Accept, sir, the assurance of my sentiments of profound gratitude and
respect.

    JOSEPH RIGOBERT.




LAST LINES.--ADDED BY PERCY FAIRBANK


Tried for the murder of Francis Raven, Joseph Rigobert was found Not
Guilty; the papers of the assassinated man presented ample evidence of the
deadly animosity felt toward him by his wife.

The investigations pursued on the morning when the crime was committed
showed that the murderess, after leaving the stable, had taken the
footpath which led to the river. The river was dragged--without result. It
remains doubtful to this day whether she died by drowning or not. The one
thing certain is--that Alicia Warlock was never seen again.

So--beginning in mystery, ending in mystery--the Dream Woman passes from
your view. Ghost; demon; or living human creature--say for yourselves
which she is. Or, knowing what unfathomed wonders are around you, what
unfathomed wonders are _in_ you, let the wise words of the greatest of all
poets be explanation enough:

          "We are such stuff
    As dreams are made of, and our little life
    Is rounded with, a sleep."




Anonymous





_The Lost Duchess_


I

"Has the duchess returned?"

"No, your grace."

Knowles came farther into the room. He had a letter on a salver. When the
duke had taken it, Knowles still lingered. The duke glanced at him.

"Is an answer required?"

"No, your grace." Still Knowles lingered. "Something a little singular has
happened. The carriage has returned without the duchess, and the men say
that they thought her grace was in it."

"What do you mean?"

"I hardly understand myself, your grace. Perhaps you would like to see
Barnes."

Barnes was the coachman.

"Send him up." When Knowles had gone, and he was alone, his grace showed
signs of being slightly annoyed. He looked at his watch. "I told her she'd
better be in by four. She says that she's not feeling well, and yet one
would think that she was not aware of the fatigue entailed in having the
prince come to dinner, and a mob of people to follow. I particularly
wished her to lie down for a couple of hours."

Knowles ushered in not only Barnes, the coachman, but Moysey, the footman,
too. Both these persons seemed to be ill at ease. The duke glanced at them
sharply. In his voice there was a suggestion of impatience.

"What is the matter?"

Barnes explained as best he could.

"If you please, your grace, we waited for the duchess outside Cane and
Wilson's, the drapers. The duchess came out, got into the carriage, and
Moysey shut the door, and her grace said, 'Home!' and yet when we got home
she wasn't there."

"She wasn't where?"

"Her grace wasn't in the carriage, your grace."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Her grace did get into the carriage; you shut the door, didn't you?"

Barnes turned to Moysey. Moysey brought his hand up to his brow in a sort
of military salute--he had been a soldier in the regiment in which, once
upon a time, the duke had been a subaltern.

"She did. The duchess came out of the shop. She seemed rather in a hurry,
I thought. She got into the carriage, and she said, 'Home, Moysey!' I shut
the door, and Barnes drove straight home. We never stopped anywhere, and
we never noticed nothing happen on the way; and yet when we got home the
carriage was empty."

The duke started.

"Do you mean to tell me that the duchess got out of the carriage while you
were driving full pelt through the streets without saying anything to you,
and without you noticing it?"

"The carriage was empty when we got home, your grace."

"Was either of the doors open?"

"No, your grace."

"You fellows have been up to some infernal mischief. You have made a mess
of it. You never picked up the duchess, and you're trying to palm this
tale off on me to save yourselves."

Barnes was moved to adjuration:

"I'll take my Bible oath, your grace, that the duchess got into the
carriage outside Cane and Wilson's."

Moysey seconded his colleague.

"I will swear to that, your grace. She got into that carriage, and I shut
the door, and she said, 'Home, Moysey!'"

The duke looked as if he did not know what to make of the story and its
tellers.

"What carriage did you have?"

"Her grace's brougham, your grace."

Knowles interposed:

"The brougham was ordered because I understood that the duchess was not
feeling very well, and there's rather a high wind, your grace."

The duke snapped at him:

"What has that to do with it? Are you suggesting that the duchess was more
likely to jump out of a brougham while it was dashing through the streets
than out of any other kind of vehicle?"

The duke's glance fell on the letter which Knowles had brought him when he
first had entered. He had placed it on his writing table. Now he took it
up. It was addressed:

    "_To His Grace the Duke of Datchet_.
      _Private!_
      VERY PRESSING!!!"

The name was written in a fine, clear, almost feminine hand. The words in
the left-hand corner of the envelope were written in a different hand.
They were large and bold; almost as though they had been painted with the
end of the penholder instead of being written with the pen. The envelope
itself was of an unusual size, and bulged out as though it contained
something else besides a letter.

The duke tore the envelope open. As he did so something fell out of it on
to the writing table. It looked as though it was a lock of a woman's hair.
As he glanced at it the duke seemed to be a trifle startled. The duke read
the letter:

    "Your grace will be so good as to bring five hundred pounds in
    gold to the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade within an
    hour of the receipt of this. The Duchess of Datchet has been
    kidnaped. An imitation duchess got into the carriage, which was
    waiting outside Cane and Wilson's, and she alighted on the road.
    Unless your grace does as you are requested, the Duchess of
    Datchet's left-hand little finger will be at once cut off, and
    sent home in time to receive the prince to dinner. Other portions
    of her grace will follow. A lock of her grace's hair is inclosed
    with this as an earnest of our good intentions.

