, a yard of liver sausage, a box of biscuits, two bottles of whisky, a flask of brandy, a pair of opera-glasses, a deer-stalker cap, and a spare pair of boots.
He dumped the crate down and surveyed it affectionately.
"Yes," he murmured, "I ain't no fasting man. I want to get my weight down, but I ain't going to starve while I'm doing it—no fear!"
Outside, the pony snorted.
"Oh, you've got nothing to snort about, old man. There's a sack of oats in the cart for you! This is going to be a long and difficult job, my lad, and don't you forget it!"
He arranged his rugs and macintosh sheets, and proceeded to dine. For the rest of the evening he sat at the opening of his tent, smoking a quiet pipe and watching the moon rise. A bat flickered over and about the dwindling fire in an erratic and fluttering dance, hawking for moths; a wood owl, not far off, hooted cheerfully at intervals; and occasionally a lonely pheasant, roosting somewhere in the trees behind, made sleepy sounds. And Smiler Bunn sat at the door of his tent like Robinson Crusoe, and thoroughly enjoyed it. At eleven o'clock he crawled between his rugs and slept the sleep of the just.
By eight o'clock on the following morning he was on the road again. Nothing of interest happened that day. He ate well, walked well, and slept well. Twice he inquired casually about the caravan, and learned that it was not far ahead. A caravan in the New Forest is the most easily tracked thing in the world, especially when the caravanners are not hurrying.
AT noon on the second day Smiler came upon the spot where the Duchess and her party had camped, Smiler recognised it by the huge tracks of the boarhound in the soft peat round a pool not far from the site of the camp.
He examined the place carefully; he was in no hurry, and it was interesting work. He found a number of cigarette-ends—some were slender, gold-tipped things, that he attributed to Fanchon or the Duchess, and many were big, blackish, Caporal ends, obviously thrown away by Tony. On a heather bush near the pool he found a handkerchief, evidently hung there to dry, and forgotten. There was a tiny coronet in one corner, and Smiler made a note of the fact that the Duchess of Cornchester seemed to be a forgetful Duchess. That was worth knowing; but his next discovery was far more valuable. He came across a scrap of waste-paper. He turned it over and found, written in a pencil scrawl, the following note:
MRS. MORESBY'S CARAVAN.
Inquire at THE BELL INN, BROOK.
Bones and dogs' meat, 3s. Paid.
Obviously it was one of those scrappy invoices that butchers pin with wooden skewers to meat to be delivered. And Smiler smiled his bland smile as he read the "invoice."
"I thought Fan and Tony were smarter than to leave things like this about," he said to himself. For he knew now two things which he had been very anxious to know. One was the name under which the Duchess travelled, and the other made it clear to him that the dogs were not fed on biscuits alone as he had feared, but that they were given meat. That was valuable knowledge to Smiler, for he had a "condiment" in his cart that he purposed adding to the meat of the dogs when the opportunity offered.
The camp yielded no further clues. But he was perfectly satisfied with his discoveries, and even more satisfied with his skill in realising their value. Just as he reached the road again and was requesting his pony to move along, a big touring car came up behind him.
Someone in the tonneau shouted, and the driver slowed down to a crawl and stopped. There were two men in the car, and one of them leaned out, shouting a question to Smiler.
"Seen a caravan about anywhere? A varnished, swell-looking turn-out, with two good horses?" said the spokesman.
Smiler Bunn paused, scrutinising the men. He recognised them. One was "City Joe," notorious among London thieves as the most skilful safe-breaker in England, and the other was a gentleman whom Smiler had once met at Israelstein's—the receiver—a man whose usual line of business was "smashing" or counterfeiting. He called himself Captain Panton. The driver he did not recognise.
Smiler did some of the most rapid thinking he had ever accomplished. He knew what this beautiful pair were after, and he decided to choke them off without delay. The Duchess of Cornchester's necklace was for "J. Bird," or nobody.
"Yes; I've seen the caravan," he said slowly, and ostentatiously put his hand in his pocket, gripping something which reposed there. And it was not a pipe, but something heavier.
"I've seen the caravan," he repeated, "and a little way ahead of it I saw a man from Scotland Yard, and on the box I saw another man from Scotland Yard, and the smartest lady detective in town, and a little way behind it there's another man from Scotland Yard—and he's me, City Joe!"
The man's jaw dropped suddenly.
