Bellefonpe, Pa., October 5, 1928.
A SUT STEM.
A HAND ON YOUR SHOULDER.
When a man ain’t got a cent,
An he's feeling kind of blue
And the clouds hang dark and heavy
An’ wont let the sunshine through
It’s a great thing, I my brethren,
Fer a fellow just to lay
His hand upon his shoulder
In a friendly sort o’ way.
It makes a man feel curious,
It makes the tear drops start,
An’ you sort o’ feel a flutter
In the region of your heart!
You can’t look up and meet his eyes;
You don’t know what to say
When his hand is on your shoulder
In a friendly sort of way.
Oh, the world’s curious compound,
With its honey and its gall,
With its cares and bitter crosses—
But a good world after all.
An’ a good God must have made it—
Leastways, that is what I say
‘When a hand is on my shoulder
In a friendly sort o’ way.
— James Witcomb Riley.
LADY WHO TURNED THIEF.
The Reverned Francis Leggatt, Vi-
car of Meddersley, was one of those
men whom it is not easy to excite or
to disturb. Nature had blessed him
with a well-balanced temperament,
and he had seconded nature’s begin-
nings, during his school-days at Eton
and his undergraduate days at Cam-
bridge, by a strict devotion to the
study of mathematics; he was essen-
tially a mathematical sort of person,
precise, orderly, given to perfection
of detail.
His taste was for the straight line
—but he was certainly thrown off it
when, one fine spring morning, he
hurried across from the vestry door
of his fine old parish church to the
study of the vicarage, into which
peaceful retreat he immediately sum-
moned the wife of his bosom. Mrs.
Leggatt, hastening thither, found him
standin gon the hearth-rug, his hands
thrust in the pickets of his trousers,
his eyes bent to the toes of his well-
polished shoes.
“Marian!” he said, looking up with
an expression which his wife had nevy-
er sen before. “Prepare yourself for
a shock. There’s been a theft from
the church. The Hislip chalice is
gone.”
Mrs. Leggatt threw up her hands
and sank into the nearest chair with
a stifled moan. Her husband's curt an-
nouncement took her breath away.
She could not have been more horri-
fied if he had said that the local bank
had gone to smash, or government
Securities dropped to zero.
The Hislip chalice was famous,
unique; its value was—Mrs, Leggatt
did not know what. What she did
know was that it was one of the very
few pre-Reformation chalices left in
England; that it dated from 1427 A.
D., and that experts and archilogists
regarded it with a reverence such as
that which devotees accord to the
bones of a saint. Dry-as-dust gentle-
men came from far and near to look
at it; now and then Leggatt, as cus-
todian allowed it to be photograph-
ed, standing guard over its sacred-
ness while the man of the camera was
busy. And once a vandal from way
over the Atlantic had calmly offered
the vicar ten thousand dollars for it
—and had added insult by an equally
calm suggestion that perhaps twenty
thousand might do when Leggatt an-
swered icily that ten thousand would
not.
Mrs. Leggatt found words at last.
“Impossible, Francis!” she gasped.
“It—it must be mislaid!”
“No!” said Leggatt, with a snap of
his lips which his wife knew well
enough. “It’s—gone. I had occasion
to open the safe in the vestry just now
and, of course, I saw that the Hislip
chalice wasn’t there. I’ve always kept
it in one place ever since I came here
nine years ago—in the far right-
hard corner. Well—that corner’s emp-
y!
“You have not misplaced it your-
self 7” suggested Mrs. Leggatt.
“I never misplace anything,” re-
plied the vicar, with a characteristic
sniff. “As you are aware,” he added.
“When did you last see it, Fran-
cis?” she asked feebly.
“Today is Thursday,”
gatt. “I last saw it on
be precise,
replied Leg-
Monday. To
on Monday afternoon. We
had better recall the circumstances,
Marian. You will, perhaps, remem-
ber that Monday was a very wet day.
During the afternoon, Sir Charles
sent a note across from the Hall say-
ing that his guests were kept indoors
by the bad weather, and would I help
him by showing them over the
church? They all came across—Sir
Charles with them.