    "_Before_ 5:30 p.m. your grace is requested to be at the
    Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade with five hundred pounds
    in gold. You will there be accosted by an individual in a white
    top hat, and with a gardenia in his buttonhole. You will be
    entirely at liberty to give him into custody, or to have him
    followed by the police, in which case the duchess's left arm, cut
    off at the shoulder, will be sent home for dinner--not to mention
    other extremely possible contingencies. But you are _advised_ to
    give the individual in question the five hundred pounds in gold,
    because in that case the duchess herself will be home in time to
    receive the prince to dinner, and with one of the best stories
    with which to entertain your distinguished guests they ever
    heard.

    "Remember! _not later than_ 5:30, unless you wish to receive her
    grace's little finger."

The duke stared at this amazing epistle when he had read it as though he
found it difficult to believe the evidence of his eyes. He was not a
demonstrative person, as a rule, but this little communication astonished
even him. He read it again. Then his hands dropped to his sides, and he
swore.

He took up the lock of hair which had fallen out of the envelope. Was it
possible that it could be his wife's, the duchess? Was it possible that a
Duchess of Datchet could be kidnaped, in broad daylight, in the heart of
London, and be sent home, as it were, in pieces? Had sacrilegious hands
already been playing pranks with that great lady's hair? Certainly,
_that_ hair was so like _her_ hair that the mere resemblance made his
grace's blood run cold. He turned on Messrs. Barnes and Moysey as though
he would have liked to rend them.

"You scoundrels!"

He moved forward as though the intention had entered his ducal heart to
knock his servants down. But, if that were so, he did not act quite up to
his intention. Instead, he stretched out his arm, pointing at them as if
he were an accusing spirit:

"Will you swear that it was the duchess who got into the carriage outside
Cane and Wilson's?"

Barnes began to stammer:

"I'll swear, your grace, that I--I thought--"

The duke stormed an interruption:

"I don't ask what you thought. I ask you, will you swear it was?"

The duke's anger was more than Barnes could face. He was silent. Moysey
showed a larger courage.

"I could have sworn that it was at the time, your grace. But now it seems
to me that it's a rummy go."

"A rummy go!" The peculiarity of the phrase did not seem to strike the
duke just then--at least, he echoed it as if it didn't. "You call it a
rummy go! Do you know that I am told in this letter that the woman who
entered the carriage was not the duchess? What you were thinking about, or
what case you will be able to make out for yourselves, you know better
than I; but I can tell you this--that in an hour you will leave my
service, and you may esteem yourselves fortunate if, to-night, you are not
both of you sleeping in jail."

One might almost have suspected that the words were spoken in irony. But
before they could answer, another servant entered, who also brought a
letter for the duke. When his grace's glance fell on it he uttered an
exclamation. The writing on the envelope was the same writing that had
been on the envelope which had contained the very singular
communication--like it in all respects, down to the broomstick-end
thickness of the "Private!" and "Very pressing!!!" in the corner.

"Who brought this?" stormed the duke.

The servant appeared to be a little startled by the violence of his
grace's manner.

"A lady--or, at least, your grace, she seemed to be a lady."

"Where is she?"

"She came in a hansom, your grace. She gave me that letter, and said,
'Give that to the Duke of Datchet at once--without a moment's delay!' Then
she got into the hansom again, and drove away."

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"Your grace!"

The man seemed surprised, as though the idea of stopping chance visitors
to the ducal mansion _vi et armis_ had not, until that moment, entered
into his philosophy. The duke continued to regard the man as if he could
say a good deal, if he chose. Then he pointed to the door. His lips said
nothing, but his gesture much. The servant vanished.

"Another hoax!" the duke said grimly, as he tore the envelope open.

This time the envelope contained a sheet of paper, and in the sheet of
paper another envelope. The duke unfolded the sheet of paper. On it some
words were written. These:

"The duchess appears so particularly anxious to drop you a line, that one
really hasn't the heart to refuse her.

"Her grace's communication--written amidst blinding tears!--you will find
inclosed with this."

"Knowles," said the duke, in a voice which actually trembled, "Knowles,
hoax or no hoax, I will be even with the gentleman who wrote that."

Handing the sheet of paper to Mr. Knowles, his grace turned his attention
to the envelope which had been inclosed. It was a small, square envelope,
of the finest quality, and it reeked with perfume. The duke's countenance
assumed an added frown--he had no fondness for envelopes which were
scented. In the center of the envelope were the words, "To the Duke of
Datchet," written in the big, bold, sprawling hand which he knew so well.

"Mabel's writing," he said, half to himself, as, with shaking fingers, he
tore the envelope open.

The sheet of paper which he took out was almost as stiff as cardboard. It,
too, emitted what his grace deemed the nauseous odors of the perfumer's
shop. On it was written this letter:

    "MY DEAR HEREWARD--For Heaven's sake do what these people
    require! I don't know what has happened or where I am, but I am
    nearly distracted! They have already cut off some of my hair, and
    they tell me that, if you don't let them have five hundred pounds
    in gold by half-past five, they will cut off my little finger
    too. I would sooner die than lose my little finger--and--I don't
    know what else besides.

    "By the token which I send you, and which has never, until now,
    been off my breast, I conjure you to help me.


    "Hereward--_help me_!"

When he read that letter the duke turned white--very white, as white as
the paper on which it was written. He passed the epistle on to Knowles.

"I suppose that also is a hoax?"

Mr. Knowles was silent. He still yielded to his constitutional disrelish
to commit himself. At last he asked:

"What is it that your grace proposes to do?"

The duke spoke with a bitterness which almost suggested a personal
animosity toward the inoffensive Mr. Knowles.