"He's me, Captain, my lad!" said Smiler. "And what are you going to do about it?"
"Do?" said City Joe, with a slightly feeble laugh. "Why, going home. What do you think? We aren't mad."
He spoke quickly to the driver, and the big car turned and headed back in the direction from which it had come. Both the men, to Smiler's certain knowledge, were clever criminals, far too clever to take any risk at all. There was no further conversation. In a few seconds the car was doing forty miles an hour towards London.
J. Bird smiled benevolently as it passed from sight in clouds of dust, and once more he desired his pony to "step along."
So began the really practical part of one of the most interesting and strenuous attempts against the Fetich of Wealth which that old campaigner, Smiler Bunn, had yet conducted. Day after day he quietly hung on to the tracks, as it were, of the caravan ahead. There were times when, under cover of friendly trees, he would stand, like Robinson Crusoe in his bower, watching through his field-glasses the caravan climbing slowly and comfortably up a far hill. Hour upon hour of that warm August he spent surveying the camp from a carefully chosen ambush hundreds of yards away, noting a thing occasionally which taught him more and more about the customs of the caravanners. Those were the days when he discovered that he hated all dogs in general, and boarhounds in particular.
Occasionally, too, he picked up a further useful atom of information from the deserted camps of the wanderers. Just outside Brockenhurst, for instance, he found the fragments of a torn letter. They were so small as to be little more than shreds; but, working throughout the whole of one blazing summer day, he managed to piece together about three square inches. It had been a labour of infinite weariness and niggling detail, but his reward was commensurate with his work, for the result showed him that the literary mosaic he had manufactured was part of a letter to his brother Tony, signed by one "Muriloff." The fragment ran—
"Borilsky is in London, and has sworn to recapture you. He has no clue, but hopes to... (here part of the letter was missing)... regardless of cost. I am permanently in England, and will warn you if necessary... danger not pressing, but recommend caution. Muriloff."
Smiler Bunn read it, and bolted half a sausage through sheer satisfaction. He knew that Tony had escaped from Siberia some months before—in the days when he had not yet married Fanchon, and was still a "crook." And this fragment of correspondence gave him the first faint glimmerings of a cut-and-dried scheme. He would not have done his brother an injury for all the necklaces in Christendom, but his scheme could be carried through without Tony suffering anything beyond a few hours' slight inconvenience. When he closed the flap of his tent that night "J. Bird" had crossed his brother off the list of "active" guardians of the necklace. But there remained the coachman, Fanchon, and the Duchess.
Given time and opportunity he thought he saw his way to render the dogs helpless.
For days he fruitlessly considered the question of dealing with the coachman, and was almost at the point of despair when an idea came to him. It was risky almost to the point of the impossible, but there was just one chance, and he decided to try for the chance.
That left Fanchon and the Duchess, and a fortnight's thought convinced him that he must trust wholly to luck in so far as they were concerned.
Trudging slowly through the dust by the side of his pony-cart, he thought over his scheme with extraordinary patience, added a little, took away a little, trimmed, polished, and theoretically tested it, and, at long last, decided to stand or fall by it. He heaved a sigh of relief, and pitched camp for the twenty-fifth time.
It was now September, but the summer heat had not yet commenced to abate. If anything, it was increasing. That evening J. Bird turned his eyes from the smoke-wreath that rose in a straight, steady column from the camp of the Duchess, and looked with unusual interest at the setting sun.
"Burn up, old sport!" he exhorted the glowing orb. "The hotter you can make it the next few days the better!"
FOUR days later his chance came.
The Duchess's tour was now nearing its conclusion. The caravan had visited practically every place of interest in the Forest, and, despite the present heat, very soon the nights would grow chilly. The Forest was golden brown now, and even the big fir plantations looked yellower and more withered than usual. The Duchess was wearying of the vagabond life; so were Fanchon and Tony Bunn. And the coachman had been tired of it before it began. He had no use for sleeping in tents, that coachman.
Even the indomitable J. Bird was beginning to weary of the eternal dogging and stealthy watching. He had lost nearly thirty pounds in weight, and hungered vaguely for the London pavements, the wailing anguished roar of the motor-buses, the quacking and hooting of the taxicabs, and the hot puffs of air that he had been used to encounter as he passed the restaurants.
He realised that the taut care and alertness which had characterised the movements of all the party ahead save the Duchess at the beginning of the tour was relaxed, and he judged that he had to work quickly if he was to get his out-of-pocket expenses for this trip.
