A Football Mystery

Roy Glashan's Library
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ANONYMOUS
(W.J. LOMAX)

A FOOTBALL MYSTERY

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First published in
Union Jack, Vol. VII. No. 169, 5/1/1907,
Amalgamated Press, London

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-11-18

Produced by John Haubrich and Roy Glashan

All original content added by RGL is protected by copyright.

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An enthralling long, complete novel of fascinating interest, in which is described how Sexton Blake and Tinker become involved in a great mystery; how in solving it they meet with many perilous adventures, and how they take part in the greatest football match ever played.

THE FIRST CHAPTER.

SEXTON BLAKE Was strolling up and down his private room with that strained, far-away look in his eyes that always crept into them when he was puzzled and baffled in the unravelling of some criminal problem.

"Now what on earth can have become of Sir James?" he muttered to himself, as he had muttered the same question twenty times already that day.

"He was in his own house," he went on, in a subdued tone, "entertaining a number of guests, in the best of health and spirits, thoroughly enjoying himself, only as late as the night before last. He went to his bedroom shortly before twelve o'clock, after bidding everybody a cheery good-night, and that is the last that has been seen of him. In the morning it was discovered that he was missing. His bed had not been slept in, but his bedroom was found to be in perfect order. There were no signs of a struggle, no indications of a robbery. He had just simply and mysteriously vanished in the course of the night."

It was often Sexton Blake's habit, when baffled in the solution of some elusive problem of this kind, to shut himself up in his sanctum, and repeat to himself aloud the known facts of the case, eliminating everything that was doubtful or vague, or that could not be definitely ascertained, and, by doing this over and over again, it frequently occurred that some happy idea, or some suggestive notion would suddenly spring to his brain, and afford him the clue to the puzzling mystery.

On the present occasion this method of worrying out an answer to a problem had not proved successful; for he had been engaged in it since early morning, and no notion, no idea, no happy thought had come to him, and he was as far off from achieving a solution as he had been at the beginning.

And now he paused, momentarily disturbed by a faint, scuffling sound that came from the outer room.

"I do wish Tinker would keep quiet!" he said, in an irritable voice; but the next moment he was again engrossed in his problem, again repeating the known facts of the case aloud to himself.

"It was not as if Sir James Collier was an old man, or an eccentric man, or a man in debt, or a man with enemies. He is a man in the heyday of his youth; he is strong, tall, muscular; he is devoted to outdoor sports of every description; as sane as a man can be; he has an income of several thousands a year, and an estate that is entirely unencumbered; and he has not—and could not have—an enemy in the world. Are we to suppose the he deliberately ran away from his own house, Caley Hall in Derbyshire, and has since remained persistently in hiding? The notion is preposterous! Such a proceeding would be the act of a madman, and Sir James was as sane as I am myself. Has he been murdered? There were no signs of a struggle, and, if true, where's his dead body? Was he decoyed from his house? But who could decoy him at such an hour? Has he been kidnapped? Who on earth should want to kidnap him? England is not Spain, or Italy, or Turkey; we are not cursed with roving bands of brigands. And how in all that's strange could he have been kidnapped from his own house, a house full of guests and servants, without someone hearing an alarm? Bah! It's a mystery of mysteries!"

Again Blake paused, disturbed in his perplexed reflections by faint sounds of confusion and turmoil from the outer room.

He stood still, listening, and then made a sudden movement as if intending to go out himself and reprimand his assistant; but he refrained, for the disturbing sounds suddenly subsided, and the next instant he was once more enthralled in grappling with his elusive and harassing problem.

"I have examined Caley Hall," he continued, "from cellar to garret. I have questioned everybody in the house and on the estate. I have seen Sir James's solicitors, who tell me that his affairs are in perfect order. I have interviewed his bankers, and find that he has a huge balance to his credit, and has not withdrawn any money for some days. I have ascertained that he had very little money in his pockets, because he was unable to pay a trivial wager which he lost to one of his guests. There are no suspicious circumstances anywhere, nothing to take hold of, nothing to suggest in what direction to prosecute investigations. The thing is an insoluble puzzle, and it comes to this—that it will take a better man than I am to unravel it."

There comes a point in a prolonged mental strain when the brain, fagged out, refuses to work any longer. Blake had reached that point, and he recognised it. It was no use continuing to wrestle with the elucidation of the mystery of Sir James Collier's disappearance until his brain had been rested and refreshed.

He flung himself down into an armchair, lighted a pipe, picked up a paper, and began to read.

He read for exactly five minutes, when he dropped the paper and sat bolt upright in his chair.

The sounds from the outer room had suddenly become intensified; they were no longer faint or dim, but clear and well-defined. The scuffling sound was the most pronounced of all, but it was varied by an occasional gentle thud as of a soft india-rubber ball striking against a door or a wall. He even heard what may be best described as whispered shouts of encouragement, or the reverse. In a word, a less keen intelligence than Blake could have had no difficulty in guessing that Tinker was engaged in the outer room in an improvised and surreptitious game of some sort, but who his confederates were remain to be seen.

Tinker's own room was next to Blake's. The detectives first impulse was to ring and inquire what Tinker was doing, and who was helping him to do it.

Tinker always showed a grave and dignified demeanour during work hours, often causing Blake much amusement by his quiet assumption of the grand manner.

It must, therefore, have caused the detective no little astonishment when, having noiselessly opened his own door, leading out on to the passage, and having, with as great a caution, opened the door admitting him to Tinker's room, that he became the spectator of an exceedingly exciting and hard game of football.

"Well saved!" "Centre now!" "Centre!" "Charge him over!" "Pass, can't you?" "Why don't you shoot, you fool?" "Shoot!" "Goal!" "No—saved again!" "All together, boys!" "Now, now—shoot!" "Goal!" "Hooray!" "Hooray!" "England's won!" "England's won!" "Hurrah!" "Hurrah!"

A smile broke over Sexton Blake's face as he listened to these husky whispers which marked the progress of the game.

It was years since he had played football himself, but he had always retained a keen interest in the game, and as he listened to their subdued shouts, he caught something of the enthusiasm of Tinker and his friends, and a very varied and selected assortment they were!

The two teams were bootless, and playing in their socks, and as they raced up and down after the ball it did not take Blake long to recognise the players.

Besides Tinker there was Davis, the motor-man from the neighbouring garage, in a pair of aggressively check socks; the landlady's son, in a pair of list slippers, and several other hot and eager acquaintances of Blake's assistant, who had evidently been invited up from the highways and byways to participate, the agility they displayed in maneuvering the odd furniture being nothing short of miraculous.

The furniture had been shoved unceremoniously aside to give the players a clear space. The fireplace did duty for a goal at one end, and the book-cupboard at the other, Tinker was captaining one team, and Davis the other team. Apparently Tinker's team represented England, while the opposing team called themselves the "Crimson Ramblers." Blake stood and watched the battle royal between the Crimson Ramblers and England. He had just come upon the scene at "half-time." England led by a goal.

Tinker relieved the pressure by a dexterous double round by the copying-press and the telephone, and then shot wide; but England claimed a "corner."

The five Crimson Ramblers lined up in front of the fireplace in defence of their goal. The corner-kick failed. Play was transferred to the other end, and a terrific scrimmage ensued in front of England's goal.

The Crimson Ramblers claimed hands, but England's captain hotly disputed the point. Unfortunately, there was no referee. Neither side would give way. The game was interrupted, and the dispute waxed hotter and more furious. A momentary lull ensued, and then a voice from the door, which now stood wide open, remarked quietly:

For a moment he was paralysed, and so were the others. If a thunderbolt had pierced the ceiling and exploded in their midst they couldn't have looked more astounded and dismayed. What was going to happen? thought Tinker.

Sexton Blake was a kind and generous employer, but he was not the kind of man whom it was safe to trifle with. Blake, having given his ruling as referee, was waiting for the game to be resumed.

"Well," he said—"well, why don't you go on? You needn't trouble to put on your boots, Mr. Davis."

Davis had sneaked into a corner, where he was making frantic and violent efforts to get his boots on without being observed.

"Quite so—it was. I have given the point against you. The Crimson Ramblers have a free kick; that's the penalty."

"And, of course, it is quite natural that you should be in a deuce of a wax about it; but if anybody ought to catch it it's me, Mr. Blake, I invited the other chaps in to take part in it. There was nothing doing, and it was beastly slow. You told me you were not to be disturbed unless you rang. I had no idea you could hear us. I am awfully sorry, but—"

"You are laughing at me, sir! I don't mind that—you have a right to. But I just want to say once more that if anybody is going to get a wigging it ought—"

"I'll confiscate all the boots if you don't instantly resume your game. Here am I dying for a bit of fun to distract my thoughts, and you—"

Blake set the youngster's doubts at rest in characteristic fashion. Hanging from his watch-chain was a little gold whistle. This he removed, and, setting it to his lips, blew a shrill blast on it that might have been heard a hundred yards away.

There was no hanging back after that. The Crimson Ramblers took their free kick. There was a brilliant mêlée in front of the book-cupboard, and Davis shot the equalising goal.

Sexton Blake, as referee, had blown his whistle. the ball is
in play!" he shouted. There was no hanging back after that.
The Crimson Ramblers took their free kick, and Tinker,
a brilliant mêlée ensued in front of the book-cupboard.

But Davis now saw that Blake did mean it. For Blake had kicked off his boots before he had done speaking, and the merriest and maddest scene followed that ever disgraced a great detective's rooms. For half an hour Blake led the Crimson Ramblers in a continuous assault on England's goal, and for half an hour Tinker and his team bombarded the fireplace. Goals were scored by the dozen on both sides, and nobody knew who'd won, and it didn't matter a bit. At the end of the half-hour the cobwebs were cleared from Blake's brain. He had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He tipped Tinker's friends half-a-sovereign apiece, and they were dismissed with a wonderful regard for Blake as a player. Then he retired again to his private room to tackle the problem of Sir James Collier's disappearance, taking Tinker with him.

"Tinker, I'm worried," he said, "I haven't told you anything about it, but Sir James Collier has disappeared mysteriously from his house near Derby, and I've been asked to find him, and I haven't a notion how to begin."

"Of course I know him by name. Everybody who takes an interest in football knows him. He plays for the Corinthians, and is one of the best forwards in England. He was announced to play at Derby yesterday against the Crimson Ramblers, but I noticed he didn't turn up. So that accounts for it—he has disappeared."

"Look here, young 'un,'" he said, "I'm not joking now. I am not playing a ridiculous football match for imaginary Crimson Ramblers against an imaginary team of England. I am in serious earnest, and I must request you to be the same."

"But there is nothing to understand, sir. I simply said that Sir James Collier was to have played at Derby against the Crimson Ramblers, but that he didn't, and that his disappearance accounted for his not having done so."

"I know. But Crimson Ramblers! In the childish game we played just now one of the sides was called the Crimson Ramblers. Why do you introduce such—"

"Oh, I see, sir!" laughed Tinker. "You evidently don't know that there is a real team of footballers who call themselves the Crimson Ramblers."

"It is, sir. They are a new club this season. They are a touring club from America; but there are several other foreigners besides Yanks in their team. They have been extraordinarily successful; in fact, they haven't suffered a single defeat. The big First League clubs couldn't condescend to play them at first, but now they've proved their mettle they are all keen to play them."

"Well, Sir James is an awfully good centre-forward—that's all you can say, sir."

"Oh, dear, yes! They are a frightfully hot lot. They've beaten several First League teams—simply smashed them—made rings round them, sir. They've beaten Woolwich Arsenal, and Tottenham Hotspur, and Southampton, and all the principal London clubs. People are beginning to be afraid they'll beat England."

"I am ashamed to say, Tinker, that I've given up reading football news. I must begin again. I must find out all about these Crimson Ramblers at once. My game of football with you and those fellows has done me a world of good. It has given me a clue. I shall have something for you to do to-morrow. Till then I want to be alone."

Tinker slipped from the room, and Blake plunged anew into the consideration of his problem.

THE SECOND CHAPTER.

PERHAPS it was natural that Sexton Blake, being perpetually absorbed in matters of life and death, should have failed to acquaint himself with the doings of the Crimson Ramblers, but it is safe to say that there were not another half-dozen men in England in the same state of ignorance.

The sporting papers were filled from day to day and week to week with detailed accounts of their various achievements.

The Crimson Ramblers had come to England an unknown side, a combination of players whose names were utterly unfamiliar to the followers of the winter game, and in a month they had achieved for themselves a reputation which outshone that of Aston Villa in Aston Villa's palmiest days. Their various matches had been a triumphal progress from one end of England to the other.

In fact, the people of this country woke up one morning to find that the national supremacy of English football under Association rules was in as imminent peril as when the New Zealanders carried everything before them last year under the Rugby code.

But in its way the Crimson Ramblers' success was even more sensational than that of the All Blacks'. Everybody knew that the latter were very good; all that was not known was—how good?

But who could expect anything brilliant from a scratch combination of Yanks and Frenchmen and Germans playing the game?

The mere notion of it was absurd. How could they hope to tackle our leading clubs? This sentiment was so widely prevalent that not a single club of first-class importance included a match with them in its list of fixtures. Later on these same clubs were tumbling over each other in their anxious haste to secure a fixture. There was nothing that drew the public to the football grounds like a match with the Crimson Ramblers. When they were on show the gate-money was reckoned in thousands of pounds where before it was reckoned in hundreds.

The eyes of the world were first opened to the fact that a new star had risen in the football firmament by the victory of the newcomers over the Old Miltonian.

The Old Miltonian is an old-boys' club, and one of the best amateur combinations we have. They play "friend lies" with the First League clubs, and they have more than once won the Amateur Cup. They are able to put a thoroughly sound, fast, and clever team into the field, and if they took the trouble to cultivate the short passing game they would he a good match for the best professional team that could be got together.

The latter literally walked over them—there is no other word for it. It was not a game at all—it was a farce, a comic entertainment. The actual score of goals was fifteen to mil, but that margin, wide as it is, gives no true estimate of the respective merits of the two sides. The fifteen might just as well have been thirty-one, or, for that matter, one hundred and fifty-one, for all the show the Old Miltonian made in the match. The spectators saw the ball kicked off, and the next minute they saw it reposing in the net, with the home side goalkeeper ruefully contemplating it, and wondering how on earth it had come there. There was a kick-off, and then a goal, another kick-off and another goal, and so it went on ad lib, till the call of time. The spectators went away in a maze of admiration and awe, for such football had never been seen in England, and there was a sort of feeling amongst them that the Crimson Ramblers were something more than human.

Of course, all kinds of theories were advanced by the experts to explain the visitors' unprecedented victory.

The Ramblers enjoyed an inestimable advantage in being thoroughly fit and trained to the moment as well as being thoroughly conversant with each other's play. It was a coherent team against a haphazard eleven of nobodies. How could they have failed to win? the critics asked.

"We attach no importance whatever to the result of the first match of the Crimson Ramblers' tour," wrote the editor of the leading sporting daily, "in spite of the sensational scoring recorded in it. The Ramblers are probably a slightly superior combination to any of the foreign teams that have previously visited our shores, but that they are entitled to rank in the same class with our best professional teams we confidently and flatly decline to believe. We wonder how they would fare against the present holders of the English Cup!"

Having dismissed the visitors' claims to distinction in this contemptuous fashion, the editor of the leading sporting daily was probably very much astonished when he received a wire from the Ramblers' manager, intimating that the visitors would like nothing better than to try conclusions with the Cup-holders, and could he arrange it?