“I showed them everything—they
were in the church with me well over
an hour. An hour and twenty-five
minutes to be exact. Of course, I
showed them the church plate. I took
it all out of the safe and set it on the
table. Naturally, I told them all
about the Hislip chalice—its history,
its unique character, its
value. I put it back in the
all the rest of the plate.”
“And, of course, locked up the
safe,” said Mrs. Leggatt.
Leggatt, who still stood on the
hearti-vug, shifted his position uneas-
ily.
“Well,” he answered, “I'm sorry to
say I did not—just then, at any rate!
I left the keys in the lock, though
—I think I had some idea about tak-
Ing one of the registers out before
finally locking up the safe. No, we
went out of the vestry then to ex-
amine the church. I regret to say—
now—that the party didn’t keep to-
gether. Some remained with me,
listening to my description, some
went off one way, some another—you
know what people do in such circum-
stances. Eventually they all left.
Then I locked up the safe—without
reopening it—and came home. Mar-
ian—there’s no doubt about it. The
safe with
Hislip chalice was stolen while those
immense |
people were in the church.”
“You think somebody slipped into -the village and saw Higson. - He soon
the church while you were showing
Sir Charles and his guests round?”
suggested Mrs. Leggatt.
“No, I don't,” replied Leggatt sar-'
donically. “Nobody could slip in! 1
locked the church door from the in-
side so that we shouldn’t be disturbed.
No—I think one of Sir Charles’s
guests stole the chalice.”
Mrs. Leggatt let out an exclama-
tion of horror. “Francis!” she said.
“One of Sir Charles’s guests! Im-
possible! Not to be thought of!”
“I think of it, anyway,” retorted
Leggatt. “And as to its being im-
possible, that’s pure nonsense, Mar-
ian. What do we know of Sir Charles '
Leddingham’s guests? Absolutely
nothing—as regards their moral char-
acters, anyhow!”
“But—but—people of that class,
Francis!” protested Mrs. Leggatt.
“Oh, fudge!” said Leggatt. He
laughed contemptuously. “That’s zl
nonsense, too! But let's go through
them. We'll rule out Sir Charles—
he’s nothing worse—and nothing bet-
ter, for that matter—than a horse-
racing squire. Well, there's old Lord
Pelford and, of course, Lady Pelford.
I don’t suspect Pelford, of course he is
a retired judge—I don’t think he’d
steal the chalice. Nor could his
wife.”
“I should think not!” said Mrs
Leggatt indignantly. “Dear people—
they were both extremely nice to me
when we dined there the other night.”
“Then there’s Sir Robert Sindall,”
continued Leggatt. “I know nothing
about him except that his horse won
the Derby last year.”
“And he’s a very wealthy man,
too,” observed Mrs. Leggatt.
“That doesn’t impress me,” said
Leggatt. “I've heard of millionaires
who were afflicted with kleptomania.
Then there’s Colonel Belchanter.”
“And Mrs. Belchanter,” added Mrs.
Leggatt. “They're nice people, too,
Francis!”
“I dare say they are all nice peo-
ple, Marian,” answered Leggatt freez-
ingly. “But one of them has appro-
priated the Hislip chalice—I’m as sure
of it as I am that I see you sitting
there. Well—there are four others.
Captain Riversley—raffish sort, 1
should say. Horses—cards—that sort
of thing.” Mr. Hawksfoot—I don't
know anything about him, but I
should imagine he’s some sort of an
adventurer—the sort of man you see
at Monte Carlo, and at Deauville, and
at Tattersall’s on Monday morning,
“How do you know, Francis?” sug-
gested Mrs. Leggatt. “You've nev-
er been to any of those places.”
“I've read a good deal about them,
anyway,” retorted Leggatt. “And I
keep my ears open. Well—two more.
Women. Miss Field-Maple——”
“Such a very nice girl!” exclaimed
Mrs. Leggatt. “You couldn’t sus-
pect—"
“And Mrs. Peacock——"
“Mrs. Peacock ‘is a delightful wo-
man!” said Mrs. Leggatt. “I took
quite a liking to her! She was so aw-
fully sympathetic about Bobby when
I told her that I was uneasy about his
cough.”