And so, when the caravan encamped one torpid, thunderish afternoon in a big clearing some half a mile or so from Beaulieu, J. Bird cleared for action. It was three o'clock when the caravan camped. Smiler, hovering on a hill far behind, saw, through his field-glasses, the big van pull off the road, joggle through a big clump of trees and into the clearing, and he hurried his outfit up, approaching as closely to the actual camp as he dared. He was near enough to see his quarry's movements comfortably with the naked eye. The tents of his brother and the coachman fluttered white through the trees as the two men raised them.
Smiler tethered his pony and rapidly looked up an ordnance survey map, referring to his watch at the same time. He appeared satisfied, for he chuckled.
Then he stepped across the road, and making a fairly wide circuit of the big camp, turned to the telegraph office at Beaulieu, where he sent a lengthy wire to a motor-car firm at Salisbury. The postmistress seemed slightly astonished when she read the telegram he handed in. Gipsies very rarely telegraphed from Beaulieu for motor-cars to come from Salisbury to meet them late at night in lonely little villages in the New Forest—very rarely indeed. But the man seemed to know what he wanted, so, with a remote curiosity as to what J. Bird wanted with a car at that time of night, the postmistress sniffed and sent it off.
"There's my back door opened, anyhow," said Smiler cheerfully, as he made his way back to his headquarters. Once there, he made a careful note of the time, and proceeded to spend half an hour over a lavish meal.
When he had finished, he smashed all the boxes and the two crates of provisions he had brought, and put the fragments on the fire. He next took about, two pounds of cold boiled liver which he had procured by special order at the last inn he had passed, and with this and the contents of a scientific-looking bottle with a red label, he compounded half a dozen very tempting-looking "rissoles." He surveyed them as they stood in a row on a plank.
"I've never yet heard of a dog that'd refuse cold boiled liver," he soliloquised. "And that little lot '11 keep 'em dreamy for a good five hours."
Next he took out a battered, but roomy suit-case, and ran through the contents. These comprised a light sac overcoat, a horsey-looking cap, a grey check suit, a pair of brown boots, gloves, collar, tie and coloured shirt, small mirror, and a case of cigars. All these he placed so that they could be seized with the greatest convenience by a man changing in a hurry, and, closing it, hid the suit-case away under a bush, upon which he spread in a casual, wind-blown sort of way, a newspaper, so that it should show up plainly in the dark.
Then he gave the pony a heavy feed of oats, during the disposal of which he took a spade and dug a deep hole some sixty yards from his camp. Into this hole he threw his folding tent, rugs, spare clothing, all the tins of provisions he had left, and everything with the vendor's or maker's name on it, filled it in, levelled the earth, and scattered the surplus soil. The spade he threw into a pool close at hand.
Thus he had left to him only a pony and cart, a hidden suit-case, and six tit-bits suitable for objectionable boarhounds. The field-glasses he slipped into his pocket.
It was five o'clock by the time these preparations were completed. The pony had finished his oats, and Smiler removed the nose-bag, weighted it with stones, and, together with all the harness, pitched it into the pool to keep the spade company. He cut a stick, led the pony by the forelock to an opening in the trees, and pointed his head towards the forest.
"Well, matey, you've been a good little pony, although you ain't much to look at," he said, and patted its neck. "You can't go and tell all the other ponies I haven't fed you well—that's one thing. I'm going to give you your liberty, old man. You'll probably get copped again, but—well, there 'tis. Git up!"
He gave the pony so business-like a clip across the quarters with the stick that it almost startled the little animal into turning a somersault, and sent it off for the open forest at a gallop.
He went back to the cart, overturned it, and, having carefully wrapped his "present for good dogs" in brown paper and put it in the suit-case which he re-hid, went and sat on a fallen tree, and smoked a reflective cigar, consulting his watch at intervals.
With the exception of the dying fire, the worn-out-looking overturned little cart, and the newspaper on the bush, there was nothing to show that his outfit had ever existed.
He finished his cigar, took an ordinary three-pronged, black-handled table fork from a tree into which he had stuck it, and this (the only relic of his camp left) he bound tightly to a stiff, but fairly slender, six-foot pole, which he specially cut and trimmed for the purpose. When finished, it looked like a caricature of a prehistoric spear. He thrust it under the bushes, and, with a final look round, strolled away towards the last village the caravan had passed through. It lay about two miles back, and he had no fear of meeting any of the caravan people in that direction.
