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

my what?” he exclaimed, in a tone of horror.

      “For your arrest,” Peter Ruff explained calmly. “Surely you must have been expecting it! During all these years you must have grown used to expecting it at every moment!”

      Major Jones collapsed. He looked at Ruff as one might look at a man who has taken leave of his senses. Yet underneath it all was the coward’s fear!

      “What are you talking about, man?” he exclaimed. “What do you mean? Lower your voice, for heaven’s sake! Consider my position here! Some one might overhear! If this is a joke, let me tell you that it’s a d——d foolish one!”

      Peter Ruff raised his eyebrows.

      “I do not wish,” he said, “to create a disturbance—my manner of coming here should have assured you of that. At the same time, business is business. I hold a warrant for your arrest, and I am forced to execute it.”

      “Do you mean that you are a detective, then?” Major Jones demanded.

      He was a big man, but his voice seemed to have grown very small indeed.

      “Naturally,” Peter Ruff answered. “I should not come here without authority.”

      “What is the charge?” the other man faltered.

      “Blackmail,” Peter Ruff said slowly. “The information against you is lodged by Sir Richard Dyson.”

      It seemed to Peter Ruff, who was watching his companion closely, that a wave of relief passed over the face of the man who sat cowering in his chair. He certainly drew a little gasp—stretched out his hands, as though to thrust the shadow of some fear from him. His voice, when he spoke, was stronger. Some faint show of courage was returning to him.

      “There is some ridiculous mistake,” he declared. “Let us talk this over like sensible men, Mr. Ruff. If you will wait until I have spoken to Sir Richard, I can promise you that the warrant shall be withdrawn, and that you shall not be the loser.”

      “I am afraid it is too late for anything of that sort,” Peter Ruff said. “Sir Richard’s patience has been completely exhausted by your repeated demands.”

      “He never told me so,” Major Jones whined. “I quite thought that he was always glad to help an old friend. As a matter of fact, I had not meant to ask him for anything else. The last few hundreds I had from him was to have closed the thing up. It was the end.”

      Peter Ruff shook his head.

      “No,” he said, “it was not the end! It never would have been the end! Sir Richard sought my advice, and I gave it him without hesitation. Sooner or later, I told him, he would have to adopt different measures. I convinced him. I represent those measures!”

      “But the matter can be arranged,” Major Jones insisted, with a little shudder, “I am perfectly certain it can be arranged. Mr. Ruff, you are not an ordinary police officer—I am sure of that. Give me a chance of having an interview with Sir Richard before anything more is done. I will satisfy him, I promise you that. Why, if we leave the place together like this, every one here will get to know about it!”

      “Be reasonable,” Peter Ruff answered. “Of course everyone will get to know about it! Blackmailing cases always excite a considerable amount of interest. Your photograph will probably be in the Daily Mirror tomorrow or the next day. In the meantime, I must trouble you to pay your respects to Mrs. Bognor and to come with me.”

      “To Sir Richard’s house?” Major Jones asked, eagerly.

      “To the police-stations,” Peter Ruff answered.

      Major Jones did not rise. He sat for a few moments with his head buried in his hands.

      “Mr. Ruff,” he said hoarsely, “listen to me. I have been fortunate lately in some investments. I am not so poor as I was. I have my check-book in my pocket, and a larger balance in the bank now than I have ever had before. If I write you a check for, say, a hundred—no, two!—five!” he cried, desperately, watching Peter Ruff’s unchanging face—“five hundred pounds, will you come round with me to Sir Richard’s house in a hansom at once?”

      Peter Ruff shook his head.

      “Five thousand pounds would not buy your liberty from me, Major Jones,” he said.

      The man became abject.

      “Have pity, then,” he pleaded. “My health is not good—I couldn’t stand imprisonment. Think of what it means to a man of my age suddenly to leave everything worth having in life just because he may have imposed a little on the generosity of a friend! Think how you would feel, and be merciful!”

      Peter Ruff shook his head slowly. His face was immovable, but there was a look in his eyes from which the other man shrank.

      “Major Jones,” he said, “you ask me be merciful. You appeal to my pity. For such as you I have no pity, nor have I ever shown any mercy. You know very well, and I know, that when once the hand of the law touches your shoulder, it will not be only a charge o’ blackmail which the police will bring against you!”

      “There is nothing else—nothing else!” he cried. “Take half my fortune, Mr. Ruff. Let me get away. Give me a chance—just a sporting chance!”

      “I wonder,” Peter Ruff said, “what chance that poor old lady in Weston had? No, I am not saying you murdered her. You never had the pluck. Your confederate did that, and you handled the booty. What were the initials inside that ring you showed us to-night, Major Jones?”

      “Let me go to my bedroom,” he said, in a strange, far-away tone. “You can come with me and stand outside.”

      Peter Ruff assented.

      “To save scandal,” he said, “yes!”

      Three flights of stairs they climbed. When at last they reached the door, the trembling man made one last appeal.

      “Mr. Ruff,” he said, “have a little mercy. Give me an hour’s start—just a chance for my life!”

      Peter Ruff pushed him in the door.

      “I am not a hard man,” he said, “but I keep my mercy for men!”

      He took the key from the inside of the door, locked it, and with the key in his pocket descended to the drawing-room. The young lady who had sat on Major Jones’s right was singing a ballad. Suddenly she paused in the middle of her song. The four people who were playing bridge looked up. Mrs. Bognor screamed.

      “What was that?” she asked quickly.

      “It sounded,” Peter Ruff said, “very much like revolver shot.”

      “I see,” Sir Richard remarked, with a queer look in his eyes, as he handed over a roll of notes to Peter Ruff, “the jury brought it in ‘Suicide’! What I can’t understand is—”

      “Don’t try,” Peter Ruff interrupted briskly. “It isn’t in the bond that you should understand.”

      Sir Richard helped himself to a drink. A great burden had passed from his shoulders, but he was not feeling at his best that morning. He could scarcely keep his eyes from Peter Ruff.

      “Ruff,” he said, “I have known you some time, and I have known you to be a square man. I have known you to do good-natured actions. I came to you in desperation but I scarcely expected this!”

      Peter Ruff emptied his own tumbler and took up his hat.

      “Sir Richard,” he said, “you are like a good many other people. Now that the thing is done, you shrink from the thought of it. You even wonder how I could have planned to bring about the death of this man. Listen, Sir Richard. Pity for the deserving, or for those who have in them one single quality, one single grain, of good, is a sentiment which deserves respect. Pity for vermin, who crawl about the world leaving a poisonous trail upon everything they touch, is a false and unnatural sentiment. For every hopelessly corrupt man who is induced to quit