“I noticed that Mrs. Peacock is re-
markably fond of and extremely pro-
ficient ‘at bridge!” remarked Leggatt
cynically. “And I should say, from
her conversation, that sort of thing.
Marian, you can’t get away from two
facts. First, the house-party across
there at the Hall is of the turfy sort
gamblers, every man and woman of
them, from old Pelford downward.
Second—one of Sir Charles Ledding-
ham’s guests has appropriated that
chalice, with a view to selling it! But
—which ?”
“What shall you do, Francis?” ask-
ed Mrs. Leggatt in a whisper. “The
police ?” .
“Not at present,” answered Leg-
gatt. “No—TI’ll think!”
At that Mrs. Leggatt rose and de-
parted, and her husband picked up
his pipe, and after carefully filling 1t
with tobacco, felt for his match box.
Leggatt thought hard, and deep-
ly, and long. Of one thing he felt al-
most certain—nobody had entered the
church from the time he left on Mon-
day afternoon to the moment he had
gone into it that morning, Thurs-
day. There was, of course, just a
possibility that Higson, the parish
clerk and sexton, might have visited
the sacred edifice for some reason
during the intervening two days, but
that could be ascertained presently—
he had little doubt that Higson had
not.
He had a very clear recollection of
everything that had happened while
he was in the church with the Squire
and his guests. After admitting
them to the church and locking the
door from the inside, he had first tak-
en them to the vestry and, opening
the safe, had shown them the old
plate, the parish registers, dating
from 1547, and various other matters
of interest that had accumulated dur-
ing the last two or three centuries.
He had left his keys in the lock of
the safe when he and the others pass-
ed into the church to examine the
architecture, the monuments, the in-
scriptions, the old brasses and paint-
ings. And while one was here and
another there,
into the vestry, opened the safe and
abstracted the Hislip chalice.
It was an article that could easily
be hidden, reflected Leggatt—a par-
cel-gilt cup, standing about seven and
a half inches high and measuring two
and a half-inches in diameter across
the upper rim and
why, it could be slipped into a pocket.
“And, of course, I'd told them all
about it,” he mused regretfully.
“Told them, I remember, about the
American collector who offered first
ten and then twenty thousand dol-
lars for it. That was dangling temp-
tation before the needy. And some
of these racing, card-playing people
are often at their wits’ end for ready
money, I believe.
“However, that’s neither here nor
there—the thing is, what's to be
done? I don’t want the Bishop to
know, and as for the Arch-deacon—
whew! I can’t very well £0 across to
the Hall and demand to search the
boxes of every man and woman there.
And as for the police—no, I do not
want that!” :
Eventually, knocking the ashes out I course.
the circular base— |
i
sign
of his pipe, Leggatt went down into |
discovered that the parish clerk had
, not been near the church since Sun-'
day evening. And Higson was the
only person in the parish besides him-
self who could have entered the
church.
He stayed talking with Higson
some little time; an hour had passed
before he went back to the vicarage.
: Mrs. Leggatt met him in the hall.
{ “Any news, Francis?” she asked
i Chilminster,’
anxiously. :
“None,” he said. “I’ve just been
‘down to Higson’s. Of course, I;
didn’t tell him anything of this. No- ;
body must know, Marian. But Hig- |
son has never been in the church since
he locked up after even-song on Sun- |!
day. He's never lent his key to any- !
one, either, so——" :
He paused at that, checked by the '
sight of a card which lay on the old |
oak side table in the hall. Mrs. Leg-
gatt followed his glance.
“Mrs. Peacock called,” she said, in-!
dicating the card. “She was so.
charming—called to ask after Bobby. |
Most sympathetic! She promised to
call again in a day or two—she's
staying at the Hall a few days long-
er.”
Leggatt was staring at the card.
Suddenly be glanced sharply at his |
wife. “You didn’t tell her anything |
about—eh ?” he asked.
Mrs. Leggatt flushed.
she exclaimed indignantly.
should!”
“Sorry, Marian—sorry. Of course
you wouldn't! I—it’s so important,
you see, that we should keep strict
silence about it. If the archdeacon
knew——"
“As if I didn’t know all that,” said
Mrs. Leggatt. She was still offend-
ed, and she turned and went off to-
wards the nursery. “Of course I said
nothing!” she flung over her should-
er.
