The Spider. Fergus Hume

upon actual fact, and can make things unpleasant; but I can prove the exact truth of what he states, and so can save my bacon. There may be a few cold shoulders, but I shan't care for that, especially when my own conscience is clear. Now, don't ask me to tell you my secret, for I shan't. It has nothing to do with you or anyone else. All you have to do is to come to-morrow or the next day to my house at Hampstead, and I'll sketch out the plan of campaign."

      "What about Mrs. Bedge?"

      "She has a fortnight to consider the payment. We shall catch the scoundrel before then--you understand. Eh, what? Good! Now I must be off to Julia's ball. Are you coming?--not asked! Of course; you love Lucy, and that will never do for Julia, who wants her to make a titled match. Good-night! Ha, ha! You have plenty to think about. Don't get brain fever. Good night!"

      Then the oddly-assorted pair parted for the time being.

       CHAPTER III.

      HOW THE TRAP WAS SET.

      As Martin Dimsdale had spent the greater part of his sixty years in Burmah, he naturally retained an affectionate remembrance of that most fantastic country. This he showed by calling his house "Rangoon;" and, as a further concession to what might almost be termed his native land, the house was built after the fashion, more or less accurate, of a bungalow. On arriving some ten years previously in England, Mr. Dimsdale had purchased an ancient Grange with its few remaining acres, situated on the verge of Hampstead Heath. In spite of the fact that the mansion was historic and famous, this Vandal pulled it down, amidst the protests and to the grief of various antiquarians. On the cleared ground he erected the rambling one-storey building which reminded him of the Far East. It was not an entirely Indian house, nor a wholly Burmese house, nor an absolutely English house, but a bastard mixture of all three, as the chilly northern climate had to be taken into consideration. But Dimsdale looked upon it as a genuine reconstruction of the bungalows to which he had been accustomed, and would hear no argument to the contrary. This was just as well for those who differed from his views, as he was a peppery little man, voluble in speech.

      From the wide road, which flanked this corner of the Heath, the grounds were divided by a tall and thick-set laurel hedge, which must have taken years to attain its present stately beauty. At right angles to this, red-brick walls, old and mellow, ran back for a considerable distance to terminate in another hedge of mingled holly and oak saplings and sweetbriar and hawthorn. A gate in the centre of this gave admittance to a well-cultivated kitchen-garden of two acres. Beyond, and divided from the garden by a low stone wall, stretched the meadows, encircled by aggressive barbed-wire fences. The whole, consisting of eight acres, belonged to the man who had built the bungalow, and was a very desirable freehold for a well-to-do middle-class gentleman.

      In the first square between the hedges and brick walls stood the house, looking quite dazzling in the sunshine by reason of its white-tiled walls and the raw hue of its red-tiled roof. Round three sides ran a deep verandah, and the fourth side--at the back--bordered the cobble-stone yard, at the sides of which were the stables and outhouses. Everything here was neat and trim and sweet-smelling, as Mr. Dimsdale would tolerate no litter, and was fidgety about the drainage. This was just as well, seeing that the stables were over-near the dwelling. Some judicious person had earlier pointed out to Mr. Dimsdale that it would be advisable to erect them beyond the kitchen-gardens and in the meadows, but the little man, out of sheer obstinacy, refused to entertain the idea, and built them cheek by jowl with the house.

      On either side of the bungalow, trellis work covered with creepers shut off the yard from the front garden. This last, consisting of smooth lawns bordered by brilliantly coloured flowerbeds, stretched to a rustic-looking, white-painted gate set in the laurel hedge. To this, a broad walk, sanded to a deep yellow tint, ran from the shallow steps leading up to the front verandah. Two noble elms--the sole survivors of a once well-wooded park--sprang one on each side of the path, from the trim lawns.