"I propose, with your permission, to release the duchess from the custody
of my estimable correspondent. I propose--always with your permission--to
comply with his modest request, and to take him his five hundred pounds in
gold." He paused, then continued in a tone which, coming from him, meant
volumes: "Afterwards, I propose to cry quits with the concocter of this
pretty little hoax, even if it costs me every penny I possess. He shall
pay more for that five hundred pounds than he supposes."


II

The Duke of Datchet, coming out of the bank, lingered for a moment on the
steps. In one hand he carried a canvas bag which seemed well weighted. On
his countenance there was an expression which to a casual observer might
have suggested that his grace was not completely at his ease. That casual
observer happened to come strolling by. It took the form of Ivor Dacre.

Mr. Dacre looked the Duke of Datchet up and down in that languid way he
has. He perceived the canvas bag. Then he remarked, possibly intending to
be facetious:

"Been robbing the bank? Shall I call a cart?"

Nobody minds what Ivor Dacre says. Besides, he is the duke's own cousin.
Perhaps a little removed; still, there it is. So the duke smiled a sickly
smile, as if Mr. Dacre's delicate wit had given him a passing touch of
indigestion.

Mr. Dacre noticed that the duke looked sallow, so he gave his pretty sense
of humor another airing.

"Kitchen boiler burst? When I saw the duchess just now I wondered if it
had."

His grace distinctly started. He almost dropped the canvas bag.

"You saw the duchess just now, Ivor! When?"

The duke was evidently moved. Mr. Dacre was stirred to languid curiosity.
"I can't say I clocked it. Perhaps half an hour ago; perhaps a little
more."

"Half an hour ago! Are you sure? Where did you see her?"

Mr. Dacre wondered. The Duchess of Datchet could scarcely have been
eloping in broad daylight. Moreover, she had not yet been married a year.
Everyone knew that she and the duke were still as fond of each other as if
they were not man and wife. So, although the duke, for some cause or
other, was evidently in an odd state of agitation, Mr. Dacre saw no reason
why he should not make a clean breast of all he knew.

"She was going like blazes in a hansom cab."

"In a hansom cab? Where?"

"Down Waterloo Place."

"Was she alone?"

Mr. Dacre reflected. He glanced at the duke out of the corners of his
eyes. His languid utterance became a positive drawl.

"I rather fancy that she wasn't."

"Who was with her?"

"My dear fellow, if you were to offer me the bank I couldn't tell you."

"Was it a man?"

Mr. Dacre's drawl became still more pronounced.

"I rather fancy that it was."

Mr. Dacre expected something. The duke was so excited. But he by no means
expected what actually came.

"Ivor, she's been kidnaped!"

Mr. Dacre did what he had never been known to do before within the memory
of man--he dropped his eyeglass.

"Datchet!"

"She has! Some scoundrel has decoyed her away, and trapped her. He's
already sent me a lock of her hair, and he tells me that if I don't let
him have five hundred pounds in gold by half-past five he'll let me have
her little finger."

Mr. Dacre did not know what to make of his grace at all. He was a sober
man--it _couldn't_ be that! Mr. Dacre felt really concerned.

"I'll call a cab, old man, and you'd better let me see you home."

Mr. Dacre half raised his stick to hail a passing hansom. The duke caught
him by the arm.

"You ass! What do you mean? I am telling you the simple truth. My wife's
been kidnaped."

Mr. Dacre's countenance was a thing to be seen--and remembered.

"Oh! I hadn't heard that there was much of that sort of thing about just
now. They talk of poodles being kidnaped, but as for duchesses--You'd
really better let me call that cab."

"Ivor, do you want me to kick you? Don't you see that to me it's a
question of life and death? I've been in there to get the money." His
grace motioned toward the bank. "I'm going to take it to the scoundrel who
has my darling at his mercy. Let me but have her hand in mine again, and
he shall continue to pay for every sovereign with tears of blood until he
dies."

"Look here, Datchet, I don't know if you're having a joke with me, or if
you're not well--"

The duke stepped impatiently into the roadway.

"Ivor, you're a fool! Can't you tell jest from earnest, health from
disease? I'm off! Are you coming with me? It would be as well that I
should have a witness."

"Where are you off to?"

"To the other end of the Arcade."

"Who is the gentleman you expect to have the pleasure of meeting there?"

"How should I know?" The duke took a letter from his pocket--it was the
letter which had just arrived. "The fellow is to wear a white top hat, and
a gardenia in his buttonhole."

"What is it you have there?"

"It's the letter which brought the news--look for yourself and see; but,
for God's sake, make haste!" His grace glanced at his watch. "It's already
twenty after five."

"And do you mean to say that on the strength of a letter such as this you
are going to hand over five hundred pounds to--"

The duke cut Mr. Dacre short.

"What are five hundred pounds to me? Besides, you don't know all. There is
another letter. And I have heard from Mabel. But I will tell you all about
it later. If you are coming, come!"

Folding up the letter, Mr. Dacre returned it to the duke.

"As you say, what are five hundred pounds to you? It's as well they are
not as much to you as they are to me, or I'm afraid--"

"Hang it, Ivor, do prose afterwards!"

The duke hurried across the road. Mr. Dacre hastened after him. As they
entered the Arcade they passed a constable. Mr. Dacre touched his
companion's arm.

"Don't you think we'd better ask our friend in blue to walk behind us? His
neighborhood might be handy."

"Nonsense!" The duke stopped short. "Ivor, this is my affair, not yours.
If you are not content to play the part of silent witness, be so good as
to leave me."