He did arrange it. He took a lot of trouble in arranging it, because the Ramblers' cheek—he thought it cheek—in so promptly accepting his challenge, nettled and annoyed him, and he wanted them to be taught a lesson in modesty by being given a severe drubbing.

Alas! things did not fall out in the least as he had anticipated. It was the Cup-holders that were given the severe drubbing.

When the whistle sounded at the close of play the score stood at six goals to nil in the Crimson Ramblers' favour. And, worst of all, there was no possibility of explaining away the victory.

The Cup-holders were in splendid fighting trim, and their team included no less than five internationals, but they were beaten on their merits.

The Ramblers had exhibited an overwhelming superiority in every branch of the game. They passed better, they shot better, they combined better, and in regard to pace and speed, when they really got going they seemed to leave their rivals standing still.

This match set the seal on the Crimson Ramblers' reputation, and all the first-class clubs hastened to arrange fixtures with them.

They became the heroes of the hour. Enormous sums were paid to see them. It was rumoured that each man in the team was making £500 a week as his share of the gate-money.

If they only maintained their unbeaten record throughout the season they would go home, every man of them, incipient millionaires.

Once their reputation was established, the critics set to work to discover the reason for their superiority over our best players.

Columns of print, reams of paper, gallons of ink were used in discussing the subject, and analysing their excellence from week to week.

It was shown that the Crimson Ramblers were just a normal set of men; living normal lives, and enjoying themselves as the opportunity offered. They were not teetotalers. They didn't go to bed or get up at preposterously early hours; they didn't refuse to eat this and that; they accepted invitations to banquets, smoking-concerts, and theatres; they would dance all night at a ball, and then play their usual smash, overpowering game next day. They treated their tour as a spree. "We want to win our matches," they said, "but we have really come to England to enjoy ourselves." In a word, they upset all the preconceived notions as to what was essential for winning games.

"They can't last; they'll get stale; they'll crack up," prophesied the critics. But they didn't.

At the end of three months they were as fresh as ever, and continued gaily on their way from one triumph to another. And not a single goal had been scored against them.

In regard to their play in the field, it was admitted that their superiority consisted in their terrific kicking, their accurate shooting, and their extraordinary fleetness of foot. In all these respects they exhibited an excellence that was positively uncanny.

The opposing goalkeepers quite frequently couldn't stop a shot because they hadn't seen it. The ball whizzed past them like an arrow. It was a common occurrence for a goalkeeper to be driven backwards into his own goal by the tremendous force with which the ball was kicked. On more than one occasion the ball actually burst through the netting. It was a regular feature of the first few games to see the goalkeeper carried off the field insensible. Subsequently, in order to avoid accidents, the Football Association ordered all keepers when playing against the Ramblers to wear special head-coverings and special padded clothing.

As for their shooting, it is enough to say that they shot goals at angles which, up till then, had been deemed impossible.

In regard to their speed, while they were all extraordinarily fast, Blitzen and Eclair, their respective right and left wingers, were simply wonders. Blitzen was a German-American, and Eclair was a French-Canadian, and both were big, heavy men, inclined to stoutness; but to see them speeding up the wings, bowling over all who came in their way, passing and overtaking everybody, you would have thought them to be racing motors made in the shape of human figures, and not men at all.

Such, as briefly as it has been possible to describe it, is the history of the Crimson Ramblers, and the account of their doings during the first three months of their English tour.

They had broken all records. They had established a funk. They were the crowned kings of British football. Would they ever be beaten?

There were some few sanguine souls who clung to the hope that the powerful side which had been chosen to represent England might succeed in lowering their colours, or, if not that, in at least playing a draw with them, but this sanguine forecast was generally scoffed at.

"Whom have we got that can run and shoot and kick like they?" it was pertinently asked.

But the few optimists clung to their sanguine hopes. The selected men were already undergoing a special preparation. Their clubs gave up all claim to their services till after the great match. The men trained together, and incessantly played together. They made a scientific study of each other's idiosyncrasies. When the decisive day came it was hoped that they would have acquired such a subtle comprehension of one another's play that they would work together like one man, and beat the Ramblers by the ideal perfection of their combination.

By twelve o'clock that night Blake had mastered all the facts about the Crimson Ramblers that could be gathered from the files of the sporting press. He was greatly impressed by them, as he was bound to be, and he was greatly interested; but they didn't help him much in discovering the whereabouts of the missing Sir James Collier. The clue, which he had told Tinker he had found, had come to nothing.

His first idea had been that somebody interested in the success of the Crimson Ramblers had kidnapped Sir James to prevent him playing against them in the match at Derby. But on further reflection he dismissed the idea as untenable. It wouldn't have been worth the Ramblers' while to engage in such a project. They had won easily, as they must have known they would win, Sir James's presence in the field could have made little or no difference to the result.

Then where was he? Blake could not answer that question, but it was something gained to have finally dismissed from his mind the notion of kidnapping.

But were the Crimson Ramblers concerned in his disappearance? Blake didn't say "No."

In front of him on his desk lay three papers. One was a list of Sir James's guests, another a list of the names of the Crimson Ramblers' team, and the third a list of the team's forthcoming fixtures.

In comparing the first two lists he found that some of the names were identical; that is to say, he learnt for the first time that three Crimson Ramblers had spent the night at Cayley Hall. They were the captain, John F. Courey, who played at centre half, W. Blitzen, the right-winger, and Howard P. Raymond, the manager. There was nothing that called for special comment in this coincidence. It was eminently natural that Sir James Collier, a local magnate interested in football, should entertain several members of the visiting team. Such hospitality is one of the most honourable traditions of English sport. And Blake would have thought nothing of it if his attention had not already been directed towards the Ramblers by the discarded kidnapping theory.

Now his mind dwelt upon these three names. He had not interviewed them himself because they had left the Hall when he was summoned there by Lady Collier, but he had heard a great deal about them.

Sir James had stayed up chatting and smoking with them after the other guests had gone to bed. The butler told him that. He had been summoned to extinguish the lights, and he had seen them say good-night before separating to their respective rooms. What had they talked about? Ah, if he only knew!

"No sign of any unpleasantness between Sir James and his guests?" was one of the questions Blake had asked the butler.

"There was no talk worth mentioning, sir. They said good-night, and someone said he hoped they would have a good match to-morrow, that's all."

And that was all that Blake had been able to get out of the butler, and there was nothing in it to incriminate anybody.

Still, as we say, Blake's mind dwelt upon these three men; Blitzen, Courey, and Raymond. He couldn't help it. The Crimson Ramblers were such extraordinary fine football players, they compelled him to think of them. Other people had got gradually accustomed to their success, but to him it had come suddenly as a shock. It distressed him to realise that England's football supremacy was already practically a thing of the past.

In fact, if the truth must be told, he was worrying a great deal more about the all-conquering Ramblers than he was about the missing Sir James.

How could ordinary flesh-and-blood foreigners play with such consummate skill? Upon these points he could offer no opinion until he had seen them play.

He picked up their fixture-list, and noticed they were engaged to-morrow at Nottingham, where they were playing a combined team made up of Notts Forest and Notts County.

He resolved to see that match. Perhaps he would discover a useful wrinkle for England; perhaps he might get a hint of Sir James's whereabouts. In any event, he would have taken a definite step; in any event, he would have seen Blitzen and Courey and Raymond.

THE THIRD CHAPTER.

Blake was extremely angry and annoyed. A telegram, which had been brought in from the office, was thrust into his hand just as he and Tinker were taking their seats in the Nottingham train.

"Lady Collier desires Mr. Blake to cease his efforts to discover her husband as she is satisfied that he is safe and well."

"Well, I don't see anything in that to get angry about," said Tinker, handing back the telegram.

"Well, aren't you glad that Lady Collier's uneasiness is at an end? She says she is satisfied that he is safe and well."

"I don't care a straw whether she is satisfied or not, and I don't care a snap of the fingers whether he is safe and well, or unsafe and ill, or dead and buried. I am sick of the Colliers."

This extraordinary outburst of temper was so utterly unlike Sexton Blake that Tinker didn't know how to deal with it. He did what was best; he took refuge in silence. No doubt Blake would recover his wonted serenity later on, and tell him all about it. But there was still a few minutes to spare, and he jumped out of the train, dashed along the platform to the telegraph office, despatched certain business there, and returned to the carriage without telling Blake what he had done. They were travelling in a reserved compartment, and were therefore alone.

When about half the journey was accomplished Blake got the better of the ill-humour into which the telegram had thrown him, and began to talk.

"It is the sheer idiocy of it that I resent," continued Blake. "Here have I been for the last two days tormenting my brain to discover some reasonable explanation of Sir James's disappearance, and this morning I receive a curt telegram from Lady Collier announcing that she is satisfied he is safe and well. Observe, she doesn't give me any particulars, or say she is sorry she has troubled me, or even say that she has heard from her husband. She simply announces that she is satisfied. It doesn't matter whether I am satisfied or not. It doesn't occur to her that I might be interested in knowing the reason for her husband's eccentric conduct in leaving his house at dead of night. I feel I have been made a fool of, Tinker."

"Oh, well," said Tinker soothingly, "charge it in the bill; make them pay through the nose for it." But he still thought Blake's annoyance quite disproportionate to the offence. This was not the first time Blake had been invited to undertake a case, and then had it summarily taken out of his hands; and yet he had never exhibited similar annoyance before.

"A hundred! I'll stick them for two hundred, and expenses," said Blake savagely.

The thought of this seemed to completely restore his good-humour, for after chuckling grimly once or twice, he said:

"Well, now, let's forget all about them. I suppose it was rather silly of me to feel annoyed." And directly afterwards he was talking with his ordinary natural cheerfulness. "I am intensely interested in these Crimson Rambler fellows, Tinker."

"Well, you will have the greater treat to-day. They must be an extraordinary team. Fifteen goals against the Old Miltonian! I used to play for the Old Miltonian years ago, when I had time for football—"

"And six goals to nil against the Cup-holders! And eight to nil against Derby the day before yesterday! And other equally overwhelming scores against other teams, Tinker!"

"Oh, no definite sort. I was simply trying to account for their unparalleled success, But suppose they were mesmerists, now? Suppose they were able to hypnotise their opponents? I don't think it credible or possible, but that gives you some idea of the kind of trickery that was passing through my mind."

"I can't tell you how disappointed I am that this Collier business has ended in a fiasco, Tinker!"

"So I do. I am not worrying about Lady Collier's telegram; but I had formed a kind of vague theory that Sir James's disappearance might somehow be connected with the Crimson Ramblers, and that in solving one puzzle I might perhaps have solved the other. But as Sir James's disappearance was evidently due to an excentric whim, there is nothing to solve. If, you see, I could have traced it to the Ramblers I should probably have discovered the faking or trickery if any, which they resort to for winning their matches."

"I see why you got into such a beastly bad temper over Lady Collier's telegram."

"Yes, sir, that. You didn't really care a scrap about having the Collier case taken out of your hands, but you were frightfully annoyed that there was no chance of connecting the Ramblers with a criminal conspiracy."

"I am afraid you are prejudiced against the Crimson Ramblers, sir!" laughed the youngster, who was immensely pleased at having explained Blake's bad temper satisfactorily.

"I am prejudiced against any team that beats my old club by fifteen goals to nil!" laughed Blake, in reply.

The train steamed into the station, and Tinker was out of it before it had come to rest at the platform.

Blake walked rapidly to the station-yard, and chartered a cab to convey them to the ground. He had hardly done so before the youngster came tearing up to him.

"Listen to this, sir!" cried Tinker, in a voice tremulous with excitement, as soon as the cab had started. "Lady Collier is still in dreadful suspense in regard to her husband's fate. Sir James has not returned, nor has anything been heard of him, Lady Collier did not send the telegram you refer to, nor did she authorise it to he sent. She implores Mr. Blake to persevere in his efforts to trace Sir James. This telegram, sir," he added, in reply to the look of blank bewilderment on Blake's face, "is a reply to one I sent from St. Pancras, asking her if she had wired instructions to you to cease your efforts to find Sir James. I had my doubts about the genuineness of that telegram. I was right, you see. Sir James has not been found or heard of, and your suspicions are probably correct."

"Tinker, your cuteness is something to be thankful for," said Blake, with conviction, "And oh, what a fool I've been!"

"Your mind was occupied with the Crimson Ramblers. You haven't given Sir James's case any real attention yet. You are worrying all the time how you can help England to beat the Crimson Ramblers next month."

Blake grasped the youngster warmly by the hand, and the rest of the journey to the football ground was passed in silence.

In the front row of the pavilion stand, with their field glasses glued to their eyes, Blake and Tinker watched the progress of the game. Neither spoke. They were enthralled by what they saw. They had expected a great deal, but the reality far exceeded their wildest expectations. They were witnessing a display of football such as they had never dreamed of.

At brief intervals a storm of cheering swept round the ground, but they paid no heed to it. They were apparently deaf to all around them, and blind to everything but the doing of the eleven players in the field who wore crimson jerseys. They were too much absorbed in the game even to exchange remarks about it. During the frequent pauses which occurred in the match, when the linesmen waved their flags, or the referee blew his whistle, their attention was never relaxed. Indeed, it would almost seem that they followed the movements of the Ramblers' team more closely during these pauses than when the ball was actually in play. Never for an instant did their field-glasses leave their eyes. Tinker's lips were slightly parted, while Blake's were firmly com-pressed, The faces of both of them were drawn and pale.

The combined Notts team were working like heroes, but they could do nothing against their formidable opponents. Laboriously the ball was worked down to midfield, and then somebody would pass it to Eclair or Blitzen, and away it would go. You saw a stout, heavy figure speeding up the right or left wing like the wind, and then you saw a lightning shot at goal. Sometimes—but not often—the ball missed, and sometimes the process was varied be a beautiful centre to Courey; and when Courey got the ball there was no missing. Clean and true and like a cannon-shot it hurtled into the net, and one more point was added to the Ramblers' overwhelming score of goals.

The Ramblers' goalkeeper lounged at his case between the posts, smoking a cigar, and wearing a heavy overcoat to keep himself warm. He had literally nothing to do. The crowd laughed with amusement when he presently turned his back on the game and began to read a newspaper. At half-time the Ramblers were leading by seven goals to nil.

"Have you—have you discovered anything, sir?" stammered Tinker. And Blake shook his head.

"But aren't you going to stay to see the end?" inquired the youngster the next moment; for Blake had carefully closed his field-glasses, and was deliberately restoring them to their sling-case.

"No; but I've remembered that I owe my first duty to Sir James Collier. I am going to see if I can find Raymond, the Ramblers' manager, and get a chat with him. I must clear up that point."

"Yes, of course, unless—" Blake faltered, and his face became suddenly very thoughtful. "Unless I find out something that requires instant attention, which is not very likely," he added. "Don't wait for me after the conclusion of the match. If I should want you I'll let you know, and, if not, you'll be more useful to me in London than anywhere else."

Blake slipped from his seat, and made his way to the back of the pavilion just as the second half was starting, and Tinker once more became absorbed in following the incidents of the match.

The applause became delirious. The combined Notts team were making a supreme effort to break through their opponents' defence. They were playing like men possessed, and every trifling advantage they gained was greeted with a hurricane of hysterical cheers. Was Notts going to be the first team to score a goal against the winners? It almost looked like it, and their supporters seemed to be stirred with a frenzy of joy at the prospect. Once! If they could only get through once, was what they longed and prayed for.