Leggatt remained in the hall. He
began absent-mindedly to finger Mrs, |
Peacock’s card. So Mrs. Peacock had
been to the vicarage to inquire after |
Bobby, had she? Very kind of her, |!
of course, but—supposing Mrs. Pea- |
cock had another idea in her
mind. Supposing Mrs. Peacock had ;
fom fishing—wanting to find out— |
if—if . .. )
It was at that moment that Leg-
gatt had a brain-wave. He had not
the slightest notion where the brain-
wave came from. But it swept him
straight out of his front door and
down the path of the village.
Leggatt, as a man with a good deal |
of spare time on his hands, was a!
great reader, almost an omnivorous '
one. Recently he had been reading
criminology; and now he found him-
self repeating a sentence which he
had read only a day or two before in
a technical work on theft.
The thief’s first instinet, on se-
curing a stolen object, is to “plant”
it, i. e., to dispose of it, as quick-
ly as possible, in some safe place,
so thatin the event of his immedi-
ate or speedy arrest, he may not be |
found to be in possession of it. i
That, no doubt, reflected Leggatt,
applied to the procedure of the pro-
fessional thief—but it had its origin
in a certain attribute of human na-
ture, and might be applied to the
amateur wrongdoer as well as to the |
skilled expert. To get rid of the pur- |
loined article quickly—that was all
of a piece with the instinct to hide, |
to get away, to secrete. i
Well, in this case his brain-wave |
had shown him how the purloiner of |
the Hislip chalice could get it out |
of reach smartly and surely. He |
proposed to find out at once if the |
means he was imagining had been em- |
ployed. And within five minutes he |
had tunred into the post-office and, |
there being nobody else there, was |
closeted with the woman who presid- |
ed over it, Mrs. Marsh. i
“Mrs. Marsh,” he began, leaning !
confidentially across the counter
“I've called to see you on a very im- |
portant matter—so important that I
can’t tell you its nature. I dare say
I ought really to have gone to the |
postmaster at Chilminster to get his |
permission to come to you, but the |
matter is of such pressing moment
that I daren’t waste the time. So— |
I've come straight to you.” i
“Francis!”
“As if 1
|
§
“What is it, Sir?” asked Mus.
Marsh. {
Leggatt leaned closer over the!
counter.
“This, Mrs. Marsh,” he ge- |
plied, his tone suggesting mystery as
well as confidlence—“I want to see |
your registered letter book.”
Mrs. Marsh let out an exclamation
that was not encouraging. “Oh, dear
me, Mr. Leggatt,” she said. “I—
I'm afraid I can’t do that, Sir. We're |
under strict instructions not to di-
vulge any post-office business to any- |
body. It would be as much as my !
place was worth——” j
“Mrs. Marsh,” interrupted Leggatt, |
“if I went to the postmaster at Chil.
minister and told him my reason, he'd |
come here with me himself and show |
me your book. But that would mean |
—the police. And I don’t want to |
have the police dragged in. I have!
reasons for that—and reasons for |
' asking you to show me the book. Al]!
the thief had slipped |
I want is to seé the entries made in |
that book since Monday last. And,
Mrs. Marsh—you know me. No one
—no one—will ever know anything
about this!”
But Mrs. Marsh still hesitated. “I
don’t like it, Mr. Leggatt! Irregu-
larity——"
“The circumstances are exception-
al, Mrs. Marsh,” Leggatt interrupted
again. “Still, if you feel you can’t, I
must go at once to the postmaster at
“You're sure he’d come back with
you, Sir?”
“l am quite sure he would, Mrs,
Marsh,” replied Leggatt. “But ne
would bring the police superintend-
ent with him. And that I do not
want—for the sake of the village,”
Mrs. Marsh suddenly pushed an
oblong book across the counter and,
opening it. showed Leggatt a page of
duplicates.
“There's only been three registered
letters sent away from this office
since. Monday morning, Mr. Leggatt,”
she said hurriedly. “Look for your-
self. TI know all about them, of
That first one—that’s for a
{ lucky.
weekly affair, from John Coates—he
‘sends his widowed mother a pound
‘every "Monday and he always regis-
ters it. That's for a letter, in a reg-
sitered envelop, from Sir Charles to
his bankers in London. And the third
is for a small parcel that was regis-
tered, on Tuesday morning, by one
of those ladies staying at the Hall.”