"My dear Datchet, I'm entirely at your service. I can be every whit as
insane as you, I do assure you."

Side by side they moved rapidly down the Burlington Arcade. The duke was
obviously in a state of the extremest nervous tension. Mr. Dacre was
equally obviously in a state of the most supreme enjoyment. People stared
as they rushed past. The duke saw nothing. Mr. Dacre saw everything, and
smiled.

When they reached the Piccadilly end of the Arcade the duke pulled up. He
looked about him. Mr. Dacre also looked about him.

"I see nothing of your white-hatted and gardenia-buttonholed friend," said
Ivor.

The duke referred to his watch.

"It's not yet half-past five. I'm up to time."

Mr. Dacre held his stick in front of him and leaned on it. He indulged
himself with a beatific smile.

"It strikes me, my dear Datchet, that you've been the victim of one of the
finest things in hoaxes--"

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting."

The voice which interrupted Mr. Dacre came from the rear. While they were
looking in front of them some one approached them from behind, apparently
coming out of the shop which was at their backs.

The speaker looked a gentleman. He sounded like one, too. Costume,
appearance, manner, were beyond reproach--even beyond the criticism of
two such keen critics as were these. The glorious attire of a London dandy
was surmounted with a beautiful white top hat. In his buttonhole was a
magnificent gardenia.

In age the stranger was scarcely more than a boy, and a sunny-faced,
handsome boy at that. His cheeks were hairless, his eyes were blue. His
smile was not only innocent, it was bland. Never was there a more
conspicuous illustration of that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de
Vere.

The duke looked at him and glowered. Mr. Dacre looked at him and smiled.

"Who are you?" asked the duke.

"Ah--that is the question!" The newcomer's refined and musical voice
breathed the very soul of affability. "I am an individual who is so
unfortunate as to be in want of five hundred pounds."

"Are you the scoundrel who sent me that infamous letter?"

The charming stranger never turned a hair.

"I am the scoundrel mentioned in that infamous letter who wants to accost
you at the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade before half-past
five--as witness my white hat and my gardenia."

"Where's my wife?"

The stranger gently swung his stick in front of him with his two hands. He
regarded the duke as a merry-hearted son might regard his father. The
thing was beautiful!

"Her grace will be home almost as soon as you are--when you have given me
the money which I perceive you have all ready for me in that scarcely
elegant-looking canvas bag." He shrugged his shoulders quite gracefully.
"Unfortunately, in these matters one has no choice--one is forced to ask
for gold."

"And suppose, instead of giving you what is in this canvas bag, I take you
by the throat and choke the life right out of you?"

"Or suppose," amended Mr. Dacre, "that you do better, and commend this
gentleman to the tender mercies of the first policeman we encounter."

The stranger turned to Mr. Dacre. He condescended to become conscious of
his presence.

"Is this gentleman your grace's friend? Ah--Mr. Dacre, I perceive! I have
the honor of knowing Mr. Dacre, though, possibly, I am unknown to him."

"You were--until this moment."

With an airy little laugh the stranger returned to the duke. He brushed an
invisible speck of dust off the sleeve of his coat.

"As has been intimated in that infamous letter, his grace is at perfect
liberty to give me into custody--why not? Only"--he said it with his
boyish smile--"if a particular communication is not received from me in
certain quarters within a certain time the Duchess of Datchet's beautiful
white arm will be hacked off at the shoulder."

"You hound!"

The duke would have taken the stranger by the throat, and have done his
best to choke the life right out of him then and there, if Mr. Dacre had
not intervened.

"Steady, old man!" Mr. Dacre turned to the stranger. "You appear to be a
pretty sort of a scoundrel."

The stranger gave his shoulders that almost imperceptible shrug.

"Oh, my dear Dacre, I am in want of money! I believe that you sometimes
are in want of money, too."

Everybody knows that nobody knows where Ivor Dacre gets his money from, so
the allusion must have tickled him immensely.

"You're a cool hand," he said.

"Some men are born that way."

"So I should imagine. Men like you must be born, not made."

"Precisely--as you say!" The stranger turned, with his graceful smile, to
the duke: "But are we not wasting precious time? I can assure your grace
that, in this particular matter, moments are of value."

Mr. Dacre interposed before the duke could answer.

"If you take my strongly urged advice, Datchet, you will summon this
constable who is now coming down the Arcade, and hand this gentleman over
to his keeping. I do not think that you need fear that the duchess will
lose her arm, or even her little finger. Scoundrels of this one's kidney
are most amenable to reason when they have handcuffs on their wrists."

The duke plainly hesitated. He would--and he would not. The stranger, as
he eyed him, seemed much amused.

"My dear duke, by all means act on Mr. Dacre's valuable suggestion. As I
said before, why not? It would at least be interesting to see if the
duchess does or does not lose her arm--almost as interesting to you as to
Mr. Dacre. Those blackmailing, kidnaping scoundrels do use such empty
menaces. Besides, you would have the pleasure of seeing me locked up. My
imprisonment for life would recompense you even for the loss of her
grace's arm. And five hundred pounds is such a sum to have to pay--merely
for a wife! Why not, therefore, act on Mr. Dacre's suggestion? Here comes
the constable." The constable referred to was advancing toward them--he
was not a dozen yards away. "Let me beckon to him--I will with pleasure."
He took out his watch--a gold chronograph repeater. "There are scarcely
ten minutes left during which it will be possible for me to send the
communication which I spoke of, so that it may arrive in time. As it will
then be too late, and the instruments are already prepared for the little
operation which her grace is eagerly anticipating, it would, perhaps, be
as well, after all, that you should give me into charge. You would have
saved your five hundred pounds, and you would, at any rate, have something
in exchange for her grace's mutilated limb. Ah, here is the constable!
Officer!"