The Ramblers' goalkeeper had thrown away his cigar and pocketed his newspaper. Then he stripped off his overcoat, How the spectators shouted! They regarded it as a sign of anxiety. If the Ramblers themselves were getting anxious, then, indeed, there was a chance for Notts.

And all through this excitement Tinker sat as mute as a stone statue, for he knew that the spectators were doomed to disappointment. His glass told him the meaning of the sudden veering round of the game in Notts' favour. The Ramblers' team were simply playing with the Notts team. They had ceased to exert themselves; they were satisfied with their own score of goals, and they were willing to flatter hopes which they never intended should be fulfilled. Tinker realised all this, and his soul was sick with disappointment.

Five minutes before the call of time the Ramblers changed their tactics, and begun again to play in earnest, Eclair, Blitzen, and Courey each scored once—three goals in five minutes. The spectators were amazed. The whistle blew. The result was a win for the Ramblers by ten goals to nil, and half of the Notts team were so terribly exhausted that they had to be helped off the field. The Ramblers were as fresh as when the game started.

"I wonder what they would have won by if they'd gone on trying all the time, sir?" said Tinker.

The youngster instantly recollected Blake's instructions, which he had momentarily forgotten.

"He has discovered something which requires his instant attention," he murmured, "and I've got to return to London. I wonder when the train goes?"

But Blake might come back, and he didn't hurry from his seat. The people about him dispersed slowly. There was a buzz of low conversation. Depressed and dispirited, the crowd melted away. Nobody seemed to care to talk above a whisper. They forgot to cheer the victors. It was exactly like a crowd of mourners separating after a funeral.

"It's the funeral of British football," said the youngster gloomily to himself. He clambered listlessly over the now empty rows of seats, descended the staircase, and strolled into the large room on the ground-floor. There was a sprinkling of people there, but Blake was not amongst them. A small group of men were drinking at the bar. The players were passing to and from the dressing-rooms. The attendants and officials were standing about, talking in whispers, waiting for the loiterers to clear off.

Tinker, who had overheard this conversation, at once decided to speak to the manager, and ask him if he had seen Blake.

"No; I haven't set eyes on him, but I should like to see him very much. Did he want to see me about anything in particular?" continued Raymond.

The youngster suddenly realised the need for caution. Perhaps he had been unwise in speaking to Raymond at all. There was a look in the manager's eye that was not prepossessing, although his manner was perfectly friendly and undisturbed. Tinker felt he was being keenly scrutinised.

"No; I am afraid I can't help you." Raymond turned with a smile to the men about him. "This youngster tells me that Mr. Sexton Blake the detective is looking for me. Have any of you fellows seen him?"

"Hallo, Howard, what you been up to that Sexton Blake should be on your track?" shouted Courey chaffingly.

There was a loud laugh at this sally, and no laugh was louder than Howard Raymond's own.

"I guess if Mr. Blake is after me, I've got a precious poor chance of dodging him. Never heard of anyone successfully eluding Blake for long." Then he turned to Tinker again. "But I imagine Mr. Blake was not wanting to see me in his professional capacity?"

"I will, sir, thank you—" And Tinker turned to go, when Raymond called him back.

"The same here. We've got lots of time. I'll drive you to the station in my motor. Now, which is it to be—tea or ginger-beer?"

It would have been churlish to persist in his refusal after this, so Tinker plumped for tea. Raymond called for cake. In a few minutes the youngster was sipping his tea and eating his cake, as much at his ease in the company of the Crimson Ramblers and their manager as if he had known them all his life. They were excellent fellows, jovial, kindly, and friendly, and it was intensely interesting to Tinker to hear them discussing the match.

"Hein! Sugaring! What is it that you mean when you say 'sugaring'? Ach! Sugaring! I do not gomprehend!" said Blitzen heavily.

Tinker laughed, and he was laughing at Eclair and Blitzen, for he noticed that when Eclair asked a question or made a remark, Blitzen immediately asked the same question and repeated the remark. "It was like a French voice having a German echo, and was absurdly ludicrous.

"Mein small friendt, you haf yourself greatly mis-gomprehended, never vos it dat ve vos not always trying, never vos it so, nicht wahr!"

"Oh, no; you are wrong there, youngster," said Raymond. "Our fellows were doing their best from start to finish."

"Oh, well, I shouldn't have thought it, but, of course, you know best. I thought you were taking it easily until the last five minutes, when you let yourselves go again, and at once scored three goals."

"In a sense you are right," said Courey; "but we were only taking it easily because we had to. Blitzen and Eclair had pretty well exhausted themselves, and we were acting upon the defensive until they got their wind again. But that's not sugaring, you know."

Raymond led the way out to the yard where his motor-car was. It was a fine, roomy car of the covered landaunlette type. Tinker got in, and so did Eclair and Blitzen. Raymond spoke a word to the chauffeur, and then followed them. The rest of the team proceeded to the station in cabs.

"Oh, I'm not anxious," said Tinker; and he felt inclined to add: "Oh, you funny fellows, you're enough to make a dead cat laugh." He had quite forgotten the first unfavourable impression Howard Raymond had made upon him in his amusement at the two foreigners' comic tricks of speech.

The car sped on its way through the lighted streets at a rapid rate, and Blitzen and Eclair kept up an incessant chatter about the match and about "sugaring." Tinker was enjoying it all immensely, when he suddenly realised that the car had left the town and was out in the open country.

Then he made a sign to the two foreigners, and Tinker instantly found himself pinned to the seat, with a hand gripping his throat and other hands clutching his arms an legs.

Tinker found himself pinned to the seat, with a hand
gripping his throat and other hands clutching his arms
and legs. "My little one, you have mistaken yourself,"
sniggered Eclair, as he drew a coil of rope from his bag.

"Mein leedle friend, you yourself haf greatly misgomprehended," grunted Blitzen.

And Tinker saw nothing to laugh at in their defective, comic speech, for he was battling for his life in an unequal struggle with three men, any one of whom was more than a match for him in brute strength.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER.

IT was quite true that Howard Raymond had not seen Blake, but it was not true that Blake had not seen Howard Raymond, Blake had seen him, although unseen himself, and it had happened in this way. When he left Tinker he made inquiries for the Ramblers' manager, and was told that he was in the team's dressing-room.

But the official declared that was impossible, as he had had direct orders to the contrary, but suggested that Blake might go himself and knock at the door, and see if Howard Raymond would admit him.

"Mr. Raymond, my business is urgent!" he called again. "Can you spare me a minute?"

This further summons producing no response, Blake tried the door, and found it was locked. After knocking and calling a third time, he went away, and again questioned the official.

"Well, why doesn't he reply? Why doesn't he answer a civil question? Where's the sense—"

"It's no business of mine," broke in the official curtly. "I warned you how it would be. Mr. Raymond's strict orders were that he would see nobody till after the watch. He isn't bound to see you if he doesn't want to, is he?"

Blake turned on his heel, and the official returned to the window from which he was watching the match. The latter's annoyance was mainly due to the fact that he was losing some of the game by answering these questions, He forgot Blake five seconds after he'd done with him.

But Blake himself had by no means done with the matter. He had been extremely anxious before to see Howard Raymond, and now he was doubly anxious. The manager of the Ramblers' team was no doubt a very busy man, but the team's dressing-room was a curious place to be busy in, seeing there was plenty of office room in other parts of the building. In fact, Blake suddenly conceived an overwhelming desire to see what this business was that Raymond was so busy at in this dressing-room, and when Blake conceived an overwhelming desire for anything he generally contrived to gratify it. On this occasion he gratified it in the following way:

He noted the exact position of the dressing-room, and then he went downstairs and out at the back. Nobody was about. Every living soul in and near the pavilion had his or her eyes fixed upon the football ground. The place was to all intents and purposes deserted, in spite of the fact that there were tens of thousands of people in the immediate neighbourhood. It was broad daylight, and yet, for an active and determined man, what Blake did was easier to do than if it had been the dead of night.

He found a ladder and set it against the end window. He knew from the internal structure of the pavilion that the dressing-room must be a very large room, and have several windows. From the outside view he saw that if had four, and he set his ladder against the window which he judged to be farthest from the door.

A football dressing-room is invariably furnished with lockers and cupboards and washstands, and when Blake's eyes appeared above the windowsill, the first thing he saw, and almost the only thing, was a large cupboard, projecting from the right-hand side of the window, and concealing the greater part of the interior of the room from his gaze.

Blake listened, but he could hear nothing except the deafening shouts of applause from the arena of play, and he could see next to nothing but the projecting side of a cupboard; and he had not come there to hear or see either of these things.

When the next salvo of cheering crashed out, he stopped through it and into the room.

He was in a sort of corner, with the end-wall of the room on his left, the projecting cupboard on his right, and the window at his back. He peeped cautiously round the cupboard, and saw that a large washstand, containing a double row of a dozen basins ran right down the centre of the apartment. Almost immediately opposite the last basin at the farther end was the door, and between the door and the washstand, seated at a table, writing and reading, was Howard P. Raymond, the Ramblers' manager.

So far, so good; but perhaps Blake was a little disappointed. Raymond, who was responsible for the team's business arrangements, must have an immense amount of correspondence to deal with. He was engaged, therefore, in his legitimate business, when Blake had hoped to find him less innocently employed. Hence his disappointment.

But why had he chosen the dressing-room as his office, and why had he taken the precaution to lock the door? Was it simply to secure his privacy, or was it for the express purpose of keeping guard in person over the belongings of the absent players? Blake inclined to the latter view.

There was therefore something in that room that was very precious, if Raymond would entrust it's custody to no one but himself.

Having arrived at this point he was necessarily, for a moment, at fault. But not for long.

There was a black bag on the table at which Howard Raymond was writing, of the kit-bag shape, but much larger than the ordinary size, and Raymond was constantly opening it to put something in, or take something out. But the extraordinary thing was that he never left it open for a second. He was constantly opening, shutting, locking, and unlocking the bag, thus giving himself an immense amount of unnecessary trouble. Why not leave it open if he was perpetually wanting to use it?

The only possible answer to this question was that Raymond was following a strict rule he had laid down for himself—viz., never to leave the bag unlocked for a second, even when he was alone.

How precious, therefore, must the contents of so jealously-guarded a bag be! What were those contents? How could Sexton Blake find out?

To these problems there were no answers forthcoming. Indeed, in a few minutes Blake found that his own situation required all his thoughts, for it had suddenly become precarious and well-nigh desperate.

The match was over. The players were returning to their dressing-room. Raymond had collected his papers, and had unlocked and locked his bag for the last time. The officials, released from the enthralling interest of watching the game, had resumed their usual vigilance, and Blake had just realised that he must lose no time in escaping down the ladder, when he heard two voices in conversation beneath the window.

"Looks to me as if thieves might have been trying to get in," said the other. "Hadn't us better make sure they've taken nowt?"

"Oh, be 'un? That be fortunate," said Joe, as he moved the ladder; and Sexton Blake's escape was cut off.

He stood blotted against the projecting side of the cupboard. Howard Raymond was moving about the room. At any moment he might reach the point whence he couldn't fail to see him. Suppose he took it into his head to look through that particular window? And now he was coming. He had passed beyond the end of the washstand; his eyes were fixed upon the floor, his brows were knitted. He was thinking deeply.

And then there came a peculiar tap at the door, and without looking up he hurried to answer it. The instant his back was turned, Blake stepped to the front of the cupboard, opened the door, and slipped in. The cupboard was a hanging-press, filled with football knickers and jerseys. He squeezed in amongst them, drew the door to, and at the same moment Raymond opened the other door, and the victorious Crimson Ramblers streamed into the dressing-room.

"Not even the shadow of one, Howard. It couldn't have gone better. Our secret is as safe as the Bank of England. We let the Notts fellows down easily towards the end. It must be a thumping big gate. Perhaps the last three goals were a mistake: we didn't want them. We must go slow now in every match till the England game next month. Public interest will rise to fever pitch if it appears there's a chance of our being beaten."

"But you are looking down in the mouth, Howard," continued John Courey, when the two foreigners had concluded their duet.

"Shut up, you asses! Tell us all about it, Howard? So that telegram of yours didn't put him off the scent?"

"Evidently not: he must have come straight on here directly after receiving it."

"No, not yet; he has been prowling round the door, asking me to spare him a moment on urgent business, and doubtlessly he is waiting downstairs for me now. Naturally, I lay low."

"What else? We aren't going to chuck the most remunerative job we've ever struck in our lives for one beastly, prying detective, I suppose? He'll have to join Collier till the end of the season, or we shall never feel safe. If he gives trouble then, he'll have to be scragged. It's not good for our healths to have him squinting around."

No more was said for a time—at all events, nothing that was audible to Blake in the cupboard. The players were all rapidly changing from their football garments into their ordinary clothes, and were too busy to talk. The sound of running water, and the clatter of heavy boots being kicked off, drowned such remarks as were made. But most of them were quite silent. Howard Raymond's news had given them ample food for reflection.

Blake, in the hanging-press, amongst all those stuffy clothes, could scarcely breathe; but if is safe to say that he was never happier in his life. There was trickery, there was faking, there was a nefarious secret that accounted for the Crimson Ramblers amazing success. He had heard the fact admitted from the captain's own lips.

Sexton Blake surveyed the dressing-room for an instant from the
cupboard. There was trickery, there was falsity, there was a nefarious
secret that accounted for the Crimson Ramblers amazing success.

He had only to expose them as an unprincipled gang of swindlers, greedy for gate-money, to restore England to her former pinnacle of supremacy in the football world. Sir James Collier had been kidnapped, and put out of the way till the end of the season, probably because he had discovered their secret—the secret that was concealed in Howard Raymond's black bag. He was not dead, nor would they kill him unless circumstances compelled them to, and this was a source of unspeakable relief to Blake. Sir James was in no immediate danger, and so he would have time to mature his plans. He had triumphed once more, and, as a consequence, the stuffy atmosphere of that clothes-filled cupboard was as sweet as the sweetest mountain air he'd ever breathed.

Suddenly the talk in the room became audible again. The players had completed their dressing, and were ready to descend.

Everybody said that Raymond had got "his;" but to the "his" referred there was no clue. The men were well drilled in caution. Even when they were alone they never dropped the least hint of their secret.

"Well, now, about Blake," continued Raymond. "If he attempts to pump any of you, all you've got to do is to refer him to me. You are not to talk to him on any account, any of you. Blitzen and Eclair, who are the greatest jabberers of our lot, must particularly remember that. Do you understand, you two?"

"Ah, oui, ah, yes; certainement, I will not spik," said Eclair, with innumerable nods of his head and shruggings of his shoulders.

"Very well, mind you don't. The others I know I can trust. I shall go downstairs, and neither seek nor avoid Blake. If he questions me I shall answer him. If his questions become inconvenient I shall endeavour to coax him into coming to Polworth. That's all I have to say. You will leave by the five-thirty-five, and return to our London headquarters, Courey will be in charge in my absence."

"I am going to Polworth to make sure that all is safe there, and Eclair and Blitzen will come with me."

"Oh, don't flatter yourselves, my friends! It is not for the pleasure of your company I am taking you, but merely to have you under my own eye and keep you out of mischief."

He knew Polworth to be a mining village in the heart of the Peak country, some fifteen miles distance from Derby.

THE FIFTH CHAPTER.

TOWARDS midnight a powerful motor-car might have been seen climbing the stiff gradient of a straggling village street in one of the least accessible parts of the Midlands. The car was Howard Raymond's, and the street was the unlighted and ill-kept street of the straggling village of Polworth.

