The place in which we found ourselves was one of those
pheasant preserves which are so common in the Old Country, and as we
groped our way through it I found myself consulting the slayer of my
brother as to how far it would be possible to hush it up. “I soon realized from what he said that unless there were some papers of
which we knew nothing in my brother’s pockets, there was really no
possible means by which the police could identify him or learn how he
had got there. His ticket was in MacCoy’s pocket, and so was the ticket
for some baggage which they had left at the depôt. Like most Americans,
he had found it cheaper and easier to buy an outfit in London than to
bring one from New York, so that all his linen and clothes were new and
unmarked. The bag, containing the dust cloak, which I had thrown out of
the window, may have fallen among some bramble patch where it is still
concealed, or may have been carried off by some tramp, or may have come
into the possession of the police, who kept the incident to themselves. Anyhow, I have seen nothing about it in the London papers. As to the
watches, they were a selection from those which had been intrusted to
him for business purposes. It may have been for the same business
purposes that he was taking them to Manchester, but—well, it’s too late
to enter into that. “I don’t blame the police for being at fault. I don’t see how it could
have been otherwise. There was just one little clew that they might have
followed up, but it was a small one. I mean that small circular mirror
which was found in my brother’s pocket. It isn’t a very common thing for
a young man to carry about with him, is it? But a gambler might have
told you what such a mirror may mean to a cardsharper. If you sit back a
little from the table, and lay the mirror, face upwards, upon your lap,
you can see, as you deal, every card that you give to your adversary. It
is not hard to say whether you see a man or raise him when you know his
cards as well as your own. It was as much a part of a sharper’s outfit
as the elastic clip upon Sparrow MacCoy’s arm. Taking that, in
connection with the recent frauds at the hotels, the police might have
got hold of one end of the string. “I don’t think there is much more for me to explain. We got to a village
called Amersham that night in the character of two gentlemen upon a
walking tour, and afterwards we made our way quietly to London, whence
MacCoy went on to Cairo and I returned to New York. My mother died six
months afterwards, and I am glad to say that to the day of her death she
never knew what happened. She was always under the delusion that Edward
was earning an honest living in London, and I never had the heart to
tell her the truth. He never wrote; but, then, he never did write at any
time, so that made no difference. His name was the last upon her lips. “There’s just one other thing that I have to ask you, sir, and I should
take it as a kind return for all this explanation, if you could do it
for me. You remember that Testament that was picked up. I always carried
it in my inside pocket, and it must have come out in my fall. I value it
very highly, for it was the family book with my birth and my brother’s
marked by my father in the beginning of it. I wish you would apply at
the proper place and have it sent to me. It can be of no possible value
to any one else. If you address it to X, Bassano’s Library, Broadway,
New York, it is sure to come to hand.”




                           THE POT OF CAVIARE


It was the fourth day of the siege. Ammunition and provisions were both
nearing an end. When the Boxer insurrection had suddenly flamed up, and
roared, like a fire in dry grass, across Northern China, the few
scattered Europeans in the outlying provinces had huddled together at
the nearest defensible post and had held on for dear life until rescue
came—or until it did not. In the latter case, the less said about their
fate the better. In the former, they came back into the world of men
with that upon their faces which told that they had looked very closely
upon such an end as would ever haunt their dreams. Ichau was only fifty miles from the coast, and there was a European
squadron in the Gulf of Liantong. Therefore the absurd little garrison,
consisting of native Christians and railway men, with a German officer
to command them and five civilian Europeans to support him, held on
bravely with the conviction that help must soon come sweeping down to
them from the low hills to eastward. The sea was visible from those
hills, and on the sea were their armed countrymen. Surely, then, they
could not feel deserted. With brave hearts they manned the loopholes in
the crumbling brick walls outlining the tiny European quarter, and they
fired away briskly, if ineffectively, at the rapidly advancing sangars
of the Boxers. It was certain that in another day or so they would be at
the end of their resources, but then it was equally certain that in
another day or so they must be relieved. It might be a little sooner or
it might be a little later, but there was no one who ever ventured to
hint that the relief would not arrive in time to pluck them out of the
fire. Up to Tuesday night there was no word of discouragement. It was true that on the Wednesday their robust faith in what was going
forward behind those eastern hills had weakened a little. The grey
slopes lay bare and unresponsive while the deadly sangars pushed ever
nearer, so near that the dreadful faces which shrieked imprecations at
them from time to time over the top could be seen in every hideous
feature. There was not so much of that now since young Ainslie, of the
Diplomatic service, with his neat little .303 sporting rifle, had
settled down in the squat church tower, and had devoted his days to
abating the nuisance. But a silent sangar is an even more impressive
thing than a clamorous one, and steadily, irresistibly, inevitably, the
lines of brick and rubble drew closer. Soon they would be so near that
one rush would assuredly carry the frantic swordsmen over the frail
entrenchment. It all seemed very black upon the Wednesday evening. Colonel Dresler, the German ex-infantry soldier, went about with an
imperturbable face, but a heart of lead. Ralston, of the railway, was up
half the night writing farewell letters. Professor Mercer, the old
entomologist, was even more silent and grimly thoughtful than ever. Ainslie had lost some of his flippancy. On the whole, the ladies—Miss
Sinclair, the nurse of the Scotch Mission, Mrs. Patterson, and her
pretty daughter Jessie, were the most composed of the party. Father
Pierre of the French Mission, was also unaffected, as was natural to one
who regarded martyrdom as a glorious crown. The Boxers yelling for his
blood beyond the walls disturbed him less than his forced association
with the sturdy Scotch Presbyterian presence of Mr. Patterson, with whom
for ten years he had wrangled over the souls of the natives.