Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-05-20

: i +. was. the signal that I had so
. dong awaited. had just come in
Is when. the porter brought me the
- Telegram. I was wet my riding
/. boots were covered with mud, and
I.wasc tired: / had been all day in
. the saddle at distant meet of the
Defons'ABd Somerset Staghounds. We
had killed in a great wooded gorge
I. beyond Porlock; the rain had fallen
j. constantly, and the vast moors, cover
/. ed with heather and gorse.. swept by
: the gusts of rain, were like sponge.
a stall tos a sninety- mile run in a mo-
Tor, on@this evening of early Septem-
= bsr.was' a thing to shudder at. But I
], received it with a great upward
sweep of the heart! The thing which
faknew would eventually happen had
ARRIVED, land 1t was bringing my gold
EN- shbur' with it's. wreckage.'
II sat in the long hall of the Hotel
Metropole; rain -drenched, mud
splashed figure with a sun-fflled face.
I must have seemed a strange crea-
ture to the hunting folk who passed
and the servants who came to take
y
ture: one is always a strange crea-
ture when the event on which his life
is turning begins to come up in the
skyline.
ordered the best in the kitchen
and cellar, and went up to my room
for a hot bath and clothes for the
road. ! kept the telegram twisted in
my fingers.
Her house was falling in about her,
and she had sent for me. At last the
thing 1 had to offer would have a
value. That which was nothing to
her when she thought her fortune
was inexhaustible would now mean
the things she could not give up; the
stud of hunters in the Dukes country;
the string of polo ponies here in Som
erset; the gowns, the jewels. all the
extravaganza of gilded life.
Two hours later / was on the road
north. The big American roadster
moved under my hands like a live
thing. My driver was in the box be-
hind. I wished some outlet for the
inexhaustib1e vigor that possessed
me. The day in the saddle had been
nothing: this night in the rain and
the dark was nothing. / had the
strength of ten, like the Galahad OF
legend-but not for his noble reason.
The love of woman moved me.
Would she take, now, what L mad
yainly offered for three months In
England?
For what else could her cryptic tel
esram say-come?
TF
KNEW something from the daily
press. Her man of business had
hanged himself in London and she
was bankrupt: the very house over
her head would go. The thing had
fallen. like an arrow out of the SKY;
in a moment, as at witch word as
arr the striking of a clock, she had
only n. pumpkin coach. mice and the
1sgs, of an evening dress-and
raced to her with the fairy lamp that
would restore them!
1t was a DEVILS night; cold chill
on the fields. rain, no breath Of wind,
a vague darkness that seemed to
make the visible objects only more
indistinct. But it was a night In
character with. the event. The evil
spirit of that hanged man of busi-
less. Would have some favor of the
eIemen ts-some. luck yet.
He. had surprised every solicitor in
London
His father and his fathers father
had handled the business Of this
family for a. century with care, with
that extreme caution that one can
find only in a dingy English office,
up two flights of stairs. The hanged
man had, in particular, an exclusive
control Of this estate. The girfs
'tfnc1e, sthat ecceRtric old antiquarian
Sic Injector Bartlett, would not be
bothsred with a business matter. His,
sigma ture was all the concern Sir
Hector granted. and. that went over
finally to tthe man of business in
power Of attorney to sign. Sir Hec-
tor ;;wRs usually in the east, en-
crossed with the lost languages of
Asia
He was the greatest authority in
the world on these lost languages;
he was the one authority. When one
mentioned Sir Hector the learned So
rfeties about in the world, so to
speak, uncovered. But they had a
rotion, these learned societies, that
toward the end he was mad-perhaps
it was out of his bitter contempt
for a slower wit; perhaps it was the
puzzle he left them for an in
heritance, after he had deciphered the
great inscription of Darius on the
rocks at Behistun and got what it
concealed The learned men said the
inscription Sir Hector left for them
was an absurdity; but Sir Hector.
dying, said 1T would fit their wits,
and the one that could decipher 1T
would get what he had dug up IN
Asia.
At any rate unfortunately, the
power to sign given by Sir Hector had
I, been extended by his niece, and the
man of business had flung the fortune
i into every wild thing that the intel
Ifgence of crooks could bring in to
hfm-as though caution in his race,
pressed too far, had gone awfully
drunken. The thing had the COM
pIeteness of a curse-as though the
gods of the ancient races, violated
in their sanctuaries by Sir Hector.
had taken their vengeance on his heir.
I smiled in the darkness. If such
powers were the authors Of this dis
aster they would not stand aside
while i came in to the rescue: they
would ditch the car. And the next
moment the car very nearly was
ditched. A human figure appeared
suddenly In the road before me. and
to avoid 1t / skirted the coping of
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