He went to the Stag Inn, the only hostelry in the place, and, having purchased refreshment for himself and the landlord, borrowed a sheet of note-paper and pen and ink. This is what he wrote—
"Porpoise Hotel, Southampton.
"Borilsky active. Knows something. Look out. Mistrust any foreigner. Imperative I should see you here to-night. Shall wait from eight to ten, smoking-room. Come for my, if not for your own sake.
"Muriloff."
Smiler remembered that Tony had told him Muriloff was the name of one of those who had escaped from Siberia with him; also it was the name of the man who had sent a previous warning.
Smiler read the note carefully, and sealed it. He had written in a desperate scrawl, which looked as though it might have been written in furious haste by the man who had sent the other warning.
"I think that'll get Tony away for a couple of hours all right," he said, and smiled blandly. "But it'll be tricky work delivering it."
He took another drink, and strolled out into the growing dusk. It was now about half-past seven. He went first to the place where he had left his suit-case, "toasting-fork," and the delicacies for the dogs.
Then he went towards the other camp, cautiously making Ms way through the trees until he stood by a small pool some twenty yards from the caravan. There was absolutely no wind, and he moved so quietly that the dogs who were lolling near the fire on the other side of the caravan, did not appear to be aware of him. He waited there, watching from behind a tree-trunk some three yards from the pool. Both the Duchess and Fanchon seemed to be inside the caravan. Tony appeared to be attending to some cooking at the fire, and the coachman was strapping rugs over his horses, which were tethered between the pool and the caravan.
The coachman was the man Smiler wanted. Gipsy-like and ill-kempt though he was, he did not wish Tony or Fanchon to see him. They had keen eyes, both of them, and quick wits.
The success of his scheme depended almost wholly on his being able to convey "Muriloff's note" to the coachman, for delivery to Tony, without his being recognised or suspected. He was on the point of going over to the coachman, when he saw that the man, evidently having finished with the horses for the night, was coming towards the pool, probably with the intention of washing his hands.
Smiler stepped out, note in hand, and met him at the pool.
"Is this Mrs. Moresby's camp?" he said quietly.
"Yes. What d'you want?" answered the coachman, civilly enough.
"A gentleman in Southampton asked me to deliver this note. I was coming through the Forest. He says I was to say he didn't know if a telegram would be delivered. I've been hunting for a long time, but trust a gipsy to find a camp in the Forest. The poor gipsy knows the Forest. It's his home. Farewell!" said Smiler, artistically, thrust the note into the coachman's hand, and disappeared among the trees.
"Done it, by God!" he whispered, as he half circled the camp to get a clear view of Tony.
Lurking well back among the trees, he saw the coachman give the note to Tony, saw Tony read it in the firelight, and saw him nervously thrust it away into his pocket.
"He'll go—he'll go, for a quid," breathed Smiler, and listened.
Tony crossed to the caravan and spoke quietly. Smiler could not hear what he said, but he heard very clearly the feminine laugh that followed.
"Why, of course," said a voice. "What can happen in an hour or so? I insist that you go!"
It was the Duchess of Cornchester speaking. Evidently Tony had expressed doubts as to the wisdom of leaving them. Then the watcher saw Fanchon come out into the firelight. She read the note, nodded, and kissed Tony.
Two minutes later Smiler saw the glitter of the firelight as it fell on the plated rims and spokes of a bicycle. Smiler stole round and watched the red side-glow from the bicycle lamp disappear down the road leading to Southampton.
Tony was safe for at least an hour, and probably much more, for he would be sure thoroughly to satisfy himself that the note was a false alarm before he started back to the camp.
Then Smiler turned his attention to the dogs. He stole in towards the fire until he was dangerously near. The boar-hounds were stretched out facing it, their heads on their fore-paws. They looked like two huge wild animals in the uncertain flicker of the firelight, and their smooth, glossy coats shone in the glow of the flames. Beyond the radius of the fire it was quite dark. The bull-terrier was over by the caravan. Once Smiler trod on a prematurely fallen dead leaf, and at the scarcely perceptible rustle one of the big brutes raised her head and glared round, with ears pricked and lambent, baleful eyes. Smiler held his breath. Presently the hound resettled herself. There was no wind, and no doubt she was too accustomed to queer forest noises by now to go out among the trees and satisfy herself as to the sound. Perhaps she thought it was a hedgehog or a belated squirrel.