Proceeding with great caution the car topped the ascent, and turned off sharply at right angles into a lane that was scarcely more than a cart-track, and continued along it till its further progress was stopped by a gate that led into a turnip-field.

Here all except the chauffeur got down, and Raymond, taking one of the lamps to guide him, led the way by a footpath that skirted the hedge into a hollow where there could be dimly seen the surface works of a worked-out coal-mine.

There was a tottering chimney-stack, worn-out winding-gear, rotting remains of ruined huts and offices, a few old trucks standing on moss-grown rails, and the dilapidated shell of what had once been a substantial dwelling-house, occupied by the superintendent.

Tinker, who was securely gagged and bound, was half carried, half dragged along by the two foreigners, who followed close at Raymond's heels; and the whole party advanced in absolute silence and with the extremest caution.

Raymond was evidently very familiar with the place, for he walked amongst the debris that cumbered the ground in every direction with the utmost confidence, only pausing here and there to whisper a word of warning to his companions when some particularly formidable obstacle had to be surmounted, or some exceptionally treacherous pitfall avoided.

In this way they reached the hollow and came to a halt beneath the winding-gear. The mouth of the pit was closed with planks, which Eclair and Blitzen removed under Raymond's directions. Tinker lay helplessly on the ground beside it. When the planks were all removed, Raymond stretched himself on his face, and, leaning over the edge, called down:

"Don't you think you've a first-class prize idiot to be living at the bottom of a mine when you might be comfortably snug at Cayley Hall?"

"I'm giving you another chance. I'll let you up if you'll take your oath not to blab. It isn't many that would take the trouble to argue with you, or run the risk of coming here to look after you. Well, what do you say?"

"I say the same as I said before. If you'll let me up, and give me a written confession of the fraud you have practised and cancel the vest of your fixtures, I'll undertake not to expose you until you are safe back in America. That's the utmost I can promise you."

"You are a fool!" said Raymond, with a derisive laugh. "You talk as if you were up here and I way down there. Who's on top, you or I?"

"Because I'd rather die than submit to a blackguard like you," came the answer, clear and distinct.

Raymond rose to his feet with a smothered oath, and with a sharp word to Eclair and Blitzen not to move, caught up the lantern and stalked away in the direction of the dilapidated house, whence he presently returned, carrying a large basket filled with boxes of biscuits, bottles, sardines, tinned meats, and other varieties of food.

The basket he tied to the end of the rope that ran over the windlass, and with a "Stand away, below there!" let it down into the pit. When the rope was slack he called down:

The rope ran out for the second time, and Tinker descended out of sight into the yawning mouth of the pit. Presently it ran slack.

In a few minutes it was all over. The winding-gear was made taut, the planks were replaced, and the three scoundrels were climbing out of the hollow back up the hill to the waiting motor-car.

The car was then backed out of the lane into the main road, and ten minutes later was racing to London at top speed. Raymond sat glum and silent as the miles flew behind them. The two foreigners conversed together in low tones, for much of what they had seen and taken part in puzzled them. But it was a long time before they could muster up courage to put a question to Raymond. Eventually it was Eclair who spoke.

And such was the manager's domination over his companions that they did not venture to open their lips again till they had reached their destination.

Swaying and eddying and twirling and spinning at the end of the rope, Tinker went down, down, down into the depths. He could hear the windlass creaking and groaning, and he knew the gear was old and rotten. Suppose the rope broke? Mercifully, after a descent of fifty feet or so he lost his senses, for the giddy whirling of the rope quickly dazed him into unconsciousness.

When he came to himself again he was lying on his back at the bottom of the shaft. All was dark about him; but straight above his head, at what seemed an immense distance, was a tiny patch of clear sky studded with innumerable stars, He had never seen so many or such brilliant stars. It was exactly as if he were looking of the heavens through a gigantic telescope of enormous power. His hands and feet were free, and the gag had been removed from his mouth. There was the taste of brandy on his lips. He knew that Sir James had been tending him.

"Ah, good!" came the instant reply. "You've been so long coming to that I was half afraid you'd suffered some severe injury. When you are able to talk there are lots of things I want you to tell me; but no hurry, we've got unlimited time to talk in."

The voice was cheery, but there was a touch of bitterness in the closing remark. The unlimited time for talking in was, in Sir James's view, equivalent to eternity. He'd been immured in his gloomy subterranean prison for the best part of three days, and had abandoned hope of being rescued.

But Tinker didn't keep him very long in suspense. The youngster was much too brisk and alert to be depressed by what had happened to him. Things have been very much worse. An hour or so before, the best he had looked forward to was a speedy death; but here he was, alive and uninjured, and in good company. The sooner he satisfied Sir James's very natural curiosity, the sooner he and Sir James would be able to apply themselves to the task of escaping.

Tinker's life-long association with Sexton Blake had taught him the lesson of indomitable cheerfulness. There was no difficulty so great but that there was some way out of it, and while there was life there was hope.

Within a quarter of an hour of Tinker's recovery of his senses, Sir James was in full possession of his story.

"There you have it from beginning to end, sir," he concluded, "and the only puzzle to me is why they thought it worth their while to pounce on me. I didn't suspect them of shady practices; in fact, I had told Mr. Blake, as we watched the match, that I didn't believe there was anything to suspect. They've made a false move, it seems to me."

"They thought you knew more than you do know," was Sir James's reply to this. "Perhaps they thought you were spying on them Messrs. Raymond & Co. act promptly when they have made up their minds that any particular person is dangerous, as I know to my cost. Their situation is, of course, desperate if their secret is discovered, and they are prepared to take any risks in preventing its detection. That is why, I imagine, they so summarily disposed of you."

"He'll find out in due course that I didn't return to the London office, and then he'll begin to look for me."

The youngster was distinctly startled by the suggestion. Sir James proceeded to explain.

"When Mr. Blake left you in the pavilion, he told you he was going to find Howard Raymond to talk to him, and when you saw Raymond subsequently, he told you he had not seen Blake. Now, is that plausible? Personally, my belief and fear is that Raymond did see him, and, what is more, dealt with him as summarily as he dealt with you."

"It is impossible to say how; but we know the man is prompt and reckless, and your being kidnapped adds force to the suggestion. You were inquiring for Blake. Blake had already been disposed of; therefore it became necessary to dispose of you. That's how I read the riddle. To my thinking, Mr. Blake is just as much, if not more, in need of our assistance at this moment than we are of his. I hate to distress or discourage you, but it would be foolish not to look all the facts in the face."

Tinker was painfully impressed with this reasoning, and all the more so because he had not strictly obeyed orders. He ought not to have spoken to Raymond; he ought to have gone straight off to the station at the conclusion of the match without speaking to anybody.

Sir James hesitated. He was going to say "dead," when Tinker suddenly broke in, in tones tremulous with emotion:

"No; don't say it, sir! I won't believe it—I can't believe it! You may be all wrong. You don't know Mr. Blake as well as I do. He's a smarter, braver, keener, cleverer man than a whole colony of Raymonds. I decline to believe it, sir," he concluded, in a burst of passionate eagerness.

"I hope I am wrong, and I am glad to hear you say that," said Sir James quietly, and directly afterwards began the narrative of his own experiences for the express purpose of distracting the youngster's mind from the painful topic of Blake's probable fate.

Sir James's narrative amounted to this: A few days previous to the Derby match he had called upon the Crimson Ramblers at their headquarters, and invited Raymond, Courey, and Blitzen to stay at Cayley Hall the night before the game. They thanked him, and accepted the invitation with obvious pleasure. In the course of conversation Sir James had said jokingly, "I wonder what your secret of winning is? I shall keep a close eye on you at Derby, and try to find out. I don't believe you fellows play a fair and square game." His remark was made in pure chaff. They had all laughed at it, and Sir James himself forgot all about it till the night on which he vanished.

"They must have drugged my drink in the smoking-room, for I had hardly got to my room before I felt very drowsy. In fact, I sat down in a chair and dozed off before I had fairly began to undress. Then they came into my room and gagged and bound me, just as you were bound, I was dazed and helpless. They let me down through the window, where I was received by three other men, who carried me across the park, lifted me over the railings, placed me in a motor-car, and brought me here. The whole diabolical plot had been carefully thought out beforehand. No doubt Raymond, Courey, and Blitzen went quietly back to bed. Next day, after the Derby match, Raymond came to see me, or, rather, to talk to me. He made me the offer to restore my liberty if I would take a solemn oath never to reveal what had happened, and never to hint at any unfairness, or trickery in their method of play. Until that moment I had no idea of any unfairness, and when I realized it, you can imagine my answer. He left me, and until you came to-night I have seen no one."

Tinker, who had listened with breathless interest, had a host of questions to ask at once.

"Yes, as for as I dared; but they ramify in all directions, and I was afraid of losing myself. I dared not go too far away from the shaft for fear of not being able to return to it. I hadn't got the stock of provisions we have now. And then I always hoped that somebody would come to the top of the shaft to look for me."

"Oh, he's not a fiend! He doesn't want to have murder upon his conscience. He would much rather that we did not die, provided we are powerless to spoil their plans."

"My idea is that after the England match the Ramblers will cut the rest of their programme and leave the country. When they've got safely away, Raymond will communicate anonymously with the police, and tell them where we are. There is no object otherwise in keeping us alive."

"By Jove, sir, things are not so bad as they might be, if," added the youngster as an afterthought—"if Sexton Blake's all right."

"They didn't kill us, therefore they wouldn't kill him. They haven't brought him here, and therefore they haven't got him," rejoined Tinker triumphantly.

A fire of sticks was blazing in a few minutes, and by the light of it they examined their stock of provisions.

"As far as I can make out, sir, we shall have to live on eight biscuits and three sardines a day, a bottle of beer twice a week, and a tin of potted meat on Sundays."

THE SIXTH CHAPTER.

IT was not until the pavilion was quiet and locked up for the night that Blake ventured forth from the hanging-press. He was not taking any risks now. The results he had achieved were too important to be jeopardised by any premature action on his part. So he waited until he judged the coast to be entirely clear, and then descended from the dressing-room, escaped from the pavilion by one of the ground-floor windows, and walked briskly into the town.

Passing the post-office, he turned in and sent off two telegrams—one cautiously worded to Lady Collier, informing her that his quest was progressing favourably, and that he had ascertained beyond any doubt that Sir James was alive; and the second to Tinker, ordering him to drive the big Panhard down from town and meet him at the Crown Hotel at Derby as early as possible next day.

Then he went to an hotel, got some dinner, and took a late train to Derby, where he put up for the night at the Crown. After ordering the landlord to have a trap with a good fast horse in it ready for him at eight o'clock next morning, he had done all that he could do, and went to bed.

He had instructed Tinker to acknowledge his telegram, and he was rather surprised to find there was no answering wire awaiting him on the breakfast-table; but he had such implicit confidence in the youngster's tact and resourcefulness that its absence caused him no more than a passing moment's uneasiness.

He ate his breakfast, told the landlord to tell Tinker to follow him to Polworth when he did arrive, and then started on his fifteen-mile drive. He said he would be found at the village inn at Polworth.

He did the journey in an hour and a half, which was good going, considering the state of the roads and the hilliness of the country, Half-past nine found him handing over his horse to the village ostler, and a few minutes later he was interviewing the landlord in the inn tap-room.

"Well, what's the news in Polworth?" said Blake, when he had made the latter happy with a foaming tankard of his own ale, "I suppose you don't have many visitor's at this time of year?"

"Not a-many, sir—not a-many," said the landlord, in a wheezy voice, with a gloomy shake of his head. "There hean't nothing doing in Polworth at all since the Polworth mine was shut down. Not more than ten mugs of ale do I draw in one day where I used to draw ten gallons, Oh, it's been a ter'ble loss to me, the shutting down of the coal-mine! You's the first stranger in these parts I've set eyes on since the vet came over from Morley to see Farmer Stubbs's cow; mortal bad she was with having swallowed somethin' what had disagreed with her. Now, what do you think it was, sir? I'll bet you another tankard of my best ale you don't guess—"

"Oh, very interesting!" said Blake. "But I'll stand you another tankard of ale whether I guess right or not. I think you were saying you've had no visitors in Polworth lately?"

"I'm tellin' you, sir; you're the first stranger I've set eyes on since the vet came over from Morley to see Farmer Stubbs's cow; mortal bad she was with having swallowed summat that disagreed with her. Now, what—"

"Yes, yes—very interesting! I've no idea what she swallowed. I suppose you all go to bed very early in Polworth?"

"Early, sir? We are all in our beds afore nine o'clock, if you call that early. I was up a good hour later last week, though, when the vet came over from Morley to see Farmer Stubbs's cow. Mortal bad she was with havin' swallowed somethin' that disagreed with her. Now, what do you think it was? I'll bet you another tankard of ale you don't—"

"No, I'm sure I couldn't guess it. All very interesting, but never mind Farmer Stubbs's cow for a moment. I suppose there couldn't he any strangers come to the village without your knowing it?"

"No, that there couldn't be, sir. Why, I was the first that knowed that the vet from Morley had come over to see Farmer Stubbs's cow; mortal bad she was with havin' swallowed summat that disagreed with her. Now, what do you think it was? I'll bet you another tank—"

"Extremely interesting, as I said, landlord, but let us leave the bet and the vet, and the cow alone for a bit. You have no one staying at the inn, I think you said?"

"Well, no, sir, not at the present time: but last week I had the vet from Morley, who came over to see Farmer Stubbs's cow. Mortal bad she was with havin' swallowed somethin' that disagreed with her. Now, what do you—"

"I haven' the remotest notion. Do any of the people in the village take in lodgers?"

"Well, there's Farmer Stubbs, he sometimes—Oh, as I was tellin' you, the vet came over from Morley to see Farmer Stubbs's cow! Mortal bad she was, with havin' swallowed summat that disagreed with—"

"Were you a-saying anything?" inquired the landlord, breaking off in his interminable story.

Blake was desperate, but he realised that he would get no rational intelligence out of the man until he'd heard the last of the bet and the vet, and the cow.

"Well. this is how it was, sir. The vet, came over from Morley to see Farmer Stubbs's cow what had swallowed summat that disagreed with her, and I don't rightly remember the name."

"I don't care a brass farthing what his name was! Get on with your confounded story!"

"Yes, sir; but I'll just go and ask my daughter Maria what his name is. She'd remember."

"Look here," he said, gripping him by the arm, "unless you finish your infernal rigmarole about the vet and the cow in double-quick time I'll brain you with one of your own quart pots! Now you know! Get on!"

"Lor sakes, you are a funny gentleman!" grinned the other, but he seemed to realise he had better got on. "Mortal bad she was with having swallowed somethin' that disagreed with her. Now, what do you think it was? I'll bet you a tankard of my best ale you don't guess it in half a dozen tries!"

"Gosh, so it were! However did you guess it?" replied the other, in an awed voice.

"Maria," bawled the landlord, "heres a what has guessed what was the matter with Farmer Stubbs's cow what the vet, came over from Morley to see when she'd swallowed summat that disagreed with her—guessed it first time he did. Now the gentleman don't feel satisfied because I can't rightly remember the vet's name. I told him you'd recollect it, and—"

"Father," said Maria, "the gentleman's gone! He don't want to know the vet's name."

It was true—Blake had gone. He couldn't stand any more of Farmer Stubbs's cow, and he despaired of getting any intelligent information from such a dullard. He fled for fear he should become entangled in some new story about Maria and the vet's name, and perhaps the cow's name, and Heaven knows what beside.