“Just so,” said Laggatt, keepng his
voice as steady as possible.
that’s all?”
“That’s all, Sir,” affirmed Mrs.
Marsh. “And I beg you'll not let
anybody know, Sir, that——"
“Make yourself quite easy, Mrs.
Marsh,” said Laggett. “Not a soul
will ever know. And—I'm very much
obliged to you.”
Mrs. Marsh put away her book. “$
hope you’ve found out what you want-
ed to know, Sir,” she said, eying her
caller inquisitively.
“I—I can’t tell you,” replied Leg-
gatt. “At least—not yet. But 44
He hesitated a moment, murmured
another word of thanks, and forth-
with left the office.
Outside, he pulled out a notebook
and pencil. “Sent it to herself,” he
muttererd. “Clever. And—she’s go-
ing to stay at the Hall a few days
longer, is she? And came to inquire
about Bobby’s cough, eh? Um!”
Then he wrote down an address:
Mrs. Guy Peacock,
23 Heatherfield Mansions,
Mayfair, W.
The first thing that Leggatt did on
returning to the vicarage was to pick
up the card which Mrs. Peacock had
left on the hall table and put it care-
fully away in his pocketbook; he had
already thought out a plan of action
in which that card was to be a high-
ly useful factor. The second was to
announce to Mrs. Leggatt, over the ,
luncheon table, that he was going ap
to town by the afternoon train. Mrs.
, Leggatt looked her astonishment.
“Francis!” she exclaimed. Then
light burst in upon her.
some—idea ?” she suggested.
clue?”
“An idea, yes,”
“A—a
assented Leggatt.
“And— 1
“You have .
“A clue—well, I don’t know. But— |
I'm going. And—it’s to be kept se-
cret—mentioned to—no one!
be back tomorrow afternoon.”
At three o'clock, looking very de-
termined, his wife thought, he went
off to catch the local train to Chil-
minster; at five minutes to four he
was on the platform at Chilminster,
awaiting the London express. And
as he stood there, he suddenly saw
one of Sir Charles’s guests—Hawks-
foot, the man whom he had describ-
I shall
ed to Mrs. Leggatt as looking like an |
adventurer.
Hawksfoot,who seemed to be in a
hurry, did not see the vicar; Leggatt
watched him hasten off towards the
express, just then steaming in. Pres-
ently he saw him enter a first-class |
smoking compartment; Leggatt pass-
ed its door; he traveled third-class
He had another glimpse of Hawks-
foot when the train arrived at King’s
Cross four hours later; Hawksfoot
was stepping into a taxicab.
Leggatt went off
fashioned hotel
of Bond Street,
dinner, over two or three: pipes of to-
bacco, revived his
for the morrow. Certain circum-
stances, he thought, were highly in
his favor—in fact, he wag extremely
He knew Heatherfield Man-
in the neighborhood
{sions well; he had once had a small
flat there himself, when, before his
marriage, he had been curate at
West End church. Accordingly he
was acquainted with what was “done
there about letters. :
There were some thirty apart-
ments, of various sizes, in Heather-
field Mansions; if any tenant happen-
ed to go away and lock up his or her
apartment, all letters and parcels for
that particular person were deposited
with the hall porter at his office in the
main entrance until the addressee
returned. And it was doubtless in the
hall porter’s nest or piegonholes that
the registered parcel, sent off by Mrs.
Peacock from Meddersley, was then
reposing. In that parcel Leggatt
firmly believed the Hislip chalice
would be found. And—he was deter-
mined to get it.
At ten o’clock next
gatt walked into the entrance of
Heatherfield Mansions, and to his
great joy recognized in the hall porter
the same man who had acted in that
capacity when he himself was a ten-
ant— an ex-army man named Mur-
phy. Murphy remembered the former
curate well enough, and gretted him
almost affectionately; Laggatt let
him talk awhile before entering on his
own business. = At last he drew out
Mrs. Peacock’s card—and prepared to
tell the lies which he just had to tell.
