ERNEST BRAMAH Ultimate Collection: 20+ Novels & Short Stories in One Volume. Bramah Ernest

      “That’s what it says.”

      There was another puzzled silence. All were arrested by some intangible suggestion of a deeper mystery than they had yet touched. One by one they began to cross the hall with the conscious air of men who were not curious but thought that they might as well see.

      “Why, curse my crumpet,” suddenly exploded Mr Berge, “if that ain’t the same writing as these texts!”

      “By gad, but I believe you are right,” assented Mr Carlyle. “Well, why not look inside?”

      The attendant, from his stooping posture, took the verdict of the ring of faces and in a trice tugged open the two buckles. The central fastening was not locked, and yielded to a touch. The flannel shirt, the weird collar and a few other garments in the nature of a “top-dressing” were flung out and John’s hand plunged deeper….

      Harry the Actor had lived up to his dramatic instinct. Nothing was wrapped up; nay, the rich booty had been deliberately opened out and displayed, as it were, so that the overturning of the bag, when John the keybearer in an access of riotous extravagance lifted it up and strewed its contents broadcast on the floor, was like the looting of a smuggler’s den, or the realization of a speculator’s dream, or the bursting of an Aladdin’s cave, or something incredibly lavish and bizarre. Bank-notes fluttered down and lay about in all directions, relays of sovereigns rolled away like so much dross, bonds and scrip for thousands and tens of thousands clogged the downpouring stream of jewellery and unset gems. A yellow stone the size of a four-pound weight and twice as heavy dropped plump upon the canon’s toes and sent him hopping and grimacing to the wall. A ruby-hilted kris cut across the manager’s wrist as he strove to arrest the splendid rout. Still the miraculous cornucopia deluged the ground, with its pattering, ringing, bumping, crinkling, rolling, fluttering produce until, like the final tableau of some spectacular ballet, it ended with a golden rain that masked the details of the heap beneath a glittering veil of yellow sand.

      “My dust!” gasped Draycott.

      “My fivers, by golly!” ejaculated the bookmaker, initiating a plunge among the spoil.

      “My Japanese bonds, coupons and all, and—yes, even the manuscript of my work on ‘Polyphyletic Bridal Customs among the mid-Pleistocene Cave Men.’ Hah!” Something approaching a cachinnation of delight closed the professor’s contribution to the pandemonium, and eyewitnesses afterwards declared that for a moment the dignified scientist stood on one foot in the opening movement of a can-can.

      “My wife’s diamonds, thank heaven!” cried Sir Benjamin, with the air of a schoolboy who was very well out of a swishing.

      “But what does it mean?” demanded the bewildered canon. “Here are my family heirlooms—a few decent pearls, my grandfather’s collection of camei and other trifles—but who——?”

      “Perhaps this offers some explanation,” suggested Mr Carlyle, unpinning an envelope that had been secured to the lining of the bag. “It is addressed ‘To Seven Rich Sinners.’ Shall I read it for you?”

      For some reason the response was not unanimous, but it was sufficient. Mr Carlyle cut open the envelope.

      “My Dear Friends,—Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy at this moment? Ah yes; but not with the true joy of regeneration that alone can bring lightness to the afflicted soul. Pause while there is yet time. Cast off the burden of your sinful lusts, for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? (Mark, chap. viii., v. 36.)

      “Oh, my friends, you have had an all-fired narrow squeak. Up till the Friday in last week I held your wealth in the hollow of my ungodly hand and rejoiced in my nefarious cunning, but on that day as I with my guilty female accomplice stood listening with worldly amusement to the testimony of a converted brother at a meeting of the Salvation Army on Clapham Common, the gospel light suddenly shone into our rebellious souls and then and there we found salvation. Hallelujah!

      “What we have done to complete the unrighteous scheme upon which we had laboured for months has only been for your own good, dear friends that you are, though as yet divided from us by your carnal lusts. Let this be a lesson to you. Sell all you have and give it to the poor—through the organization of the Salvation Army by preference—and thereby lay up for yourselves treasures where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. (Matthew, chap, vi., v. 20.)

      “Yours in good works,

      “Private Henry, the Salvationist.

      “P.S. (in haste).—I may as well inform you that no crib is really uncrackable, though the Cyrus J. Coy Co.‘s Safe Deposit on West 24th Street, N.Y., comes nearest the kernel. And even that I could work to the bare rock if I took hold of the job with both hands—that is to say I could have done in my sinful days. As for you, I should recommend you to change your T.A. to ‘Peanut.’

      “U.K.G.”

      “There sounds a streak of the old Adam in that postscript, Mr Carlyle,” whispered Inspector Beedel, who had just arrived in time to hear the letter read.

The Tilling Shaw Mystery

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      “I will see Miss George now,” assented Carrados. Parkinson retired and Greatorex looked round from his chair. The morning “clearing-up” was still in progress.

      “Shall I go?” he inquired.

      “Not unless the lady desires it. I don’t know her at all.”

      The secretary was not unobservant and he had profited from his association with Mr Carrados. Without more ado, he began to get his papers quietly together.

      The door opened and a girl of about twenty came eagerly yet half timorously into the room. Her eyes for a moment swept Carrados with an anxious scrutiny. Then, with a slight shade of disappointment, she noticed that they were not alone.

      “I have come direct from Oakshire to see you, Mr Carrados,” she announced, in a quick, nervous voice that was evidently the outcome of a desperate resolution to be brave and explicit. “The matter is a dreadfully important one to me and I should very much prefer to tell it to you alone.”

      There was no need for Carrados to turn towards his secretary; that discriminating young gentleman was already on his way. Miss George flashed him a shy look of thanks and filled in the moment with a timid survey of the room.

      “Is it something that you think I can help you with?”

      “I had hoped so. I had heard in a roundabout way of your wonderful power—ought I to tell you how—does it matter?”

      “Not in the least if it has nothing to do with the case,” replied Carrados.

      “When this dreadful thing happened I instinctively thought of you. I felt sure that I ought to come and get you to help me at once. But I—I have very little money, Mr Carrados, only a few pounds, and I am not so childish as not to know that very clever men require large fees. Then when I got here my heart sank, for I saw at once from your house and position that what seemed little even to me would be ridiculous to you—that if you did help me it would be purely out of kindness of heart and generosity.”

      “Suppose you tell me what the circumstances are,” suggested Carrados cautiously. Then, to afford an opening, he added: “You have recently gone into mourning, I see.”

      “See!” exclaimed the girl almost sharply. “Then you are not blind?”

      “Oh yes,” he replied; “only I use the familiar expression, partly from custom, partly because it sounds unnecessarily pedantic to say, ‘I deduce from certain observations.’”

      “I beg your pardon. I suppose I was startled not so much by the expression as by your