The stranger spoke with such a pleasant little air of easy geniality that
it was impossible to tell if he were in jest or in earnest. This fact
impressed the duke much more than if he had gone in for a liberal
indulgence of the--under the circumstances--orthodox melodramatic
scowling. And, indeed, in the face of his own common sense, it impressed
Mr. Ivor Dacre too.

This well-bred, well-groomed youth was just the being to realize--_aux
bouts des ongles_--a modern type of the devil, the type which depicts him
as a perfect gentleman, who keeps smiling all the time.

The constable whom this audacious rogue had signaled approached the little
group. He addressed the stranger:

"Do you want me, sir?"

"No, I do not want you. I think it is the Duke of Datchet."

The constable, who knew the duke very well by sight, saluted him as he
turned to receive instructions.

The duke looked white, even savage. There was not a pleasant look in his
eyes and about his lips. He appeared to be endeavoring to put a great
restraint upon himself. There was a momentary silence. Mr. Dacre made a
movement as if to interpose. The duke caught him by the arm.

He spoke: "No, constable, I do not want you. This person is mistaken."

The constable looked as if he could not quite make out how such a mistake
could have arisen, hesitated, then, with another salute, he moved away.

The stranger was still holding his watch in his hand.

"Only eight minutes," he said.

The duke seemed to experience some difficulty in giving utterance to what
he had to say.

"If I give you this five hundred pounds, you--you--"

As the duke paused, as if at a loss for language which was strong enough
to convey his meaning, the stranger laughed.

"Let us take the adjectives for granted. Besides, it is only boys who call
each other names--men do things. If you give me the five hundred
sovereigns, which you have in that bag, at once--in five minutes it will
be too late--I will promise--I will not swear; if you do not credit my
simple promise, you will not believe my solemn affirmation--I will
promise that, possibly within an hour, certainly within an hour and a
half, the Duchess of Datchet shall return to you absolutely
uninjured--except, of course, as you are already aware, with regard to a
few of the hairs of her head. I will promise this on the understanding
that you do not yourself attempt to see where I go, and that you will
allow no one else to do so." This with a glance at Ivor Dacre. "I shall
know at once if I am followed. If you entertain such intentions, you had
better, on all accounts, remain in possession of your five hundred
pounds."

The duke eyed him very grimly.

"I entertain no such intentions--until the duchess returns."

Again the stranger indulged in that musical laugh of his.

"Ah, until the duchess returns! Of course, then the bargain's at an end.
When you are once more in the enjoyment of her grace's society, you will
be at liberty to set all the dogs in Europe at my heels. I assure you I
fully expect that you will do so--why not?" The duke raised the canvas
bag. "My dear duke, ten thousand thanks! You shall see her grace at
Datchet House, 'pon my honor, probably within the hour."

"Well," commented Ivor Dacre, when the stranger had vanished, with the
bag, into Piccadilly, and as the duke and himself moved toward Burlington
Gardens, "if a gentleman is to be robbed, it is as well that he should
have another gentleman rob him."


III

Mr. Dacre eyed his companion covertly as they progressed. His Grace of
Datchet appeared to have some fresh cause for uneasiness. All at once he
gave it utterance, in a tone of voice which was extremely somber:

"Ivor, do you think that scoundrel will dare to play me false?"

"I think," murmured Mr. Dacre, "that he has dared to play you pretty false
already."

"I don't mean that. But I mean how am I to know, now that he has his
money, that he will still not keep Mabel in his clutches?"

There came an echo from Mr. Dacre.

"Just so--how are you to know?"

"I believe that something of this sort has been done in the States."

"I thought that there they were content to kidnap them after they were
dead. I was not aware that they had, as yet, got quite so far as the
living."

"I believe that I have heard of something just like this."

"Possibly; they are giants over there."

"And in that case the scoundrels, when their demands were met, refused to
keep to the letter of their bargain and asked for more."

The duke stood still. He clinched his fists, and swore:

"Ivor, if that--villain doesn't keep his word, and Mabel isn't home within
the hour, by--I shall go mad!"

"My dear Datchet"--Mr. Dacre loved strong language as little as he loved a
scene--"let us trust to time and, a little, to your white-hatted and
gardenia-buttonholed friend's word of honor. You should have thought of
possible eventualities before you showed your confidence--really. Suppose,
instead of going mad, we first of all go home?"

A hansom stood waiting for a fare at the end of the Arcade. Mr. Dacre had
handed the duke into it before his grace had quite realized that the
vehicle was there.

"Tell the fellow to drive faster." That was what the duke said when the
cab had started.

"My dear Datchet, the man's already driving his geerage off its legs. If a
bobby catches sight of him he'll take his number."

A moment later, a murmur from the duke:

"I don't know if you're aware that the prince is coming to dinner?"

"I am perfectly aware of it."

"You take it uncommonly cool. How easy it is to bear our brother's
burdens! Ivor, if Mabel doesn't turn up I shall feel like murder."

"I sympathize with you, Datchet, with all my heart, though, I may observe,
parenthetically, that I very far from realize the situation even yet. Take
my advice. If the duchess does not show quite as soon as we both of us
desire, don't make a scene; just let me see what I can do."