This incident has been detailed at some length because it gives the reader some idea of the immense difficulties experienced by Blake in pursuing his inquiries in Polworth.

He went from cottage to cottage seeking information, but could get nothing but the vaguest answers to his questions. His inquiries about strangers being seen in the village were met with long accounts of visitors who'd been there last year, or last summer, or last summer twelvemonths. No one knew or could tell him anything definite. Farmer Stubbs, who was the most intelligent person he interviewed, got it into his head that he wanted to rent a room at the farm to live in, and when Blake succeeded in dispelling that notion the farmer proceeded to regale him with the story of the cow that had swallowed the piece of soap.

Blake's horror and fury at the story's fresh cropping up were so intense that the farmer fled indoors, fearing that he had to do with a lunatic.

All this had taken a long time, and it was late afternoon and there was nothing accomplished. Raymond had mentioned Polworth as the place where he was keeping Sir James in confinement. Where was he, then? Were there other Polworths? Were the villagers in league with Raymond to put Blake off the scent?

This last notion was too preposterous to obtain an instant's credence, for the people were too simple to have deceived the veriest country bumpkin. It was certain that Raymond must have referred to this one owing to its convenient proximity to Cayley Hall.

Blake had knocked and inquired and peeped in and asked questions at every house, cottage, and shop in the village. Was he to give up his quest?

The idea was absurd. For Blake to be baffled by a mystery in a remote country village with only a few hundred inhabitants was unthinkable.

Where else was there to look? There might be outlying houses or cottages. He returned to the inn, had his horse harnessed again, and decided to make a systematic tour of the immediate vicinity.

He had mounted to the driving-seat and was just gathering up the reins when a boy on a bicycle rode up to the inn door.

Blake tore open the envelope handed to him, and found inside a letter and a telegram. The letter read:

"Your motor-car has not arrived, and as the enclosed telegram may be urgent, I've sent it on by special messenger."

The telegram was from a trusted man in town whom Blake sometimes employed on minor cases and to keep an eye on his rooms. It ran as follows:

"Tinker has not returned, nor has anything been heard of him since he left with you yesterday. In his absence I opened your telegram. Fear some mishap must have befallen him. Shall I inform police? What about Panhard? Please wire full instructions."

Coming at the end of a long day of futile effort, when he was already dispirited by failure, the news of Tinker's disappearance operated like the last straw in the fable which broke the camel's back. He felt utterly crushed, and stared blankly at the boy, who was regarding him with awe and wonder. This was the great Sexton Blake, whom he had often read of, but never seen. The boy and Blake stared at each other in dead silence.

But Blake didn't hear him. He sat in the trap with his head bowed forward on his chest, the reins dangling loosely in his left hand, and the telegram crushed into a ball in his right. He was only thinking of Tinker, the loyal, faithful, and trusty youngster who had shared so many perils with him, who risked his life a hundred times in his service, who had never failed him, and who had now sealed his devotion by the supreme sacrifice.

Sexton Blake sat with his head bowed forward on his chest, the reins
dangling loosely in his left hand, and the telegram crushed into a ball
in his right. He was thinking of Tinker, the lad who had never failed him.

For Blake was under no delusion as regards Tinker's probable fate. In his mind's eye he saw everything that had happened. Raymond and the rest, warned that Blake was on their track, had retaliated upon Blake's youthful assistant—the person that he loved best in the world; and while he was hiding in the hanging-press, congratulating himself upon his cleverness, they were acting, striking a blow which would paralyse his efforts to unmask them, and compel him to make terms with them.

And as he realised this he forgot his quest as completely as if he had never entered upon it. What did Sir James plight matter to him in comparison to Tinker's? What did England's supremacy at football matter in comparison with his safety? What did anything matter while the youngster's life was in jeopardy?

"Is there any answer, sir?" said the boy again, after a long interval. Then Blake heard, and replied:

"No!" he said; and there was such fierce passion in his utterance that the boy shrank away from him appalled. And it was as well that he did.

For Blake suddenly gathered up the reins, and, snatching up the whip, laid the lash with one smart, tingling, furious cut across the horse's flanks, and the startled animal, making one tremendous bound, dashed forward at frantic speed. In a moment Blake and the trap were careering out of the village at a pace which threatened to break the neck of the one and smash the other to splinters.

The landlord of the inn gaped after him in amaze. The boy stood pale and trembling beside his bicycle, and Farmer Stubbs, who viewed the whole episode from an upper window, thanked Heaven that Polworth was delivered from a madman.

But for the coming of that telegram it is practically certain that Blake would have discovered the shaft of the disused coal-mine, and that Sir James Collier and Tinker would have been liberated from their underground prison the same night.

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER.

THE second day after their victory at Nottingham, the Crimson Ramblers were playing the United Universities of Oxford and Cambridge at Queen's Club, which was the last important fixture before the great England match at the Crystal Palace. There were other minor engagements to be fulfilled between these two events, but they were of such a character as to excite only the slightest general interest, because the result in every case was a foregone conclusion. The minor engagements had been made long ago with second and third-rate clubs before the pre-eminent strength of the foreign visiting team had been ascertained; otherwise it is safe to say that the clubs in question would not have had the temerity to challenge such formidable adversaries.

The match, therefore, against the combined Universities created widespread interest in the football world, and most of the London clubs cancelled their own fixtures by mutual consent to enable their members to be present at the match. Everybody wanted to see for himself how the Universities would fare, and so be in a position to judge whether England possessed the smallest chance of stemming the Ramblers' tide of victory later on. This was the last opportunity for forming an opinion. The concourse was tremendous, the enthusiasm was electric.

Now, we have no intention of describing the game, except so far as to say that the result flattered the hopes of England's backers to a pitch that not even the most sanguine had dared to indulge in. The match constituted a record of low scoring so far as the Crimson Ramblers were concerned.

The United Universities were handsomely beaten, but the thousands of keen-sighted spectators were convinced that Oxford and Cambridge had had very little the worse of the actual play. Time and again they pressed; time and again the Ramblers keeper had to handle and punch out in order to clear; time and again the Ramblers had to concede a corner. If only the Universities had had the slightest bit of luck they might have equalised—that was the general impression—or as some averred, they might have won outright. The result was acclaimed as almost a mounting to a moral victory. It was held to be the happiest augury for England's success.

Such a score as two goals to nil, when compared with previous scores—the actual lowest of which had been six to nil—might well be construed as a virtual triumph.

It was a jubilant and gloriously hopeful throng of thousands that issued from the ground, after cheering the 'Varsities' team to the echo when the match was over.

But if the spectators were on excellent terms with themselves, so were the Crimson Ramblers.

"Bravo, boys—splendid!" said Raymond cordially, as his motor-car threaded its way neatly through the traffic, carrying him and Courey and Eclair and Blitzen back to their hotel. "I am extremely pleased with you two chaps!" he said to the two foreigners. "You played just exactly the right game; you seemed to be working hard all the time, and yet you were really doing next to nothing. I never saw anything neater."

This was praise, indeed; for the manager did not often condescend to be polite to Eclair and Blitzen.

"We 'ave what ze small boy Tinker have called 'sugared,' hein? We 'ave sugared well, as you have order us—ha, ha!—c'est bien!" laughed Eclair.

"Ach Himmel, how I haf sugared! Never haf I so sugared before! Donnerwetter, das vos gut vas you say das I laf so wohl gesugared! Ach, ach, ach! And I laugh at meinself all de time!" chimed in Blitzen, "Yes, it was excellent; you surpassed yourselves," repeated Raymond.

"We could easily have scored twenty goals if we'd wanted them," said Courey; "and it was frightfully hard to resist the temptation."

"Oh, I haven't gone info figures: but it will be something colossal. Blitzen, you will he able to go home to the Fatherland and live like a German baron for the rest of your life—unlimited beer and sausage and Sauerkraut and Limburger cheese! What a time you'll have—eh?"

Chatting and talking in this airy, bantering fashion they arrived at the West End Hotel which they had made their headquarters. Raymond jumped out, griping the black bag without which he was rarely seen. He was serious now.

They formed round him—one on his right, one on his left, one in front, and one behind him; and thus escorted he carried his precious bag safely into the hotel. They went straight up to his bedroom and deposited it in a large portmanteau, which was so heavy that it took the united strength of Eclair and Blitzen to lift it. This portmanteau was really a steel-lined case, fire-proof and burglar-proof, and was merely covered with leather to disguise its character.

When the portmanteau was locked it was placed in a wardrobe which was also locked. They locked the door of the bedroom when they went out. And so, triply guarded, the precious bag and it contents seemed to be beyond the reach of the most expert and enterprising of burglars.

Two minutes after they had left the room a man crawled out from under the bed. He made short work of the wardrobe lock. He was an exceptionally strong man, for he lifted the heavy portmanteau with one hand. He was a cool man and a daring man, for he produced a key which opened the portmanteau lock in a moment. And he was a reckless man, because he didn't take the trouble to unlock the black bag, but simply slashed it open with a knife, and its contents were strewn about the floor. The secret of the Crimson Ramblers' marvellous triumphs was at the mercy of this strong, cool, daring, and reckless individual.

In order that the reader may not be in any doubt as to this person's identity, we will trace Blake's movements from the time he left the village inn at Polworth up to the present moment.

That Blake reached Derby safely was due to the horse's wonderful instinct and to that alone. For the first few miles he can't be said to have attempted to drive it or guide it or control it. All he asked of it was speed, and the generous animal gave of his best. He urged it forward with voice and whip. For the first five miles he saw none of the obstacles which were missed as often as not by no more than a hair's-breadth. He was capable of appreciating nothing but movement. So many hours separated him from the moment at which he would be able to confront Raymond and demand of him what he had done with Tinker; and so long as he could abridge those hours, even by a few minutes, he cared for nothing else. A mist swam before his eyes, in which he saw the blurred figures of Tinker and Raymond, and them only; nor was it dispelled until the fierce suspicion which raged in his soul had spent itself, and the frightful pace at which he travelled had cooled and calmed him.

He stopped at the hotel to inquire if there was any further message for him; there was none, and he proceeded direct to the station. Then he wired to Davis not to send the Panhard, and not to communicate with the police; and then he chartered a special train, and in due course arrived at St. Pancras.

"No; he didn't leave word, sir. But he'll be back to-morrow after the Universities' match. Would you like to see any of the other gentlemen, sir?"

But Blake had had time for reflection, and was no longer the wild, harum-scarum creature of the afternoon; and replied that the matter was of no consequence, he could easily wait till to-morrow, he wouldn't trouble the other gentlemen.

"I am staying here," he added: "and please give me a room as near Mr. Raymond's as you can."

The clerk was very obliging, and Blake was accommodated with a room immediately opposite the manager's: but he didn't sleep much that night. He spent hours in Raymond's empty room, and amongst many things that did not interest him at all he discovered one thing that interested him immensely. That one thing was the heavy steel case disguised to look like a portmanteau; and when he stole back to his own room he carried with him an impression in wax of the steel case's complicated lock.

Blake left the hotel immediately after breakfast and went to his rooms, where in his own workshop he fabricated a key that exactly corresponded to the wax mould.

Blake went back to the hotel with his plan of action all made out in his mind and cut and dried. He could bide his time now. He had guessed the meaning of that strange portmanteau. If all went well, he would have something to exchange for Tinker's freedom, if he were alive, or something wherewith to exact a terrible vengeance, if he had been the victim of foul play, when Howard Raymond returned to the hotel after the University match.

So the man who crept from under the bed in Raymond's room was Sexton Blake; the Crimson Ramblers' jealously-guarded secret was in his possession; the strewn contents of the locked black bag lay wholly at his mercy.

The room was in semi-darkness, the gloom of an autumn twilight, and he sought and found the electric-switch which flooded the apartment with light that he might get a better view of it, and examine it in all its marvellous ingenuity.

Blake had always felt an extraordinary enthusiasm for delicate mechanism, and he presently became absorbed in probing the subtle mysteries of what he held in his hand. This spring acted on that spring, and this cogwheel on that, and here was the tiny master-lever which controlled the whole simple apparatus; it was a chef d'oeuvre of marvellous workmanship, and its inventor could be nothing less than a genius. No wonder the Crimson Ramblers had routed the champion British teams at football!

His was the joy of the artist contemplating a masterpiece. He knew, he appreciated, he saw with the eye of perception; others might have seen only so many wheels and cogs and springs and levers, but he saw the beautiful harmony of the whole, the exquisiteness of the instrument, the amazing perfection with which it fulfilled the purpose for which it was designed.

He looked and looked and peered and probed until he was absolute master of all its simple intricacies, and the thought that hummed through his brain was the thought that comes to all men of similar enthusiasms under such circumstances:

Raymond, Courey, Eclair, and Blitzen were sitting in the hotel lounge smoking, drinking, and talking, when the clerk came out of the little glass cabin or office in which he worked all day and spoke to Raymond.

"He came here yesterday to inquire for you, and I thought his business was urgent. He's staying in the hotel, sir."

The other three men exchanged significant glances, and listened with straining ears.

"No, sir; he didn't say. I thought you would know. I thought he was a friend of yours. He is occupying the room immediately opposite your bedroom, He particularly requested that he might be put close to you."

"No doubt. I expected him to run me to earth yesterday. Nothing to be alarmed about."

"Is it? Oh, well, this is an hotel, not a private house! Can't prevent his coming to stay here if he wants to."

Raymond was doing his best to assure himself that there was nothing sinister or ominous in Blake's conduct; but he was not as comfortable as he wished to appear.

"Suppose you went to see him in his room without waiting for him to come to you? It would look better, wouldn't it?"

Raymond rose to his feet, all pretence of unconcern laid aside. Courey had thoroughly roused him to the possible seriousness of the situation.

They moved towards the staircase in an unostentatious manner, Raymond going first, and Courey following him at an interval of some seconds. The former waited for him at the half landing.

"I say, you know, we ought to be prepared for emergencies," said Courey, who was much the calmer of the two.

"What do you mean?" rejoined the other, with an unmistakable quiver in his voice.

"Suppose he's found out more than we bargain for?" was Courey's reply. And Raymond stared at him with an expression that was positively scared.

Raymond was gradually getting back his wonted confidence. It was the suddenness of the thing which had momentarily startled him out of his ordinary composure, for if there was desperate work to be done, he was not the man to flinch from it. Men of his stamp are often more disturbed by half measures than by an out-and-out act of villainy.

"Yes," he said, echoing Courey's remark, "it may have to be done. At all events, it is well to be prepared. Fetch Eclair and Blitzen."

He had now taken his rightful place as leader of the adventure, Blitzen strolled out of the lounge, then Eclair; then Courey joined the party again. It was all so well done that any chance observer of the scene would have thought that the meeting of the four men on the staircase was purely accidental.

"You two follow me, but don't enter Blake's room unless I whistle. Remain outside, but if I do give the signal, obey it instantly. It will be touch and go. He must be silenced in a moment you understand?"

Oh, yes, they understood! They understood it too well to be comfortable, for this was a very different affair from tackling a young lad riding with supposed friends in a motor-car on a lonely road. They nodded, and Raymond turned on his heel and led the way upstairs.

There was nothing in the least suspicious about Raymond and his three friends hanging about the door of Raymond's own room. A chambermaid, who happened to be passing, gave them a glance and passed on about her own business. It was her night out, and she was humming to herself the air of the song "Good-bye, little girl, good-bye!" Raymond noticed it and smiled. He thought it was a good omen for the work they had in hand.