“I don’t know whether you're aware
morning Leg-
of it, Murphy,” he began. “I have |
been Vicar of Meddersley, away in the
North, for some years, since leaving
here. There is one of your tenants,
Mrs. Guy Peacock, staying at Med-
dersley Hall just now as guest of Sir
Charles Leddingham. Mrs, Peacock
is going to remain there rather longer
than she intended, and knowing that
Was coming to town last night and
returning home this afternoon, she
gave me her card, asked me to hand
it to you, and to ask you for a small
registered parcel which she sent here
the other day and now wants—she
said you’d have it.”
He knew before he had come to the
end of ‘his last hurried sentence that
there was something wrong; that his
carefully contrived scheme wasn’t go-
ing te be successful; that something
had happened. Murphy was looking
at him oddly.
“Well, bedad, that’s the queer thing
entirely, Mr. Leggatt!” he said
“You're the second gentleman that’s
called for that same parcel this
morning, and with the same message.
Mr. Hawksfoot, that’s a great chum
of Mrs. Peacock’s when she’s at home
—Sure, he was round here for that
parcel at nine o’clock. And of course
I gave it to him.”
Leggatt thanked his stars that he
was able to keep his countenance.
“Oh, Mr. Hawksfoot’s got it, has
he, Murphy?” he answered. “Oh,
that'll be all right. I know Mr.
Hawksfoot—he’s been staying at Sir
Charles Leddingham’s too. I see how
. the mistake arises. So long as he’s!
|
i
|
i
{
1
|
{
to a quiet, old |
got ‘the parcel . . . By-the-by, doesn’t
"Mr. Hawksfoot live somewhere round
here?”
That was a chance cast—Leggatt’s
tone suggested that he knew some-
thing of Hawksfoot’s whereabouts; in
reality he knew nothing. But Mur-
phy swallowed the bait.
“Oh, he does, Mr. Leggatt,” he an-
swered. “At 231A, Half Moon Street.
often carry notes for him there
from Mrs. Peacock—mighty thick is
them two, Sir—and rale sports, both
of them.’
Then he turned to attend to an-
other caller, and Leggatt, with a nod
and a smile, went out into the street.
He was conscious of only one thing
—Hawksfoot, without doubt, had got
the Hislip chalice.
And now Leggatt stood wondering
what to do next. Should he go to his
solicitor? Or should be go to the
police? to Scotland Yard? That,
perhaps, was what he ought to do.
‘There was no doubt in Leggatt’s mind
now that these two people, whom ex-
Sergeant Murphy had aptly described
as being mighty thick, were in a con-
spiracy about the theft of the Hislip
chalice. And there was no doubt that
it was now in Hawkfoot’s possession.
Leggatt suddenly came to a deci-
sion. He would go round to Half
Moon Street, call on Hawksfoot at his
rooms and tell him his business in
plain words. If Hawksfoot blustered,
equivocated, protested, he would not
only threaten him with the police, but
would immediately summon their as-
sistance. That was surely the thing
to do—and, as Half Moon Street was
close by, in five minutes more Leg-
gatt was at Hawksfoot’s door.
A youthful valet answered his
knock, and on hearing what he want-
ed, shook his head.
“Mr. Hawksfoot’s just gone out,
Sir,” he replied. “Ten minutes since,
Sir. I couldn't say when he'll be
back—might be some time, Sir. 1
know he’s lunching at his club, Sir.”
“Oh!” said Legatt. “Which club
is that?”
“Saddle and Stirrup Club, Sir—Pic-
cadilly. Not five minutes’ walk, Sir.”
“But you're not sure he'll be there
now ?” suggested Leggatt. “Just so
—might be out the town, eh? Um!
I think I'll step in and leave Mr.
Hawksfoot a note, if I may?”
“Certainly, Sir,” said the
standing politely aside.
Sir.” He ushered Leggatt into a cozy
sitting-room and pointed to an old
bureau that stood in a recess. “Note-
paper and envelops there, Sir.”
“Thank you,” replied Leggatt.