      The building itself looked most unsuitable to the chilly English climate, with its spotless walls and French windows. These, of which there were many, opened directly on to the verandah, which was paved warmly with red bricks, rectangular and thin. Each window was provided with green shutters, fastened back during the day and tightly closed every night at dusk. On entering the front door Mr. Dimsdale's visitors beheld a square hall, and the first object which struck the eye was a large gong, held shoulder high by two fierce-looking Burmese warriors carved in unpainted wood. Darkly blue Eastern draperies, glittering with tiny round looking-glasses, veiled the left door, which led into the library, and the right door, through which the dining-room was entered. Passing between curtains of similar texture and style, hanging straightly from the ceiling, the visitor came into a spacious room with a slippery polished floor and a high glass roof, which lighted the apartment, since, occupying the centre of the bungalow, there could be no side windows. Folding valves of carved sandalwood on either side gave entrance into two long narrow passages, broken by many bedroom doors. The bedrooms themselves looked on to the side verandahs through French windows, as has been described.

      At the end of the middle apartment--which, like the Athenian Club antrium, was the general meeting place of those in the house, and served the purpose of a drawing-room--was another draped portal, admitting Mr. Dimsdale's male guests into a large billiard-room and a comfortable smoking-room; also his lady guests into a boudoir and a music-room. Beyond these, and shut off by another narrow passage at right angles to those at the sides, were the kitchen, the servants' quarters, and the domestic offices. As the stables, in the opinion of many people, were too near the house, the kitchen was too far distant from the dining-room. But Mr. Dimsdale, who was fond of delicate fare, prevented the cooling of the food in transit by having it brought to the table in hot-water dishes. He secretly acknowledged to himself that he was wrong as regards both stables and kitchen, but would never admit any oversight to his friends. As he had been his own architect, he believed "Rangoon" to be almost perfect in construction, design, beauty, and in its blending of Indian charm and English comfort. And in the main he was not far wrong.

      The house was filled with quaint Eastern curios, and draperies and contrivances and furniture, although of this last there was comparatively little, since Mr. Dimsdale did not care to overcrowd his rooms, as is the English fashion; perhaps it was this sparseness which gave the house its foreign look. The library was furnished with tables and couches and chairs and bookcases of black teak, elaborately carved, while the central apartment contained nothing but bamboo chairs and tiny bamboo tables, all of which were covered with brightly-hued draperies. The dining-room was the most English-looking part of the house, as it was decorated and furnished in the Jacobean manner, and looked massively British. But the French windows--three in the front and three at the side--uncurtained and pronouncedly bare, admitted too great a glare into an apartment sacred to eating, which, for some traditional reason, is always supposed to have rather a twilight atmosphere. But Mr. Dimsdale loved plenty of light and fresh air and all the sunshine he could get, hence the many windows of the bungalow. It would have been easier to have removed the walls dividing the rooms from the verandah, and to have given them the full publicity of Eastern shops. And perhaps only the climate prevented Mr. Dimsdale from going this length. He was a fanatic in many ways, and had the full courage of his cranky convictions.

      As a police commissioner, Mr. Dimsdale had been secretly in partnership with a Chinese merchant, who traded from Singapore to Yokohama, and from Canton to Thursday Island; that is, he supplied the capital and Quong Lee managed the investments. Thus the astute Englishman was enabled to return to England with an ample income, and proposed to spend the rest of his earthly life in enjoying it. The bungalow was his hobby, and he never grew weary of improving its beauties or of showing them to admiring friends. As he was a widower--Mrs. Dimsdale occupied a lonely grave in the Shan States--he had no one to coerce him into spending his money in any other way. It is true that Ida, his only child, was handsome and marriageable and light-hearted; but, having comparatively simple tastes, she did not yearn over-much for a fashionable life. Certainly she knew many in the great world, and sought society to some extent during the season, created by man; but, for the most part, she preferred the home-life of "Rangoon," which was assuredly lively enough and not wanting in interest even to the insatiable appetite of the young for pleasure. Her father,