Judging from the expression of his countenance, the duke was conscious of
no overwhelming desire to witness an exhibition of Mr. Dacre's prowess.

When the cab reached Datchet House his grace dashed up the steps three at
a time. The door flew open.

"Has the duchess returned?"

"Hereward!"

A voice floated downward from above. Some one came running down the
stairs. It was her Grace of Datchet.

"Mabel!"

She actually rushed into the duke's extended arms. And he kissed her, and
she kissed him--before the servants.

"So you're not quite dead?" she cried.

"I am almost," he said.

She drew herself a little away from him.

"Hereward, were you seriously hurt?"

"Do you suppose that I could have been otherwise than seriously hurt?"

"My darling! Was it a Pickford's van?"

The duke stared.

"A Pickford's van? I don't understand. But come in here. Come along, Ivor.
Mabel, you don't see Ivor."

"How do you do, Mr. Dacre?"

Then the trio withdrew into a little anteroom; it was really time. Even
then the pair conducted themselves as if Mr. Dacre had been nothing and no
one. The duke took the lady's two hands in his. He eyed her fondly.

"So you are uninjured, with the exception of that lock of hair. Where did
the villain take it from?"

The lady looked a little puzzled.

"What lock of hair?"

From an envelope which he took from his pocket the duke produced a shining
tress. It was the lock of hair which had arrived in the first
communication. "I will have it framed."

"You will have what framed?" The duchess glanced at what the duke was so
tenderly caressing, almost, as it seemed, a little dubiously. "Whatever is
it you have there?"

"It is the lock of hair which that scoundrel sent me." Something in the
lady's face caused him to ask a question; "Didn't he tell you he had sent
it to me?"

"Hereward!"

"Did the brute tell you that he meant to cut off your little finger?"

A very curious look came into the lady's face. She glanced at the duke as
if she, all at once, was half afraid of him. She cast at Mr. Dacre what
really seemed to be a look of inquiry. Her voice was tremulously anxious.

"Hereward, did--did the accident affect you mentally?"

"How could it not have affected me mentally? Do you think that my mental
organization is of steel?"

"But you look so well."

"Of course I look well, now that I have you back again. Tell me, darling,
did that hound actually threaten you with cutting off your arm? If he did,
I shall feel half inclined to kill him yet."

The duchess seemed positively to shrink from her better half's near
neighborhood.

"Hereward, was it a Pickford's van?"

The duke seemed puzzled. Well he might be.

"Was what a Pickford's van?"

The lady turned to Mr. Dacre. In her voice there was a ring of anguish.

"Mr. Dacre, tell me, was it a Pickford's van?"

Ivor could only imitate his relative's repetition of her inquiry.

"I don't quite catch you--was what a Pickford's van?"

The duchess clasped her hands in front of her.

"What is it you are keeping from me? What is it you are trying to hide? I
implore you to tell me the worst, whatever it may be! Do not keep me any
longer in suspense; you do not know what I already have endured. Mr.
Dacre, is my husband mad?"

One need scarcely observe that the lady's amazing appeal to Mr. Dacre as
to her husband's sanity was received with something like surprise. As the
duke continued to stare at her, a dreadful fear began to loom in his
brain.

"My darling, your brain is unhinged!"

He advanced to take her two hands again in his; but, to his unmistakable
distress, she shrank away from him.

"Hereward--don't touch me. How is it that I missed you? Why did you not
wait until I came?"

"Wait until you came?"

The duke's bewilderment increased.

"Surely, if your injuries turned out, after all, to be slight, that was
all the more reason why you should have waited, after sending for me like
that."

"I sent for you--I?" The duke's tone was grave. "My darling, perhaps you
had better come upstairs."

"Not until we have had an explanation. You must have known that I should
come. Why did you not wait for me after you had sent me that?"

The duchess held out something to the duke. He took it. It was a card--his
own visiting card. Something was written on the back of it. He read aloud
what was written.

"Mabel, come to me at once with the bearer. They tell me that they cannot
take me home." It looks like my own writing."

"Looks like it! It is your writing."

"It looks like it--and written with a shaky pen."

"My dear child, one's hand would shake at such a moment as that."

"Mabel, where did you get this?"

"It was brought to me in Cane and Wilson's."

"Who brought it?"

"Who brought it? Why, the man you sent."

"The man I sent!" A light burst upon the duke's brain. He fell back a
pace. "It's the decoy!"

Her grace echoed the words:

"The decoy?"

"The scoundrel! To set a trap with such a bait! My poor innocent darling,
did you think it came from me? Tell me, Mabel, where did he cut off your
hair?"

"Cut off my hair?"

Her grace put her hand to her head as if to make sure that her hair was
there.

"Where did he take you to?"

"He took me to Draper's Buildings."

"Draper's Buildings?"

"I have never been in the City before, but he told me it was Draper's
Buildings. Isn't that near the Stock Exchange?"

"Near the Stock Exchange?"

It seemed rather a curious place to which to take a kidnaped victim. The
man's audacity!

"He told me that you were coming out of the Stock Exchange when a van
knocked you over. He said that he thought it was a Pickford's van--was it
a Pickford's van?"

"No, it was not a Pickford's van. Mabel, were you in Draper's Buildings
when you wrote that letter?"

"Wrote what letter?"

"Have you forgotten it already? I do not believe that there is a word in
it which will not be branded on my brain until I die."

"Hereward! What do you mean?"

"Surely you cannot have written me such a letter as that, and then have
forgotten it already?"