He drew a chair up to the bureau—
and then, as the valet withdrew, clos-
ing the door behind him, Laggatt let
out a sharp, sibilant breath of sur-
prise and relief. For there, right be-
fore him, in an open compartment of
the bureau, stood the Hislip chalice!
Leggatt acted and moved with a
determination and speed that surpris-
ed himself. The Hislip chalice went
straight into his pocket in one mo-
ment; within the next, he was out
the hall again, summoning the
valet.
“On second thoughts,”
valet,
“This way,
said Leg-
and after a belated | 82tt calmly, “I won’t write a note.
I call round at Mr. Hawksfoot’s
plan of campaign | ol instead. But,” he added, “in case
|
‘him my card?
miss him there, will you please give
Thank you—good
morning!”
A moment later Leggatt was down-
stairs and going swiftly away. At
the corner of Charges Street he
chanced on a taxicab and plunged in-
to it with a sharp order to the driver.
“King’s Cross!”
At seven o’clock that evening Leg-
gatt, tired but triumphant, let him-
self into his vicarage. No one wit-
nessed his entrance; Mrs. Leggatt
was up-stairs in the nursery; the
servants were in the back regions. He
went straight to his study, took a
bunch of keys from a certain hiding-
place and stole out again into the ad.
Jjacent churchayrd. Presently he was
in the church and in the vestry—and
when he had done what he wanted
there, he slammed the door of the
safe viciously. Then he went home
and summoned his wife.
“Marian,” he said, “I've got it. It’s
back in the safe! And if ever I run
any risk about it again, may I be—
shot!”
Mrs. Leggatt was clasping her
hands in a paroxysm of delight and »f
admiration at her hushand’s clever:
ness.
“Francis!” she exclaimed. “But—
where did you find it? And how?”
“I found it,” replied Leggatt, with
a glance at the door, “on Mr. Hawks-
foot’s desk, in his flat in Half Moon
Street.
Marian? But—that’s not all! Have
we ten minutes before dinner? Then
listen!” ’
Mrs. Leggatt listened open-mouth-
ed. When her husband had told her
the whole horrible story, she threw
up her hands. i
“Then that accounts for it,” she ex-
claimed. “That, of course, accounts
for it!”
“Accounts for—what?” asked Leg- |
gatt.
“For this!” replied his wife. “This
afternoon, about three o'clock, Mrs.
Peacock called here—to inquire about
Bobby’s cough, of course. While she
was here, a footman
from the Hall with a telegram whick
had just arrived there for her—Sir
Charles thought it might be of im-
portance. She opened it—and I saw
at once that it gave her a shock. She
went red, white, red again—and
seemed, well, furiously annoyed and
angry. She gave me a very queer
look—very queer.
“Then she jumped up and said she |
must be off—she’d had news that
necessitated her returning to town at ;
once. She hurried away—and not
long afterwards I saw one of Sir
Charle’s cars setting off towards Chil-
minster—I suppose she was in it, and
going to catch the express. Of course,
that telegram would be from Hawks-
foot. He, no doubt, Francis, had
found your card on his desk. Fran-
cis—don’t you wish we’d been there
to see his face when he found it!”
The dinner-bell rang before Leg-
gatt could answer. But before he had
twice put his spoon in his soup, he
looked up and smiled.
“I wish we had, Marian, I wish we
had,” he said.
What d’you think of that,
came across -
“However, you had
-
the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Peacock
open her telegram. 1 hadn’t. But
it gave me a wicked, absolutely fiend-
ish feeling to leave Hawksfoot my
card!”
—From Hearst’s International Cos-
mopolitan.
re ap
SOLDIER GRAVES ARE UNKEMPT
IN BONY CEMETERY.
Paris, France.—“The most disap-
pointing sight I have found in Europe
is the American Soldiers Cemetery at
Bony,” reports Lieutenant-Colonel
Matthew Carey, of the famons 27th
division of New York State, who is
here revisiting ground he was famil-
iar with ten years ago.
“I visited at least 50 of the 250
beautiful burial grounds belonging to
the British Allies and found every
one of them in perfect condition. There
are permanent markers over svery
grave and flowers on every one.