But for a few seconds Smiler hesitated. He sincerely believed that the dogs would be on him instantly at the slightest mistake, and his belief, it may be said, was wholly accurate.
"This is a dangerous job," he whispered inaudibly. He was quite unarmed except for the six-foot "toasting-fork" which he required for another purpose. He had purposely left his revolver in his suit-case for fear of accidents, and because, as he had told Tony, he had no wish to use violence.
Then, setting his teeth, and carefully measuring his distance, he pitched four of his doctored balls of liver out towards the boarhounds. They fell with soft, flabby thuds about two yards short of the animals, and the dogs' heads were up and staring round almost before the sound of the thuds had ceased.
Smiler, watching with one eye only showing from behind the trunk of the tree, saw the great beasts slowly get up and move deliberately towards the spots where the baits had fallen. In the uncertain, shifting light they looked almost like black maneless lions.
Then the bull-terrier padded quickly across the camp to them, and Smiler's heart mounted steadily to his throat. He saw the boarhounds each sniff at a ball and swallow one apiece at a gulp. Immediately after the bull-terrier snapped up the remaining two. The three dogs remained standing, staring out at a slight opening among the trees rather to the left of Smiler.
They sniffed, seemed to hesitate, and then sedately walked back to the fire and stretched out again.
Smiler breathed and listened to the beating of his heart. He marvelled that the dogs had not heard it.
He felt more comfortable now that the really physically dangerous part of his scheme was carried out. In fifteen minutes the dogs would be absolutely unconscious. They were not poisoned. Smiler Bunn was not the man to poison a dog if he could possibly avoid it; but they were very effectually drugged. They would be safe for some hours.
He gave the drugs a quarter of an hour to complete their work, and then moved round the camp once more. The coachman was inside his tent, and as Smiler took up his position, just behind the horses, where he could command an excellent view of the camp, the two women descended from the caravan. Smiler stared at them through his glasses. They were chattering like two children—the Duchess was no more than twenty-six or thereabouts, and Fanchon was even younger. They might have been two schoolgirls rather than a leading Society woman and a lady detective. They seemed excellent friends. But what interested Smiler most was the Duchess's blouse. It was one of those collarless affairs with a thin gauzy material about the neck and chest that women wear in the summer (that was why Smiler prayed for hot weather), and there were no jewels round the lady's neck.
Smiler bit his lips with excitement.
"If she's kept her vow it's in the caravan," he whispered tensely.
Fanchon went across to the fire and began to attend to the cooking which Tony had left. The Duchess lay back in one of the deck-chairs which were about the camp and lighted a slender cigarette. The door of the caravan was left open. Evidently their long immunity had rendered even Fanchon a little careless.
Smiler hesitated no longer. He took three quick bounds to the horses, cut their head-ropes, flung away the knife, and administered two swift stabs at the startled animals with his "toasting-fork." It was not enough to injure them, but it was too much to endure quietly. They were fairly well-bred beasts, and with snorts of pain and surprise, they bolted.
Smiler shot back to the trees as the coachman ran out.
"Waters!" cried the Duchess, "the horses have broken loose again!"
"Yes, y'r Grace; it's them forest flies again," said the coachman, and tore into the dark after the horses.
Twice before on that trip the New Forest fly had goaded them into breaking their head-ropes and bolting.
A healthy forest fly is a calamity even to a forest pony, to say nothing of softer, corn-fed, stable-housed horses. And Smiler knew it.
The Duchess laughed, and Fanchon turned again to her cooking.
"Poor Waters!" said the Duchess, carelessly, and, picking up a very silver-plated banjo, began to extract a rather halting two-step from it. She did not appear to notice that her dogs paid absolutely no attention to the horses' dash from the clearing, and Fanchon's whole attention seemed to be taken up with a kettle that was boiling over.
Smiler was in luck. But then he had trusted a little to luck. Thieves do.
He stole silently across to the caravan, and quietly and lightly, as only stout people can move, nipped inside.
There was a second's tense, heart-stopping pause. But the banjo did not cease, and Smiler heard the rattle of a kettle or a saucepan. He had marked that the windows of the caravan were shuttered for the night, and he did not hesitate, therefore, to press the button of his electric lamp. The ray shone on two narrow, but cosy bunks and a tiny dressing-table with a row of drawers below.