He stepped forward, and, knocking softly at Blake's door, almost immediately entered, with Courey close on his heels. The room was in darkness; it was obvious that Blake was not there. They came out again in a moment, hardly knowing whether they felt more relieved or disappointed.

"Bah!" said Raymond, in a disgusted whisper. "We've had our fright for nothing. I tell you what it is, Courey, this was a senseless plan, and I'm glad it failed. I'll leave word at the office for Blake to come and see me in my room when he comes in. That will make things far easier if we have to take strong measures."

Courey's voice was a strangled whisper. He broke off, with his mouth wide open and his finger raised and pointing.

He was pointing at the keyhole of Raymond's door, which was brilliantly illuminated, proving that the electric light was full on in the room. What else it proved he didn't dare admit even to himself.

Raymond was stooping down and peering through the keyhole. To the others who were waiting to hear the result of his scouting it seemed as if he would never remove his eye from it. His eye seemed to be glued there for an eternity; in reality his scrutiny lasted less than five seconds. He straightened himself to an erect posture, and they saw from the ghastly look on his face that the worst had happened.

He didn't utter the name, but his lips made the motion of pronouncing it. Yet he was marvellously composed, marvellously master of himself. As he drew the key from his pocket and fitted it into the lock, his hand was as steady as a rock; there was not the slightest clink or grating sound as the wards went home. Then he paused for the veriest fraction of a second and whispered:

The key flashed in the lock, the door flew open. The four men leapt into their room and dashed at their victim.

And Blake, who was still enthralled, spellbound, fascinated by the supreme ingenuity of the thing which he had discovered, had not more than an instant for preparation—not more than time enough to wheel round and meet his adversaries face to face. That was the extent of his advantage in this fight of four against one—that he was not attacked from behind.

He met Blitzen, who led the charge, with a straight drive that dropped him like a felled ox, Eclair, who was just behind, stumbled over the German, and pitched headlong at Blake's feet; but he seized Blake's legs, and in a moment Blake was down, Courey, who had got the drugged handkerchief, had stopped behind to screen the door, while Raymond flung himself on Blake's back as he lay before Eclair.

"We've got him now—quick!" gasped Raymond, as his fingers strained at Blake's throat, But the cry was premature. With one resolute kick, which found the Frenchman's ribs, the arms clasping Blake's legs relaxed their grip. Eclair would he of no further use for many minutes. And Blake, who was an accomplished wrestler, contrived, although he was half strangled, to arch his back with a supreme effort, and, like a stone from a catapult Raymond was shot clean on to his head. Three were down—three were hors de combat—and now there was only Courey.

If the conditions had been even remotely fair, Blake would have won in the struggle; but there was the drugged handkerchief, and Courey was fresh and in full vigour. Yet Blake managed to stagger to his feet.

Courey closed, and pressed the handkerchief over his mouth; but even then the contest was not over, Blake's senses were being stolen away from him, his chest was heaving in a convulsive effort to get breath, yet he collected himself for one final spurt of energy. Crash! went both his fists in Courey's face. Courey dropped, the handkerchief dropped, and, last of all, Blake dropped. His four foes lay prostrate at his feet, and yet he was done. He had been conquered by foul means. He fell like a log on the top of Blitzen, and lay unconscious.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER.

THE exploration of their underground prison, which had been entered upon by Tinker and Sir James Collier within an hour of Tinker's arrival, had been prosecuted with unceasing perseverance ever since.

And this unceasing perseverance was absolutely essential if anything was to be accomplished.

Perhaps the magnitude of their task can only be properly appreciated by those who are familiar with the interior of a coal-mine.

To begin with, they had to work absolutely in the dark, and although their eyes soon became accustomed to the gloom so far as to enable them to distinguish each other vaguely, their sight was never strong enough to pierce the impenetrable blackness of the murky caverns through which they wandered.

Tinker had matches, but everyone knows the horrible danger of using a naked light in a coal-mine, and their use was only resorted to in cases of extreme urgency; sometimes, however, a light was a necessity, as will presently be explained, and the risk had to be run.

Perhaps Sir James's most constant dread was the dread of after-damp, that fatal vapour that rises from the lower depths and creeps along the various passages and levels and strikes the miners dead as they wield their picks and shovels. There is no guarding against that; it is one of the perils that have to be taken for granted, and forgotten about if the men who get the coal are to do their work with any peace of mind.

This was Sir James's secret dread; but Tinker's apprehensions were mainly centred upon the possibility of an explosion.

Yet, after all, these two principal dangers were not the chiefest sources of their anxiety and worry. They tried not to think about these, but these others had to be faced always, and in encountering them there was dire peril to life and limb.

For instance, the floor was strewn with debris, and every groping step was a stumble. Sometimes the passages fell away suddenly, and then it was that a match had to be lit, and they would find themselves on the edge of a yawning abyss.

At other times the levels would contract with similar suddenness, and where before they had been able to walk upright, they could only make painful progress on their hands and knees; and at times had actually to crawl and squeeze themselves through narrow openings.

Hour after hour was spent in this strenuous and fatiguing fashion, until they were forced from sheer hunger and faintness to return to the shaft and eat their meagre rations and snatch a little sleep, with the heart-breaking consciousness that in spite of all their efforts they had explored only an inconsiderable distance.

So things went on for the second day—immense fatigues endured but little or no result accruing They returned to what they grimly called their "home," with braised and aching limbs, almost too tired to eat, but tortured with an intolerable thirst from the parching grains of coal-dust that had got into their throats and lungs. When they had quenched that thirst, without regard to the strict quantity of liquid to which they had limited themselves, they slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted.

Their only way of measuring time was from the light that filtered into the shaft through the interstices between the planks that covered its opening. It was late on the third day when they awoke.

"Tinker, is it any good dying of slow starvation three weeks or a month hence?" said Sir James, stopping suddenly in the munching of a biscuit and speaking with a curiously cracked voice.

"We are wasting half our time in coming backwards and forwards to this place," continued Sir James, "and half our strength as well. Are you prepared to risk everything on a desperate chance?"

The youngster waited for Sir James to develop his plan. The secret hope that he had all along cherished, that Sexton Blake would find and rescue them, had faded into nothingness. He was forced to the conclusion that Sexton Blake himself had come to grief; and, if that were so, no plan was too desperate for him to welcome it. Life for Tinker without his hero was not worth living.

"Well, I propose," proceeded Sir James slowly, "that we abandon our 'home,' our base here, and keep on going forward; that we sleep where we lie and continue our exploring from the point where we slept. The difficulty, of course, is the provisions, for we cannot carry more than a very small quantity: and if we lose our bearings in the mine, as we are certain to do, we shall not find our way back."

Tinker sprang to his feet. There was something bracing, stirring, stimulating, in the idea of confiding all to a single effort. Why had they ever thought of dragging out a bare existence for a whole month? Why hadn't they adopted this more resolute plan from the first? He was all fire and eagerness to put their fortune to the test and have done with it. By this time, had they done so earlier, they would have known the best or the worst.

They struck out boldly on a path which they had not as yet traversed—at Sir James's suggestion—for the old path had furnished them with nothing but disappointments, and it was just possible that the new might be more kindly.

"We are trusting to chance—we will trust her to the full," said Sir James. And the advice chimed in with Tinker's mood.

Sometimes one led, and sometimes the other, and wherever the leader went the other followed without protest. What did it matter? It was all one whether they kept on going straight ahead or branched off into any of the innumerable cross-passages that ramified to right and left. Sometimes they were going up, and sometimes down. More than one yawning abyss proved on inspection to have an iron ladder clamped to its side, which the miners had used for obtaining access to the different levels. Nothing daunted them now, and they climbed up and climbed down many of these ladders in the next few hours. To go on till they dropped was their only purpose. When they rested at last they had completely lost their bearings. The die, indeed, was cast, for had they wished to return they would not have known what direction to take.

Tinker was awakened by his shoulder being roughly shaken. Sir James's voice was so husky that it was scarcely audible or articulate.

Tinker gave it up, realising that his voice was just as cracked and inaudible as Sir James's. They entered upon another long spell of wandering, but with this difference, that now they never tried to speak to each other. They squeezed themselves through dreadful holes, they stumbled over debris, they mounted and clambered down the rickety iron ladders, they fell and picked themselves up and staggered on again, until once more they dropped and slept.

He drained what was left in the last of his bottles, and threw the remainder of his food away. Biscuits inspired him with loathing. His throat was like a lime-kiln. He stretched out his hand to rouse Sir James, and his fingers closed on a bottle. He shook it; it reopened with a gurgle; there was liquid in it, something that was wet and thirst allaying. In a moment the cork was out and the bottle at his lips.

Then with a shudder he put it down, untasted, recorked it, and with a savage dig of his elbow awakened his companion.

And groping for his bottle, found it, and drained its meagre contents at a draught. He had no idea of the fierce temptation which Tinker had so nearly succumbed to, but had gallantly resisted.

And so up and on again, stumbling, falling, avoiding unseen dangers by instinct, cutting and bruising themselves, they blundered on in the dark like men deprived of sight and speech. Through the whole of this period they exchanged no syllable of talk, and only kept together through some vague but unconscious desire for companionship. They struggled on because the effort of moving served in some degree to distract them from the devouring thirst with which they were racked. They had lost all hope; to go on until their exhausted limbs should refuse to carry them, and then, if it might be so, to die mercifully and painlessly in their sleep, was the greatest boon they craved for.

His tongue was clinging to the roof of his mouth, and his anguish was unspeakable. Sir James was chattering in delirium about food and waterfalls and lemonade and football and his home at Cayley Court and a host of other incongruous subjects. His sufferings had made him lightheaded, and it gave Tinker the creeps to listen to him.

And then, a moment later, the youngster thought that he, too, had become lightheaded, for far away in the distance he saw a speck of light. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, and still it was there. He rubbed his eyes for the third time with the same result, the speck of light declined to vanish; and presently Tinker raised himself sufficiently to begin to crawl towards it.

But it was a long and difficult crawl, for it was all up-hill; it was like climbing up a sloping plank of interminable length set at a sharp angle; and the one thing that inspired him with strength to continue this arduous climb was that the higher he got the purer the air became, until at last he was conscious of a fresh, health-giving breeze blowing in his face, and the speck of light had grown into a diffused radiance, the radiance of the moon at the full.

Two years ago a company was formed for the purpose of reopening the abandoned Polworth mine, and the first thing the company did was to drive a huge ventilating chute athwart the workings to the mines lowest level. When this had been done, the company decided that the mine wasn't worth reopening, and so the enterprise was relinquished.

It was up this useless ventilating chute that Tinker was now climbing. In half an hour he had reached the top.

In three-quarters of an hour he had slaked his own burning thirst and was carrying water to Sir James.

In an hour's time both he and Sir James had emerged from their living tomb, and were breathing the glorious air of the Derbyshire uplands.

THE NINTH CHAPTER

"BY George, done 'em, sir—done 'em in the eye!" laughed Tinker. "And now it's our turn, and won't we give 'em toko!"

They had remained at the spot whence they had emerged from the mine, sprawling luxuriously on their backs in the long lush grass, resting and chatting and laughing and recalling the incidents of their escape and imprisonment.

It takes some time to attune the mind to a state of liberty after a period of confinement, and they were content just then to be alive—to stay where they were, and revel and exult in their freedom.

"We are forgetting Sexton Blake," he said; and his remark instantly galvanised Tinker into recovered energy.

"Come on, sir! Where's the nearest police-station?" he replied. "Do you know the way?"

"Every yard of it—it's my native county. Yonder, over there to the right, is the shaft and winding-gear, and on the brow of the hill beyond is the village of Polworth. There is a farmer named Stubbs, who is one of my tenants, living close by. He'll lend us a horse and trap to drive into Derby, and then we can inform the police."

The path led them right through the middle of the surface works. There was the tottering chimney-stack, and there the worn-out winding-gear. The rotting remains of the ruined huts and offices, the old trucks standing on the moss-grown rails, the dilapidated shell of the superintendent's dwelling-house—all these things brought a queer, catchy sensation to their throats as they viewed them again.

The dilapidated gear brought a queer, catchy sensation to their
throats as they viewed the ruins. "Never expected to get another
sight of all this, sir," said Tinker. "Nor I," said Sir James simply.

They stood and gazed about them for a minute or two, saying little, for their hearts were overflowing with joy and thankfulness for their escape, and there was little need of words to express their feelings. Presently they turned to move on again, when Tinker stopped short with a startled exclamation.

A man carrying a lamp was rapidly descending from the brow of the hill into the hollow; they could tell the lamp was being carried by the way the light swayed to and fro. And behind him came a group of three or four other men, all walking very close together. Every now and then the man with the lamp stopped to show the others a light to guide them over some difficult spot, and so Sir James and Tinker got a momentary glimpse of them. It was impossible to see very clearly, but it almost seemed as if they were supporting a burden between them, and as if that was why they walked so close together. They were in doubt, indeed, whether it was three men and a burden, or four men that were following the man with the lamp.

"I think it is Raymond, Courey & Co. come to visit us, or perhaps to add one more to the number of their victims."

"Ay, if—It might be. Don't be a fool, young 'un!" he added sharply, for Tinker had suddenly stooped down and caught up a bar of rusty iron from an adjoining scrap-heap.

Sir James, who had seized Tinker's arm, could feel it quivering with passion. The youngster seemed not to notice the detaining grasp. His eyes were fixed upon the swaying lantern, and his hand gripped the iron bar as if it was his dearest possession on earth.

Sir James led him aside into the shadow of the big chimney-stack with gentle coaxing, half willingly, half reluctantly; but the youngster's eyes were always turned the same way.

"Now, silence and self-control, Tinker! And remember that there is more at stake than mere vengeance."

The other party were now rapidly approaching the shaft and the winding-gear, and the man carrying the lantern was definitely revealed as Howard Raymond, Tinker also recognised Courey, Blitzen, and Eclair, and a moment later, when they set their burden down on the ground close to the lantern, Blake. Blake, gagged, bound, and fettered, was the burden!

Eclair and Blitzen fastened the end of the windlass rope under Blake's arms, and Courey made a point of seeing that the knot was tied securely, Raymond himself was in charge of the windlass-handle.

The two foreigners had already removed the planks that covered the shaft's opening, Blake hung suspended over the chasm, the windlass creaked, the rope began to run out; Blake slowly disappeared. When the rope ran slack there was a little more talk. How was the end of the rope to be relieved of its burden? Raymond settled the point by hacking it off at the windlass. The severed portion fell down the shaft with a "plop." The planks were restored to their former position, the lantern was extinguished, and Raymond and his accomplices stole rapidly and noiselessly away.

All this time a silent but severe struggle had been going on in the shadow of the chimney-stack, and it was only Sir James's superior strength that had restrained the youngster from committing some act of desperation. For the sight of Blake treated with this contemptuous indignity appeared to madden him, and he strove and struggled and wrestled to free himself from the encircling arms that kept him still and inactive.

"No, not yet, Tinker—not until they've been gone at least ten minutes. There is no certainty that they may not return. Can't you see you are imperiling Blake's life and your own and mine?"

"Thank you, sir!" said Tinker at last, for his frenzy left him almost directly the scoundrels had vanished from view, "I'm afraid I've been a fool."

"There is plenty of excuse for such generous folly," replied Sir James tenderly.

"Not at all. You saved me from the pit. I saved you from yourself; we are almost quits," was the laughing rejoinder.