“An English rose-vine trails over
the little grave of every English
soldier; purple and white heather
blooms over every one of the brave
Scotchmen who lost their lives in the
Ypres salient and the New Zealand-
ers lie in a little corner of their home-
land. Every flower, bush and shrub
to be found in the Canadian section
was brought over from the Domin-
ion.”
Colonel Carney was extremely sur-
prised when he came to the wooden
staff which serves as a monument for
the dead of his own division. A rag-
ged piece of American flag bunting
waves from the top and rain and snow
have almost entirely washed off the
inscription it bears.
The little wooden crosses will soon
be replaced by ones from the Carrara
quarries.
“But why the Italian marble?”
asks Colonel Carney. Why not some
of our good stuff from the State of
Vermont and thus make it a little
corner of America?”
The only flowers in the whole ceme-
tery of several thousands of graves
were those Colonel Carney had
brought with him to put on the grave
of a friend. The caretaker, an Amer-
ican citizen, showed him where it was
and left him at once, manifesting lit-
tle interest in the matter. At all of
the British Allied cemeteries, on the
contrary, the visitor had met with
more than extreme courtesy and a
great desire to aid him.
The war has been over for ten
years, Ypres is entirely rebuilt and
the American Cemetery which holds
the bodies of some of the finest sol-
diers America sent over is still far
from the condition in which visitors
should find it,
tee bm
Anyone Can Fly Says Chamberlain.
Anyone who can drive an automo-
bile can learn to fly!”
Thus Clarence D. Chamberlain dis-
pells the popular idea that a success-
ful air pilot must have superior physi-
cal and mental equipment along with
steel nerves.
Chamberlain, the hero of the New
York-to-Germany flight, now consult-
ant on aviation to the city of New
York, expresses the belief, in an arti-
cle written for the current North Am-
erican Review, that thousands of Am-
ericans would be flying their own
planes today except for lack of confi
dence in their own qualifications.
The rigid demands of military fly-
ers during the World War have given
the ordinary man a feeling of inferi-
ority when he considers flying.
Chamberlain says. But he points out
that while less than 12 per cent of the
war time candidates for the flying
corps ever became pilots, nearly 93
per cent of the applicants who apply
for a federal flying license today are
able to qualify physically.
“The man who wants to use a plane
as he would an automobile—to go
somewhere quickly and comfortably—
needs no more special physical quali-
fications than he would need to drive
an automobile,” he says. “He ought to
be able to see and hear and judge dis-
tances, but so should the man behind
a steering wheel. In these days of
congested street traffic, it is a ques-
tion if the man is not less handicap-
ped off in the air than on the ground.
Boys in their teens today have the
making of better flyers than adults,
Chamberlain has discovered, because
. they have grown up in an age when
flying is more or less commonplace and
So do not regard the airplane as a
thing to inspire awe, as do their el-
ders. They learn to fly as naturally as
Hele fathers learned to drive automo-
iles.
“I have taken up youngsters of 12
to 16 who got the hang of flying with-
in a very few minutes,” he says. “It
often takes hours of perspiring and
despairing effort on the part of the
instructor before an adult acquires
the same knowledge.”
"HUNTERS CAN AID IN DISEASE
| FIGHT.
The Board of Game Commissioners
are asking the co-operation of all
hunters in an effort to keep Pennsyl-
vania free from tularemia or rabbit
fever which has been prevalent at
times in others States. ;
Despite many rumors concerning
affected rabbits in Pennsylvania dur-
ing the past several hunting seasons,
intensive examinations failed to dis-
cover a single case. Co-operation cf
the hunters will assure continuance of
this condition, officers of the Commis-
sion said.
Sportsmen who find dead rabbits
! were asked to send them to the of-
| ices of the Commission at Harris-
burg, for examination. If presence of
rabbit fever is suspected it was urg-
ed that sportsmen use precaution in
handling the body to prevent person-
-al infection. Use of rubber gloves or
, washing in an antiseptic solution was
| suggested.
In wild rabbits a spotting of the
i liver and spleen with yellowish and
{ whitish flecks was said to be the most
! certain symptom of presence of the
. disease.
In addition to wild rabbits and
hares, ground squirrels, pine squir-
rels, woodchucks, opossums, cats,
porcupines and various species of rats
and mice are susceptible to the dis
ease.