CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips Oppenheim

hand, looked out.

      “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “but I do not think that Mr. Cawdor is in. He went out early this evening, and I have not heard him return.”

      The two men turned away.

      “We are much obliged to you, sir,” Mr. Marnstam said.

      “Can I give him any message?” Peter Ruff asked, politely. “We generally see something of one another in the morning.”

      “You can tell him—” Rounceby began.

      “No message, thanks!” Marnstam interrupted. “We shall probably run across him ourselves to-morrow.”

      John Dory was nearly a quarter of an hour late. After his third useless summons, Mr. Peter Ruff presented himself again.

      “I am afraid,” he said, “you will not find my neighbour at home. There have been several people enquiring for him to-night, without any result.”

      John Dory came slowly across the landing.

      “Good evening, Mr. Ruff!” he said.

      “Why, it’s Mr. Dory!” Peter Ruff declared. “Come in, do, and have a drink.”

      John Dory accepted the invitation, and his eyes were busy in that little sitting room during the few minutes which it took his host to mix that whisky and soda.

      “Nothing wrong with our friend opposite, I hope?” Peter Ruff asked, jerking his head across the landing.

      “I hope not, Mr. Ruff,” John Dory said. “No doubt in the morning he will be able to explain everything. I must say that I should like to see him to-night, though.”

      “He may turn up yet,” Peter Ruff remarked, cheerfully. “He’s like myself—a late bird.”

      “I fear not,” Dory answered, drily. “Nice rooms you have here, sir. Just a sitting room and bedroom, eh?”

      Peter Ruff stood up and threw open the door of the inner apartment.

      “That’s so,” he answered. “Care to have a look round?”

      The detective did look round, and pretty thoroughly. As soon as he was sure that there was no one concealed upon the premises, he drank his whisky and soda and went.

      “I’ll look in again to see Cawdor,” he remarked—“to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day.”

      “I’ll let him know if I see him about,” Peter Ruff declared. “Sorry the lift’s stopped. Three steps to the left and straight on. Good-night!”

      Miss Brown arrived early the following morning, and was disposed to be inquisitive.

      “I should like to know,” she said, “exactly what has become of Mr. Vincent Cawdor.”

      Peter Ruff took her upstairs. There was a little mound of ashes in the grate.

      She nodded.

      “I imagined that,” she said. “But why did you send me out to watch yourself?”

      “My dear Violet,” Peter Ruff answered, “there is no man in the world to-day who is my equal in the art of disguising himself. At the same time, I wanted to know whether I could deceive you. I wanted to be quite sure that my study of Mr. Vincent Cawdor was a safe one. I took those rooms in his name and in his own person. I do not think that it occurred even to our friend John Dory to connect us in his mind.”

      “Very well,” she went on. “Now tell me, please, what took you up to Westmoreland?”

      “I followed Rounceby and Marnstam,” he answered, “I knew them when I was abroad, studying crime—I could tell you a good deal about both those men if it were worth while—and I knew, when they hired a big motor car and engaged a crook to drive it, that they were worth following. I saw the trial of the flying machine, and when they started off with young Franklin, I followed on a motor bicycle. I fished him out of the tarn where they left him for dead, brought him on to London, and made my own terms with him.”

      “What about the body which was found in the Longthorp Tarn?” she asked.

      “I had that telegram sent myself,” Peter Ruff answered.

      She looked at him severely.

      “You went out of your way to make a fool of John Dory!” she said, frowning at him.

      “That I admit,” he answered.

      “It seems to me,” she continued, “that that, after all, has been the chief object of the whole affair. I do not see that we—that is the firm—profit in the least.”

      Peter Ruff chuckled.

      “We’ve got a fourth share in the Franklin Flying Machine,” he answered, “and I’m hanged if I’d sell it for a hundred thousand pounds.”

      “You’ve taken advantage of that young man’s gratitude,” she declared.

      Peter Ruff shook his head.

      “I earned the money,” he answered.

      THE INDISCRETION OF LETTY SHAW

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      Amidst a storm of whispered criticisms, the general opinion was that Letty Shaw was a silly little fool who ought to have known better. When she had entered the restaurant a few minutes before midnight, followed by Austen Abbott, every one looked to see a third person following them. No third person, however, appeared. Gustav himself conducted them to a small table laid for two, covered with pink roses, and handed his fair client the menu of a specially ordered supper. There was no gainsaying the fact that Letty and her escort proposed supping alone!

      The Cafe at the Milan was, without doubt, the fashionable rendezvous of the moment for those ladies connected with the stage who, after their performance, had not the time or the inclination to make the conventional toilet demanded by the larger restaurants. Letty Shaw, being one of the principal ornaments of the musical comedy stage, was well known to every one in the room. There was scarcely a person there who within the last fortnight had not found an opportunity of congratulating her upon her engagement to Captain the Honourable Brian Sotherst. Sotherst was rich, and one of the most popular young men about town. Letty Shaw, although she had had one or two harmless flirtations, was well known as a self-respecting and hard-working young actress who loved her work, and against whom no one had ever had a word to say. Consequently, the shock was all the greater when, within a fortnight of her engagement, she was thus to be seen openly supping alone with the most notorious woman hunter about town—a man of bad reputation, a man, too, towards whom Sotherst was known to have a special aversion. Nothing but a break with Sotherst or a fit of temporary insanity seemed to explain, even inadequately, the situation.

      Her best friend—the friend who knew her and believed in her—rose to her feet and came sailing down the room. She nodded gaily to Abbott, whom she hated, and whom she had not recognized for years, and laid her hand upon Letty’s arm.

      “Where’s Brian?” she asked.

      Letty shrugged her shoulders—it was not altogether a natural gesture.

      “On duty to-night,” she answered.

      Her best friend paused for a moment.

      “Come over and join our party, both of you,” she said. “Dicky Pennell’s here and Gracie Marsh—just landed. They’d love to meet you.”

      Letty shook her head slowly. There was a look in her face which even her best friend did not understand.

      “I’m afraid that we can’t do that,” she said. “I am Mr. Abbott’s guest.”

      “And to-night,” Austen Abbott intervened, looking up at the woman who stood between them, “I