Then they both came forward to the head of the shaft, and after a brief inspection of the windlass, discovered, to their intense relief, that there was still sufficient rope left to reach the bottom. Their preparations occupied only a minute or two. The planks were removed, Tinker was slung to the rope, and Sir James let him down.

Tinker's voice was broken with emotion as he stooped over Blake and cut the cords and removed the gag. Blake's feelings it is practically impossible to describe. They stood there, those two close comrades, the man and the boy, hand clasped in hand, oblivious of everything except that they were once more united. From failure to success, from defeat to victory, from death to life—so it had been with both of them. And when things like that happen to a man in the course of a few minutes, some little latitude in the display of emotion may be permitted him.

"Hallo below there! Anything wrong?" called down Sir James, who was getting anxious at the long delay.

Blake was drawn up first, and then Tinker, and once more there was a great hand-shaking and many silent prayers of gratitude amongst the mouldering surface-works of the abandoned Polworth mine.

They were soon on their way out of the hollow, and, as they walked, Blake listened to their experiences and recounted his own, but he had very little to tell that the reader does not know. The sum and gist of it was that he was smuggled out of the hotel into Raymond's car, and brought to Polworth in the manner described. There had been considerable debate amongst the Ramblers whether he should be brought there dead or alive, but Raymond's voice had prevailed against killing him, on the ground that it was both unnecessary and dangerous.

"Now about getting to Derby?" proceeded Blake, when the narrative was over. "There is a farmer living there named Stubbs, and I dare say we could borrow a horse and trap from him."

Farmer Stubbs made no difficulty about the horse and trap when he knew that it was his landlord who wanted them, but was extremely curious to know how Sir James came to be in that part of the country at dead of night, in ragged clothes that would have disgraced a tramp, and with a face as black as a sweep's. Sir James had to invent a story about a wager to satisfy him.

"Promise not to mention it to a living soul, and I'll remit you a half-year's rent, Stubbs," he said. "One doesn't like that sort of thing to get about."

The farmer promised, and then, in return for Sir James's story of the wager, launched into his own terrible story of the bet and the vet, and the cow.

"I can guess it," said Blake, before he could get out a dozen words. "Your cow swallowed a piece of soap." And Stubbs was so much astounded at this uncanny display of knowledge that they were able to escape before he could think of any more questions to ask.

"And now, Mr. Blake, how do you propose to bring these rascals to book?" inquired Sir James, as they approached Cayley Hall.

"I don't propose to bring them to book at all just yet," was the astonishing reply.

"Entirely, of course—always provided that the Ramblers' misdeeds are brought home to them."

"I'll take care of that!" rejoined Blake grimly. "In the meantime I am going to ask you to give Tinker and myself two or three weeks' hospitality at Cayley Hall I want to stay with you incognito, and I want you to lie low too. Can you manage it?"

THE TENTH CHAPTER.

OWING to their very narrow victory over the combined Universities, the Crimson Ramblers' doings in those minor matches which immediately preceded the culminating match of their tour were watched with far greater interest than the matches themselves deserved. For the British public had suddenly grown very sanguine of the success of the team that was to represent England. The result of these matches tended to support this view.

The Ramblers, as was expected, won all four of them, the score of goals being three, two, four, and one to nil in their favour.

Thus in the very last match before the great event at the Crystal Palace, the Ramblers only beat a third-rate eleven by the trifling margin of a single goal!

"They've got stale! We shall win!" was the cry. And the betting, which had been odds on the Crimson Ramblers, suddenly veered round to odds on the England team.

This created an immense furore, immense excitement in the football world. Odds on England! Who would have believed it a few weeks ago? The Crystal Palace authorities were inundated with fresh applications for tickets, which encouraged them to double their stand accommodation. An army of carpenters were set to work day and night, and a vast and lofty structure rose from the ground, as if in obedience to a magician's wand, and stretched right round the arena, towering above the stands already erected, and affording a unique view of the match to an additional fifty-thousand spectators. The tickets for this lofty erection were priced at two guineas, and sold like hot cakes.

And then all sorts of rumours got about. It was reported that the Football Association were meeting with unexpected difficulties in making up the England side; that they were embarrassed with the galaxy of talent they had to choose from; that several of the selected players had declined to play because other players who were entitled to the honour had been passed over; that the Association were inclined to experiment with three or four new men entirely unknown to fame; and so on.

And there must have been something in them, because when the official list of the side was published, it appeared that only eight players had been definitely chosen, and it was announced that, although several other men had been warned to be in attendance, no final selection would be made till the morning of the match. The vacancies still to be filled were those of outside-right, outside-left, and centre-forward—three positions in the field which are second to none in importance.

When this announcement was made a howl of execration went up against the Football Association.

"Why couldn't they make up their minds?" men asked indignantly. "What did this senseless shilly-shallying mean? Were England's prospects to be imperiled because a few old fogeys had lost their silly heads?"

"Wasn't there some sinister intrigue going on—something shameful and dishonest—a betrayal, an act of treachery, an attempt to sell the match?"

This is only a mild sample of the uncomplimentary things that were said about the Football Association: but they refused to budge from the attitude they had taken up, or to explain their action. Instead, they issued a second and very curt announcement, to the effect that they knew their business a great deal better than the public could teach it them, and reiterated their intention of not completing the eleven till the morning of the day. All this squabbling had an adverse effect upon the betting. The odds again veered round in the Crimson Ramblers' favour. The sporting papers advised caution, pointing out that however much money was laid against the Ramblers, there were always plenty of takers; that the Ramblers themselves made no secret of their belief that they would win, and had backed themselves to the last penny of the profits derived from their triumphant tour.

"Depend upon it," wrote the Editor of the principal sporting daily, "the Football Association know what they are about, and if they have adopted a policy of secrecy, it is simply because they deem it best in the interests of British football."

This tended to some extent to allay the ferment of agitation. But the consequence of these successive warnings, announcements, cautions, and squabblings was to boom this great game as football had never before been boomed in England. People thought of nothing else. London swarmed with visitors, and swarmed with police. Royalty had promised to attend. It was reported that the House of Commons would adjourn for the express purpose of enabling members of Parliament to be present. The business of the country was at a standstill. Would England win, or would the Crimson Ramblers win? That was the sole topic with which the British Empire concerned itself.

And at Cayley Hall there was much quiet work being done. In the most secluded part of the park a pair of goalposts had been set up, and Tinker and Sir James Collier might have been seen practising every kind of difficult shot. Sometimes Blake joined them, but for the most part he remained shut up in the outhouse which had been assigned to him as a workshop. When he did appear, his procedure was always the same. He dribbled the ball right down the left at top pace, and then took a lightning shot at the goal, always kicking with the left foot. Whether he found the net or not, he invariable shook his head, and returned gloomily to his workshop.

"But that's all right, sir," expostulated Tinker, on one of these occasions, when Blake had kicked a beautiful goal from an almost impossible angle.

"I can't get the pace down the wing. Blitzen would have done the distance in half the time."

"It isn't perfect, by a long chalk. It isn't bad—that's all one can say. There's some little adjustment, some slight defect in my mechanism which I haven't got right yet. We shall lose unless I get it right."

And Sir James also had his special worries. When he was not practising with Tinker—which was as often as he could spare the time—he was engaged in dealing with a voluminous correspondence. Letters and telegrams descended in shoals upon Cayley Mall, and they all had to be replied to. The telegrams, being in cypher, entailed an enormous amount of work.

"Well, sir, are they inclined to be reasonable!" was the question that was always upon Tinker's lips.

"Not they! They pooh-pooh the entire affair. They say they couldn't think of countenancing such a proceeding."

"Not much, young 'un! I intend to keep pegging away at the members of the Association until the executive committee are forced to give in."

As the weeks wore on, this voluminous correspondence ably lessened, and one day, less than a week before the match, Sir James said:

"Not exactly; but they've consented to keep open three places in the team till the last moment, and they are coming down here on Friday to judge for themselves."

And as the date of the match grew nearer and nearer, Sexton Blake became more and more a prisoner in his workshop. He had a bed made up for him, and slept there. His trial spins from goalpost to goalpost became less and less frequent, though when they did occur, Tinker, who was always on the watch, was convinced that Blake did the distance in ever faster time, and that the accuracy of his shooting grew deadlier every day.

But it wasn't safe to say this to Blake himself, or to ask him the most trivial question about his work. He was as irritable as a bear with a sore head.

And then, on Friday morning—he had been up all night—Sir James and Tinker found him serene and radiant.

"Great jumping Jupiter, what a walloping we shall give them! When can you show us, sir?"

And you should have seen the look on Tinker's face as he said it, for Tinker knew at last for certain that he was going to play for England.

When the representatives of the Football Association came down to Cayley Hall that afternoon they saw something which astonished them.

"Certainly not: that would give the show away. I shall play under the name of Brown," said Blake.

"Then there is nothing for it but for me to call myself Robinson," laughed Sir James.

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER.

THE match was timed to begin at two-thirty, but long before midday every seat in every stand was filled, and the people who were compelled to stand were massed like flies round the embankment slopes of the Sydenham ground. No one would run the risk of being late on such an occasion. They had hours to wait, but nobody minded. The day was gloriously fine.

And what a chattering there was, what heated arguments, what ridicule of the Football Association, what furious indignation!

"Why, he doesn't even belong to a decent club, or they'd have put it on the card!"

"Jones at outside-right: Patrick Jones, untried, unheard of—well, this is a beano, if you like!"

"And Robinson—Mr. Mansfield Robinson—an amateur, I suppose, as centre-forward! Can I read aright, or have I suddenly gone dotty? Will any gentleman tell me if he ever heard of Mansfield in his life? Ye gods! Mansfield Robinson—where did they pick him up?"

There were hundreds—nay, thousands of little groups, making remarks like the above. The inclusion of Brown, Jones, and Robinson in the team was regarded as an insult to the intelligence of the football world. What would happen to them when the match was over? Well, a good many people promised themselves that Messrs, Brown, Jones, and Robinson should have a precious hot time of it if they didn't justify their selection. When the composition of the team was announced in the morning papers the betting at once jumped to ten to one on the Crimson Ramblers—and there were no takers. But as the hour for commencement drew nigh this angry and indignant talk subsided, and was merged in a feeling of intense curiosity as to what the unknown three looked like. Were they tall and stalwart? Were they short and nippy? Were they lithe and agile? If they were decently athletic-looking chaps they might be able to do a little something, they might, at least, give some assistance to the eight splendid fellows who constituted the rest of the team, and everyone of whom was an international several times over. The eight were justly considered to be good enough for anything, and the general impression prevailed that if the three unknowns would not hamper their own side by trying to do anything in particular, there was just a chance of England making a decent match of it.

The eleven players streamed down the pavilion steps for the preliminary practice-kicking; and then in a moment a roar of mocking laughter swept round the huge amphitheatre, for it was seen that the three unknowns wore beards.

Who ever heard of bearded footballers playing in first class matches? Brown's beard was red, Jones's beard black, and Robinson's a sort of streaky grey.

"Garn! Go home! Go to bed!" the crowd rose and shouted at them. "You are grandfathers! You ought to have been dead and buried years ago!"

But Brown, Jones, and Robinson seemed supremely unconcerned at this storm of uncomplimentary witticisms, and went about their business without fuss or flinching, kicking the ball when it came to them, taking short runs, and generally comporting themselves in the same cool and collected fashion as the rest of the team.

But what impressed the crowd more than anything else was the fact that the eight star players hadn't refused to play in company with these aged crocks, arguing that the latter couldn't be so utterly, hopelessly rank, or the eight crack performers would have the field with them.

In a word, there was a sudden inclination to suspend judgment in regard to Brown, Jones, and Robinson; and the Crimson Ramblers had by this time appeared, the crowd had something else to think of, and the fire of chaffing comment ceased.

The Crimson Ramblers got an immense reception; and when Eclair and Blitzen gave a display of their famous lightning rushes down the wings, and Courey indulged in some fancy goal-kicking, the cheering rose to a deafening pitch. It was wonderful, it was marvellous—ay, and wasn't it a bad look-out for England?

In the meantime a short, whispered conference had been taking place between the English team, who were gathered round Brown, the captain; and it was marked how attentively the eight star players listened to what he had to say.

The team separated to their different posts, laughing for what Blake had said was:

"I must have just twice as many goals to avenge their fifteen to nil again the Old Miltonian!"

"We'll do our best, sir; but you and your friends will have to do most of it," was the reply.

The team had been let into the secret of Blake's identity, and had unbounded confidence in him.

"Oh lor, he's off—oh lor!" groaned the crowd; for Blitzen had immediately got possession of the ball, and was putting in one of his characteristic efforts, speeding down the side like a ponderous steam-engine at full speed with the ball at his feet, and howling over the forwards and half-backs, who tried to rob him of it, like so many ninepins.

There he was, steadying himself for the fraction of a second to shoot, and the crowd were craning their necks to see the expected goal, when it was suddenly realised that he hadn't got the ball. Somebody had come up like the wind behind him and neatly taken it from him. The ball, in fact, wasn't in that part of the field at all, it was at the other end, Brown, who had outwitted Blitzen, had kicked it far up the field to Robinson, and Robinson had banged it with a hurricane drive into the net.

There was no shouting for a moment, because the crowd could hardly believe that what they had seen with their own eyes had actually happened. Then it came, a very tornado of cheers, and the names of Brown and Robinson were acclaimed to the skies.

"I don't gomprehend how it was," said Blitzen, in reply to some very strong remarks Courey addressed to him. "I haf not understand."

"You've made an ass of yourself—that's all there is to understand—don't do it again—play up!" retorted Courey acidly.

There was no time for further recriminations, for the game had started again; and the Crimson Ramblers' policy being to feed Blitzen and Eclair alternately, the ball this time was passed to Eclair.

Off he pelted with it, streaking down the wing like a racing motor, cutting through the English forwards like a sickle through a sheaf of corn, when, with no one but the goalkeeper to circumvent, he was seen to fall and roll over and over on his head. Somebody apparently had tripped him, though he was up again in a moment.

They were cheering because the ball was at that moment quietly reposing in the Ramblers' net from a beautiful cross-shot sent in by Brown. It was Brown who had tripped up Eclair, and it was Brown who had flashed down the side and completely mystified the Ramblers' keeper with that beautiful cross-shot.

Sexton Blake scores for England.—
It was Sexton Blake who had tripped up Eclair, and it was Blake
who had flashed down the side and completely mystified the
Ramblers' keeper with that beautiful cross-shot that found
the net amid thunderous applause. Second goal to England.

The crowd began to sit up, realising that this was very remarkable work indeed; so remarkable, in fact, that it couldn't be expected to last. The two goals were probably due to a series of fortunate accidents, but it was very extraordinary that those fortunate accidents had been brought about by Brown, Jones, and Robinson, and not by the star players.

"They grandfathers is a hot lot, and no error, by gosh!" shouted a North-country tripper; and no one felt disposed to contradict him.

"Look here, you idiot! What do you mean by it? What are you playing at?" demanded Courey savagely of the amazed Frenchman.

"You're not; you're playing the giddy-goat! Do you think you're a blamed acrobat that you go turning double-somersaults all over the field?"

"But, mon ami," protested Eclair, "it is not zat I have make ze somersaults on purpose."

The ball being started, was at once passed to Courey, and away he went with it right down the centre, until he met Robinson, when he had a sort of feeling that somebody had walked over him.

Somebody had. Robinson had. And Robinson had slung a long lofty shot to Brown on the extreme left, and Brown had finished the process by dashing up in front of goal and driving the ball not only into the net but right through it.