He handed her the letter which had arrived in the second communication.
She glanced at it, askance. Then she took it with a little gasp.

"Hereward, if you don't mind, I think I'll take a chair." She took a
chair. "Whatever--whatever's this?" As she read the letter the varying
expressions which passed across her face were, in themselves, a study in
psychology. "Is it possible that you can imagine that, under any
conceivable circumstances, I could have written such a letter as this?"

"Mabel!"

She rose to her feet with emphasis.

"Hereward, don't say that you thought this came from me!"

"Not from you?" He remembered Knowles's diplomatic reception of the
epistle on its first appearance. "I suppose that you will say next that
this is not a lock of your hair?"

"My dear child, what bee have you got in your bonnet? This a lock of my
hair! Why, it's not in the least bit like my hair!"

Which was certainly inaccurate. As far as color was concerned it was an
almost perfect match. The duke turned to Mr. Dacre.

"Ivor, I've had to go through a good deal this afternoon. If I have to go
through much more, something will crack!" He touched his forehead. "I
think it's my turn to take a chair." Not the one which the duchess had
vacated, but one which faced it. He stretched out his legs in front of
him; he thrust his hands into his trousers pockets; he said, in a tone
which was not gloomy but absolutely grewsome:

"Might I ask, Mabel, if you have been kidnaped?"

"Kidnaped?"

"The word I used was 'kidnaped.' But I will spell it if you like. Or I
will get a dictionary, that you may see its meaning."

The duchess looked as if she was beginning to be not quite sure if she was
awake or sleeping. She turned to Ivor.

"Mr. Dacre, has the accident affected Hereward's brain?"

The duke took the words out of his cousin's mouth.

"On that point, my dear, let me ease your mind. I don't know if you are
under the impression that I should be the same shape after a Pickford's
van had run over me as I was before; but, in any case, I have not been run
over by a Pickford's van. So far as I am concerned there has been no
accident. Dismiss that delusion from your mind."

"Oh!"

"You appear surprised. One might even think that you were sorry. But may I
now ask what you did when you arrived at Draper's Buildings?"

"Did! I looked for you!"

"Indeed! And when you had looked in vain, what was the next item in your
programme?"

The lady shrank still farther from him.

"Hereward, have you been having a jest at my expense? Can you have been so
cruel?" Tears stood in her eyes.

Rising, the duke laid his hand upon her arm.

"Mabel, tell me--what did you do when you had looked for me in vain?"

"I looked for you upstairs and downstairs and everywhere. It was quite a
large place, it took me ever such a time. I thought that I should go
distracted. Nobody seemed to know anything about you, or even that there
had been an accident at all--it was all offices. I couldn't make it out in
the least, and the people didn't seem to be able to make me out either. So
when I couldn't find you anywhere I came straight home again."

The duke was silent for a moment. Then with funereal gravity he turned to
Mr. Dacre. He put to him this question:

"Ivor, what are you laughing at?"

Mr. Dacre drew his hand across his mouth with rather a suspicious gesture.

"My dear fellow, only a smile!"

The duchess looked from one to the other.

"What have you two been doing? What is the joke?"

With an air of preternatural solemnity the duke took two letters from the
breast pocket of his coat.

"Mabel, you have already seen your letter. You have already seen the lock
of your hair. Just look at this--and that."

He gave her the two very singular communications which had arrived in such
a mysterious manner, and so quickly one after the other. She read them
with wide-open eyes.

"Hereward! Wherever did these come from?"

The duke was standing with his legs apart, and his hands in his trousers
pockets. "I would give--I would give another five hundred pounds to know.
Shall I tell you, madam, what I have been doing? I have been presenting
five hundred golden sovereigns to a perfect stranger, with a top hat, and
a gardenia in his buttonhole."

"Whatever for?"

"If you have perused those documents which you have in your hand, you will
have some faint idea. Ivor, when it's your funeral, I'll smile. Mabel,
Duchess of Datchet, it is beginning to dawn upon the vacuum which
represents my brain that I've been the victim of one of the prettiest
things in practical jokes that ever yet was planned. When that fellow
brought you that card at Cane and Wilson's--which, I need scarcely tell
you, never came from me--some one walked out of the front entrance who was
so exactly like you that both Barnes and Moysey took her for you. Moysey
showed her into the carriage, and Barnes drove her home. But when the
carriage reached home it was empty. Your double had got out upon the
road."

The duchess uttered a sound which was half gasp, half sigh.

"Hereward!"

"Barnes and Moysey, with beautiful and childlike innocence, when they
found that they had brought the thing home empty, came straightway and
told me that you had jumped out of the brougham while it had been driving
full pelt through the streets. While I was digesting that piece of
information there came the first epistle, with the lock of your hair.
Before I had time to digest that there came the second epistle, with yours
inside."

"It seems incredible!"

"It sounds incredible; but unfathomable is the folly of man, especially of
a man who loves his wife." The duke crossed to Mr. Dacre. "I don't want,
Ivor, to suggest anything in the way of bribery and corruption, but if you
could keep this matter to yourself, and not mention it to your friends,
our white-hatted and gardenia-buttonholed acquaintance is welcome to his
five hundred pounds, and--Mabel, what on earth are you laughing at?"

The duchess appeared, all at once, to be seized with inextinguishable
laughter.

"Hereward," she cried, "just think how that man must be laughing at you!"

And the Duke of Datchet thought of it.




