Jack O' Judgment

He rose and went to his bookcase and took down volume after volume. They were mostly reference books, and for some time he searched in vain. Then he found a Year Book which gave him the data he wanted, and he brought it back to the table and scribbled a few notes. These he read through and carefully burnt.

He finished his labours with a bright look in his eye and strutted into his bedroom ten years younger in appearance than he had been that afternoon. He put out all the lights and sat for a little while in the shadow of the curtain, watching the street from the open window. At the corner of the block a Salvation Army meeting was in progress, and he was surprised that he had not noticed the fact, although this practice of the Salvationists holding meetings near his flat had before now driven him to utter distraction.

Very keenly he scrutinised the street for some sign of a lurking figure, and once saw a man walk past under the light of a street lamp and melt into the shadow of a doorway on the opposite side of the road. He went into his bedroom and brought back a pair of night glasses, and focused them upon the figure.

He chuckled and went out of the flat into the street, turning southward.

He did not go far, however, before he stopped and looked back, and his patience was rewarded by the sight of a figure crossing the road and entering the building he had just left. The colonel gave him time, and then retraced his steps. He took off his boots in the vestibule and went upstairs quietly. He was half-way up when he heard the soft thud of his own door closing, and grinned again. He gave the intruder time to get inside before he too inserted his key, and turning it without a sound, came into the darkened hall. There was a light in his room, and he heard the sound of a drawer being pulled open. Then he gripped the handle, and, flinging the door open, stepped in. The man who was looking through the desk sprang up in affright.

As Boundary had suspected, it was his former butler, the man who had deserted him the day before without a word. He was a big, heavy-jowled man of powerful build, and the momentary look of fright melted to a leer at the sight of the colonel's face.

"Well, Tom," said Boundary pleasantly, "come back for the pickings?"

"Something like that, guv'nor," said the other. "You don't blame me?"

"I've been pretty good to you, Tom," said the colonel.

"Ugh! I don't know that I've anything to thank you for."

Here was a man who a month before would have cringed at the colonel's upraised finger!

"Oh, don't you, Tom?" said Boundary softly. "Come, come, that's not very grateful."

"What have I got to be grateful to you for?" demanded the man.

"Grateful that you're alive, Tom," said the colonel, and the servant's face went hard.

"None of that, colonel," he snarled; "you can't afford to talk 'fresh' with me. I know a great deal more about you than you suppose. You think I've got no brains."

"I know you have brains, Tom," said the colonel, "but you can't use 'em."

"Can't I, eh? I haven't been looking after you for four or five years and doing your dirty work, colonel, without picking up a little intelligence—and a little information! You'd look comic if they put me in the witness box!"

He was gaining courage at the very mildness of the man of whom he once stood in terror.

"So you've come for the pickings?" said the colonel, ignoring his threat. "Well, help yourself."

He went to the sideboard, poured himself out a little whisky and sat down by the window to watch the man search. Tom pulled open another drawer and closed it again.

"Now look here, colonel," he said, "I haven't made so much money out of this business as you have. Things are pretty bad with me, and I think the least you can do is to give me something to remember you by."

The colonel did not answer. Apparently his thoughts were wandering.

"Tom," he said after awhile, "do you remember three months ago I bought a lot of old cinema films?"

"Yes, I remember," said the man, surprised at the change of subject. "What's that to do with it?"

"There were about ten boxes, weren't there?"

"A dozen, more likely," said the man impatiently. "Now look here, colonel–"

"Wait a moment, Tom. I'll discuss your share when you've given me a little help. Meeting you here—by the way, I saw you out of the window, skulking on the other side of the street—has given me an idea. Where did you put those films?"

The man grinned.

"Are you starting a cinema, colonel?"

"Something like that," replied Boundary; "it was the Salvation Army that gave me the idea really. Do you hear what an infernal noise that drum makes?"

The man made a gesture of impatience.

"What is it you want?" he asked. "If you want the films, I put them in my pantry, underneath the silver cupboard. I suppose, now that the partnership's broken up, you don't object to me taking the silver? I might be starting a little house on my own."

"Certainly, certainly, you can take the silver," said the colonel genially. "Bring me the films."

The man was half-way out of the room when he turned round.

"No tricks, mind you," he said, "no doing funny business when my back's turned."

"I shall not move from the chair, Tom. You don't seem to trust me."

The ex-valet made two journeys before he deposited a dozen shallow tin boxes on the desk.

"There they are," he said, "now tell me what's the game."

"First of all," said the colonel, "were you serious when you suggested that you knew something about me that would be worth a lot to the police? There goes that drum again, Tom. Do you know what use that drum is to me?"

"I don't know," growled the man. "Of course I meant what I said—and what's this stuff about the drum?"

"Why, the people in the street can hear nothing when that's going," said the colonel softly.

He put his hand in the inside of his coat, as though searching for a pocket-book, and so quick was he that the man, leaning over the table, did not see the weapon that killed him. Three times the colonel fired and the man slid in an inert heap to the ground.

"Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, Tom," said the colonel, replacing the weapon; and turning the body over, he took the scarf-pin from his own tie and fastened it in that of the dead man. Then he took his watch and chain from his pocket and slipped it in the waistcoat of the other. He had a signet ring on his little finger and this he transferred to the finger of the limp figure.

Then he began opening the boxes of old films and twined their contents about the floor, pinning them to the curtains, twining them about the legs of the chairs, all the time whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus." He found a candle in the butler's pantry and planted it with a steady hand in the heap of celluloid coils. This he lighted with great care and went out, closing the door softly behind him. Half an hour later, Albemarle Place was blocked with fire engines and a dozen hoses were playing in vain upon the roaring furnace behind the gutted walls of Colonel Dan Boundary's residence.

*         *         *         *         *

Stafford King was an early caller at Doughty Street, and Maisie knew, both by the unusual hour of the visit and by the gravity of the visitor, that something extraordinary had happened.

"Well, Maisie," he said, "there's the end of the Boundary Gang—the colonel is dead."

"Dead?" she said, open-eyed.

"We don't know what happened, but the theory is that he shot himself and set light to the house. The body was found in the ruins, and I was able to identify some of the jewellery—you remember the police had it when he was arrested, and we kept a special note of it for future reference."

She heaved a long sigh.