This third goal had followed on the second by an even shorter interval than the second had followed upon the first.

This time there was no mistake about it—the crowd had seen the whole thing. They laughed, they cheered, they waved their handkerchiefs, they abandoned themselves to the delirium of the moment, they wept, they shouted, they stamped, they roared, they raved, they flung their hats in the air, they embraced each other; and so it went on until somebody started chanting:

And the whole vast assembly took up the strain, and sang in measured cadence and stentorian tones the following words as the verse of a triumphal hymn:

"Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Hurrah! Hurrah!! Hurrah!!!"

"Gewiss, mein friendt, dat vas vat I meinself was saying; and now I ask vonce more, who vas it now that of himself an ass haf made?"

When the ball was again in play it was seen that Brown had made a change in the disposition of his forces. The eight Internationals were in the forward line, Jones and Robinson were playing back—there were no half-backs—and Brown himself was in goal. This was a very queer arrangement of the field, And the crowd were greatly mystified; but it may be remarked, as evidence of their changed temper, that not a soul ventured to criticise it. It was Brown's arrangement, and therefore it must be right.

The meaning of the arrangement was that Blake wanted to give the eight Internationals a chance of distinguishing themselves, while he and Tinker and Sir James undertook the task of keeping England's goal intact. It was a generous move on his part, and it worked admirably, though it was inevitable that the rate of scoring should slow down.

Blitzen, Eclair, and Courey performed in their customary fashion—magnificent dashes down the centre or down the wings; then, just as they were going to shoot, Blake or Tinker or Sir James would intervene, and away would go the ball, soaring up the field right into the middle of the forwards. A short scrimmage in front of goal would ensue, when one or other of the Internationals would do the trick, and the result was one more point for England.

At half-time every one of the eight stars had scored at least once, and the score stood at fourteen goals England's favour.

"That's all right: now we are really going to have a go at them," said Brown to his men. "I want you fellows to crowd up in front of our goal in case we make a mistake, and leave the rest to Jones and Robinson and me; we'll undertake to do the scoring."

What could the Crimson Ramblers do? They began to have suspicions. They wanted to confer with Raymond. They signalled to him to come out of the pavilion to them; but he didn't respond. They could only go on playing in the hope that by a supreme effort in the second half all might yet be well.

They had to drink the cup of humiliation to the very dregs, and taste in an acuter form the bitterness of defeat their dishonest practices had so frequently enabled them to inflict on honourable opponents.

There was no quarter, no sparing, no mercy for them. The scoring went on at a terrific rate.

Brown or Jones or Robinson was always sending in a smashing shot which nothing human could stop.

Bang—bang—bang! It was like the bombardment of artillery. The ball was repeatedly bursting, and a new ball had to be obtained. Twelve balls in all were used. The Ramblers' net was broken to ribbons. The score mounted like a cricket score. With ten minutes to go, the tally of goals amounted to no less than thirty—thirty to nil in England's favour!

"Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Hurrah! Hurrah!! Hurrah!!!"

"That's enough goals: now we are going to punish them a bit," said Blake, in a momentary pause.

And he and Tinker and Sir James began shooting at Blitzen and Eclair and Courey. Sometimes the ball struck them in the neck, sometimes in the face, sometimes in the stomach, and sometimes it swept them off their legs. Presently they couldn't go on; they lay on the ground and couldn't get up. They were smarting, and bruised, and sore, and pummeled, and baked, and winded. Their opponents had many times before been carried off the field in an exhausted condition while they walked away as fresh as paint. Now it was their turn to be carried off in a helpless condition. Ambulances were procured, and they were carted away just on the call of time. The whistle blew. The match was ended.

The bubble of the Crimson Ramblers' reputation had been burst, and England's supremacy at soccer football was restored to its old pinnacle of pre-eminence.

The crowd swarmed on to the ground, and there was the usual frantic rush to the pavilion; but Blake, Tinker, and Sir James, thanks to their splendid speed, got safely into shelter before they could be mobbed by their enthusiast admirers. A body of police six deep guarded the entrance, and they had all their work cut out for them to stem the rush. At one moment it seemed as if the triumph of the day was to be marred by an ugly incident, for the police were compelled to draw their truncheons to save a great disaster. This Blake prevented by appearing on the balcony, and making a gesture for silence.

The angry passions momentarily aroused instantly died down in the desire to hear what "Grandfather red-beard Brown" had to say.

It was a merely a word of thanks, and a appeal to them to disperse quietly. But it was enough; it put them in good humour.

Then "Grandfather black-beard Jones" was clamoured for, and he had to come forward and say a few words and then "Grandfather grey-beard Robinson."

That satisfied them, and they moved off in a quiet orderly fashion. But hours afterwards, all through the night, the rest of peaceful residents in the suburbs was disturbed by the rhythmic cadence of the verse of the triumphal hymn.

And from the suburbs it spread to London, and was heard in theatres, music-halls, trains, trams, omnibuses, warehouses, offices, and workshops.

And from London it spread to all parts of the country—north, east, south, and west—and next day they were singing it in Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Birmingham, Southampton, Plymouth, Bristol; in fact, in all the great centres of population and in all the seaports.

And from the latter, in a month or so, it had spread to all parts of the world—to India, to Canada, to Australia, to New Zealand, to South Africa, and was being sung under the shadow of the Himalayas, in the gorges of the Rockies, in mining-camps at Bendigo, by the Mooris, and in prospectors' tents in far-off Rhodesia:

"Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Brown, Jones, Robinson!
Hurrah! Hurrah!! Hurrah!!!"

Wherever football was known, and loved, and played, it became a sort of national anthem. It was sung at banquets and gatherings immediately after "God Save the King;" children lisped it, old women mumbled it, young women trilled it, men and boys vociferated it.

And all this shows how deeply stirred was the heart of the Empire at the prospect of its football laurels being snatched away from England by a scratch team of foreigners. The general feeling was that a national calamity had been averted.

THE TWELFTH CHAPTER.

This brief conversation took place between Courey and a constable, whom he found outside the door of the dressing-room when he'd finished dressing. His hurt had been attended to, and, although he was very bruised and stiff and somewhat damaged about the face, there was nothing very much the matter with him. "Those two" were Eclair and Blitzen, who had taken longer to dress. Blitzen's face was puffed and swollen, and Eclair had a black eye and a bump on his head.

They droned out these two phrases at intervals as if they were the answering refrains of a melancholy duet.

"Buck up, and look sharp!" snarled Courey. "I want to see Raymond, and you are keeping me waiting. There's a fool of a constable outside who won't take me to him till you are ready to come too!"

"A gonstable! Vas vos das dat vos means—a gonstable?" said Blitzen, whose emotion made him even more unintelligible than usual.

"How the dickens should I know vas vos das dat das vos mean a gonstable?" retorted Courey, with an exaggerated mimicry of Blitzen's weird pronunciation.

That closed the conversation; and presently they were shepherded by the constable, who led them along passages, round corners, up staircases, to a large room at the top of the pavilion. Here they were met by a second constable, who was on guard at the door.

"No mistake, sir. You'll find Mr. Raymond here. Step right in," replied the second constable courteously, as he threw open the door.

And they stepped in; and there were a great many more constables inside, who immediately closed the door and set their backs against it.

And they saw Raymond, who was sitting in a wilted attitude facing a long table, at which sat the executive committee of the Football Association, and behind his chair stood two policemen.

And they saw Brown, Jones, and Robinson, who were seated just behind the members of the executive committee, with whom they were chatting and talking.

And they saw—and this was the most significant sight of all—upon the long table, a row of football-boots such as the Crimson Ramblers wore; and when they saw those boots their hearts sank, for they guessed the game was up, and that at last their iniquities had been brought home to them.

"Ah, now we are all here! Now we can begin," said the chairman, bustling into alert activity. "We won't ask you to sit down, gentlemen, as we hope our proceedings will be very brief. It is suggested that you three 'gentlemen'"—the chairman boggled at the word gentlemen—"at the instance of your manager, Howard Raymond, have throughout the Crimson Ramblers' tour worn boots fitted with an ingenious mechanical contrivance which gave you an unfair, an unsportsmanlike, and a dishonest advantage over your opponents. Those are the boots. Perhaps you will say whether you accept or deny the charge. I may tell you that Howard Raymond denies all knowledge of the matter."

"I deny it!!" said Courey, in a firm voice. "Say you deny it!" he whispered to Eclair and Blitzen.

"Then we shall have to trouble you, Mr. Brown," said the chairman, turning to Blake, who at once advanced to the front of the table and picked up a boot.

"You will observe, sir," began Blake, speaking very deliberately and distinctly, "that the sole of this boot is slightly thicker than footballers usually wear, and that the nails in it are arranged in a very peculiar fashion."

"And you will also observe, sir, that on the toe of the boot there is a tiny stud which exactly resembles the 'sight' at the end of the barrel of a sporting gun."

"That little stud, sir, combined with the peculiar arrangement of the nails and the thickness of the sole, constitute one of the most skilful and ingenious pieces of mechanism that was ever invented by man, for they add a hundred per cent. to a player's kicking power, two hundred per cent. to his speed, and they make it possible for him to shoot with the accuracy of a firearm."

Blake touched a spring at the back of the heel, and the upper part of the sole folded back from the lower, disclosing that beautiful combination of perfectly-adjusted wheels, springs, cogs, and levers which had filled him with such transports of enthusiastic admiration when he first discovered them in the wardrobe in Raymond's bedroom at the hotel.

We can't pretend to follow Blake in his technical explanation of the details of the mechanism; suffice it to say that it was clear, lucid, and convincing; but better than all the explanation in the world was the practical demonstration he gave of the boot's wonderful properties.

He cleared a space in the centre of the room, and invited one of the youngest and most active constables to do a standing jump, first of all in his ordinary boots, and then in a pair of the football-boots.

In the first case the man cleared nine feet, which is not a bad standing jump. In the second case, to his utter astonishment, he cleared seven-and-twenty feet, and would have dashed himself, with serious consequences, against the end wall of the room, if Blake, Tinker, and Sir James Collier had not purposely stationed themselves there to break the force of his impact.

"Thank you, Mr. Brown; we are very much obliged to you," said the chairman affably. "And now, you miserable scoundrels," he went on, "are you disposed to withdraw your denial of the charge, or are you determined to persist in it? It is just as you like, I wish you to take your own course entirely; you must do just what you think best in your own interests."

Courey, Blitzen, and Eclair looked with anxious, questioning faces to Raymond, who shrugged his shoulders with careless indifference. He wasn't implicated. He hadn't worn the boots. They could do what they liked.

"We have nothing to say. We have done nothing illegal," replied Courey sullenly.

"Oh, very well, sir—very well!" The chairman turned once more to Blake. "Mr. Brown, may I trouble you to go to the balcony and harangue the crowd again? And please take one of these ingenious boots with you. I want you to be good enough to explain to the crowd exactly how the Crimson Ramblers won their striking series of victories. I am afraid the crowd will he extremely angry, but, of course, we can't help that. It will be deplorable if they resort to violence, but they may—it is more than likely. Angry crowds are frequently very violent. I shall be glad if the constables will at once eject these four scoundrels from the pavilion."

"Oh, nothing—nothing! Please yourselves entirely. Eject them, please, constable!"

Blitzen and Eclair were down on their knees squealing for mercy, Courey staggered to the nearest chair and flopped down on it in a semi-fainting condition.

"Ah, that's better!" The chairman's voice suddenly took on a note of ineffable sternness and scorn. "I am almost sorry that you have given in and confessed, for if you had been handed over to the crowd you would have got the punishment which you have so richly deserved—you would have been lynched. This is what we require of you: You will write out and sign a confession of your evil practices: you will swear a solemn oath never to take part in the game of football again under any circumstances; you will restore every halfpenny of gate-money you have received, and then you will leave the country."

"You are wise. I should add that you will he detained here until the confessions are written and the money paid."

The chairman bowed to his colleagues of the executive committee, and then they rose in a body and left the room. Brown, Jones, and Robinson and the constables remained behind.

"But I never intended to kill them—indeed I didn't! If I had wanted to I could have done it easily. I supplied them with provisions. I meant to wire to the police directly I was out of the country, and tell them where they were, in order that they might be rescued. I—I—Oh, Heaven, if they are dead!"

And as they made these announcements they plucked off their red, black, and grey beards. Raymond's bewilderment was complete.

"Fortunately for you," said Blake, "I believe you did not intend to kill us if you could possibly avoid it. Some of your team were not so particular. That intention stands you in good stead to-day, for it is due to it, and to it alone, that we have decided not to prosecute on the criminal charge. Probably you are already punished, by being deprived of your ill-gotten gains, as severely as a man like you can be punished. We've done with you."

There is little left to tell, but there are probably one or two questions on minor points which the reader will be interested in having answered.

And, first of all, what became of the boots? The answer is that they were destroyed. The executive committee burnt all the pairs that had been used by the Crimson Ramblers, and Blake burnt his own three pairs. They were considered to be articles of much too dangerous a character to be suffered to exist, even as mementos of an historic occasion. Blake will never make another pair unless some exceptional and imperative need arises, nor will he ever divulge the actual secret. Raymond can't, for he died very soon after leaving England. It is devoutly to be hoped that the secret will never be discovered by anybody else, owing to its liability to be grossly abused by unscrupulous persons.

And what became of the money which the Crimson Ramblers were compelled to disgorge and refund?

Some of it was bestowed upon football clubs whose finances were at a low ebb, and the remainder, with the exception of £100, was distributed amongst the local charities in the towns which the Ramblers had visited in the course of their tour. The £100 was expended in the purchase of a splendid, massive silver cup, to be called the "Brown, Jones, and Robinson Cup," and to be played for under the same conditions that govern the ties for the English Cup.

Those three famous players, who belonged to no decent club, but who had streamed through the football firmament like blazing comets for a single match, disappeared into the limbo of obscurity with the same startling suddenness with which they had emerged from it. A hundred clubs advertised for them, offering them princely emoluments if they would sign on; but not one got an answer.

Perhaps; but if you ask Tinker what he thinks about it he will tell you that when you have once played in such a match as that of "England v. The Crimson Ramblers" you will find ordinary football quite slow, humdrum, and uninteresting.

THE END.

Another grand long, complete yarn next week, entitled "The Rival Detectives," a tale of Sexton Blake and Fenlock Fawn, the American detective, not forgetting Tinker and Pedro. Place your orders now!

ANONYMOUS
(W.J. LOMAX)

A FOOTBALL MYSTERY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE FIRST CHAPTER.

THE SECOND CHAPTER.

*

THE THIRD CHAPTER.

*

THE FOURTH CHAPTER.

THE FIFTH CHAPTER.

*

THE SIXTH CHAPTER.

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER.

*

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER.

*

THE NINTH CHAPTER

THE TENTH CHAPTER.

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER.

*

*

THE TWELFTH CHAPTER.

*

THE END.

ANONYMOUS (W.J. LOMAX)

A FOOTBALL MYSTERY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE FIRST CHAPTER.

THE SECOND CHAPTER.

*

THE THIRD CHAPTER.

*

THE FOURTH CHAPTER.

THE FIFTH CHAPTER.

*

THE SIXTH CHAPTER.

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER.

*

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER.

*

THE NINTH CHAPTER

THE TENTH CHAPTER.

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER.

*

*

THE TWELFTH CHAPTER.

*

THE END.

ANONYMOUS
(W.J. LOMAX)