_The Minor Canon_


It was Monday, and in the afternoon, as I was walking along the High
Street of Marchbury, I was met by a distinguished-looking person whom I
had observed at the services in the cathedral on the previous day. Now it
chanced on that Sunday that I was singing the service. Properly speaking,
it was not my turn; but, as my brother minor canons were either away from
Marchbury or ill in bed, I was the only one left to perform the necessary
duty. The distinguished-looking person was a tall, big man with a round
fat face and small features. His eyes, his hair and mustache (his face was
bare but for a small mustache) were quite black, and he had a very
pleasant and genial expression. He wore a tall hat, set rather jauntily on
his head, and he was dressed in black with a long frock coat buttoned
across the chest and fitting him close to the body. As he came, with a
half saunter, half swagger, along the street, I knew him again at once by
his appearance; and, as he came nearer, I saw from his manner that he was
intending to stop and speak to me, for he slightly raised his hat and in
a soft, melodious voice with a colonial "twang" which was far from being
disagreeable, and which, indeed, to my ear gave a certain additional
interest to his remarks, he saluted me with "Good day, sir!"

"Good day," I answered, with just a little reserve in my tone.

"I hope, sir," he began, "you will excuse my stopping you in the street,
but I wish to tell you how very much I enjoyed the music at your cathedral
yesterday. I am an Australian, sir, and we have no such music in my
country."

"I suppose not," I said.

"No, sir," he went on, "nothing nearly so fine. I am very fond of music,
and as my business brought me in this direction, I thought I would stop at
your city and take the opportunity of paying a visit to your grand
cathedral. And I am delighted I came; so pleased, indeed, that I should
like to leave some memorial of my visit behind me. I should like, sir, to
do something for your choir."

"I am sure it is very kind of you," I replied.

"Yes, I should certainly be glad if you could suggest to me something I
might do in this way. As regards money, I may say that I have plenty of
it. I am the owner of a most valuable property. My business relations
extend throughout the world, and if I am as fortunate in the projects of
the future as I have been in the past, I shall probably one day achieve
the proud position of being the richest man in the world."

I did not like to undertake myself the responsibility of advising or
suggesting, so I simply said:

"I cannot venture to say, offhand, what would be the most acceptable way
of showing your great kindness and generosity, but I should certainly
recommend you to put yourself in communication with the dean."

"Thank you, sir," said my Australian friend, "I will do so. And now, sir,"
he continued, "let me say how much I admire your voice. It is, without
exception, the very finest and clearest voice I have ever heard."

"Really," I answered, quite overcome with such unqualified praise, "really
it is very good of you to say so."

"Ah, but I feel it, my dear sir. I have been round the world, from Sydney
to Frisco, across the continent of America" (he called it Amerrker) "to
New York City, then on to England, and to-morrow I shall leave your city
to continue my travels. But in all my experience I have never heard so
grand a voice as your own."

This and a great deal more he said in the same strain, which modesty
forbids me to reproduce.

Now I am not without some knowledge of the world outside the close of
Marchbury Cathedral, and I could not listen to such a "flattering tale"
without having my suspicions aroused. Who and what is this man? thought I.
I looked at him narrowly. At first the thought flashed across me that he
might be a "swell mobsman." But no, his face was too good for that;
besides, no man with that huge frame, that personality so marked and so
easily recognizable, could be a swindler; he could not escape detection a
single hour. I dismissed the ungenerous thought. Perhaps he is rich, as he
says. We do hear of munificent donations by benevolent millionaires now
and then. What if this Australian, attracted by the glories of the old
cathedral, should now appear as a _deus ex machina_ to reГ«ndow the choir,
or to found a musical professoriate in connection with the choir,
appointing me the first occupant of the professorial chair?

These thoughts flashed across my mind in the momentary pause of his fluent
tongue.

"As for yourself, sir," he began again, "I have something to propose which
I trust may not prove unwelcome. But the public street is hardly a
suitable place to discuss my proposal. May I call upon you this evening at
your house in the close? I know which it is, for I happened to see you go
into it yesterday after the morning service."

"I shall be very pleased to see you," I replied. "We are going out to
dinner this evening, but I shall be at home and disengaged till about
seven."

"Thank you very much. Then I shall do myself the pleasure of calling upon
you about six o'clock. Till then, farewell!" A graceful wave of the hand,
and my unknown friend had disappeared round the corner of the street.

Now at last, I thought, something is going to happen in my uneventful
life--something to break the monotony of existence. Of course, he must
have inquired my name--he could get that from any of the cathedral
vergers--and, as he said, he had observed whereabouts in the close I
lived. What is he coming to see me for? I wondered. I spent the rest of
the afternoon in making the wildest surmises. I was castle-building in
Spain at a furious rate. At one time I imagined that this faithful son of
the church--as he appeared to me--was going to build and endow a grand
cathedral in Australia on condition that I should be appointed dean at a
yearly stipend of, say, ten thousand pounds. Or perhaps, I said to myself,
he will beg me to accept a sum of money--I never thought of it as less
than a thousand pounds--as a slight recognition of and tribute to my
remarkable vocal ability.

I took a long, lonely walk into the country to correct these ridiculous
fancies and to steady my mind, and when I reached home and had refreshed
myself with a quiet cup of afternoon tea, I felt I was morally and
physically prepared for my interview with the opulent stranger.

Punctually as the cathedral clock struck six there was a ring at the
visitor's bell. In a moment or two my unknown friend was shown into the
drawing-room, which he entered with the easy air of a man of the world. I
noticed he was carrying a small black bag.

"How do you do again, Mr. Dale?" he said as though we were old
acquaintances; "you see I have come sharp to my time."