He glanced round. Never had he used his eyes so swiftly and keenly as he did in this warm, daintily-fitted, perfumed woman's nest. And suddenly his mouth went dry. Just above one of the bunks he saw one end of a tiny drawer protruding slightly. He pulled at this end, and it opened, swinging out with a half-circular movement, working on a pivot. Obviously it was a secret drawer, and cleverly devised at that. He would never have discovered it had the Duchess closed it properly. But it seemed that she was too careless, or unused to doing without her maid, even to take that precaution.
"People like this deserve to lose their jewels," breathed Smiler, as his fingers, groping in the drawer, closed on a series of cold, clean-cut, hard lumps, attached to each other by chains.
He pocketed it like a juggler, and stepped gingerly through the darkness to the narrow door. He had switched off his electric torch.
And then just as his foot touched the turf, he heard an ominous, sinister, clear-cut click half behind him.
He turned like lightning. Fanchon was looking him in the eyes over the barrel of a revolver that he knew.
"Good evening," she said coolly. "Don't run!"
THERE was a warning in her voice, that he dared not ignore. He stared at the black mouth of the weapon with a sort of fascinated half-smile. It looked as large as the mouth of a cannon to him.
Fanchon's voice pulled him together, however.
"Throw the necklace on the ground, near that lady!" said Fanchon incisively.
There was a metallic tone in her voice that Mr. Bunn found very unpleasant. He had heard it once before, when Fanchon arrested Kate the Gun, the American adventuress whom his brother had nearly married.
Smiler braced himself up—and smiled.
"No," said he blandly. "I can't bear to part with it."
Fanchon started at the sound of his voice.
"Do as I say," she said curtly.
"I'm very sorry—no!" said Smiler.
Fanchon's eyes burned. The Duchess looked on, with an air of wanting to clap her hands.
"I'll count three, and if you do not put down the necklace, I'll shoot. I swear it—Jack. For Tony's sake, I'll not kill you. But I'll break your leg." The plated revolver shifted slightly. "I can do it, you know," said Fanchon.
Smiler saw that the weapon pointed at his knee.
"One!" said Fanchon.
Smiler shook his head gently.
"Two!" said Fanchon.
"Can't be done," said Smiler.
"Three!" said Fanchon.
Smiler smiled, but his lips worked a little stiffly.
"Oh, Jack, it's not fair!" said Fanchon, suddenly, in a surprisingly changed voice. "I can't do it, Duchess! This man is my husband's brother, and he once tried to be kind and good to me when he thought I was in danger!"
And she burst into tears.
The Duchess opened her arms and took Fanchon in them as though she were a hurt child.
"Oh, aren't you ashamed?" said the little Duchess to Mr. Bunn.
Her voice shook with scorn. Smiler bowed profoundly.
"Yes," said he frankly, "I am," and disappeared into the darkness.
But he went no more than a few yards into the trees. Then he paused and listened. Fanchon was sobbing with hurt pride and vexation as though her heart would break, and the Duchess was petting her only as one woman can pet another.
"Don't cry, my dear. Please, don't cry. I don't mind losing the necklace a bit," said the Duchess. "It's not your fault. Come, Fanchon—see, I'm laughing. Really, I don't regret the necklace. Don't cry any more. You did it splendidly. Let's make some tea, and forget all about it."
"Here, curse it all—" muttered Smiler.
This was more than he had bargained for. It sounded somehow as though everybody in the world was decent but himself. He stepped back into the firelight.
"Well, you're a sportsman, Duchess; strike me glorious if you ain't! Here you are—take it, quick, before I alter my mind!" he said, offering the necklace.
Fanchon looked up and saw the jewels, blazing back the dancing light of the flames.
"Oh, Jack!" she said, with a gasp.
"So I should think," said Smiler grumpily. "Mind you tell Tony I gave it up of my own free will."
He strode over to the dogs and patted them where they lay like marble things.
"Poor old sports!" he grumbled. "All for nothing! They'll be all right in the morning," he explained. "They're only drugged."
Then he said, very sulkily, "Good night," walked quickly across the clearing and disappeared—this time permanently.
Fanchon and the Duchess stared at each other in a lengthy silence, broken at last by her Grace:
"There! now he'll grumble for days. Isn't that just like a man?"
Fanchon nodded, half laughing, half crying.
Then they made tea, in order to talk it over properly.
Just like a woman!
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.