When the phone call from upstate came through, you couldn’t see him breathe at all while the lieutenant was talking. The lieutenant hung up and was quiet.
Sturgess asked, “Was that it?”
“Yeah, that was it.”
“Did he leave any word, say anything about — forgiving anybody?”
“He left a message for you,” the lieutenant said unwillingly, looking down at his desk.
Sturgess came closer still. “Tell me what is it! I’ve got to know!”
“He said, ‘Tell Sturgess I’ll be seeing him again. He knows where to find me. In her eyes. Tell him I’ll always be waiting there.’ ”
Sturgess put his hand to where he carried his badge, as if something hurt him there, and turned around and walked out of the room without another word.
Barbara said, half-laughingly, when he squatted down before her, his face so strained and white, and peered so closely, “What’re you looking at me like that for?”
“Hold still,” he said huskily, “and look at me.” There was sweat all over his forehead.
Then when he had drawn a great deep breath and straightened up again she asked playfully, “Did you think you’d see something in my eyes?”
His answer to that was, “Yes. The ghost of the man who saved your life—” but he didn’t tell her that.
“Well, did you?” she insisted.
“Yes,” he admittedly sadly, “I guess I always will — a little.” He took out his badge and started polishing it. “But the other way,” he added mysteriously, “I wouldn’t have been able to look into them at all.”
The Mark of the Flail
by L. J. Beeston
With enormous regret we announce having reached the end of our stocky of stories by L. J. Beeston. We confess, without the slightest trace of reservation, that we have come to love this man’s work. It has a zest and an ingenuity and a spirit and an admittedly melodramatic vitality that bring back to us “the good old times,” as we remember them most warmly and vividly. Every Beeston story we have published has been like a breath of high adventure, with the nostalgia of the old classics and the new Arabian Nights; and that air of excitement and good old-fashioned suspense has represented an admirable change of pace between, say, a quiet study in deduction and a psychological study of murder. Our aim has always been to give you the widest possible diversity of ’tec types, not only in individual issues of EQMM but in the sustained continuity of years, and to this end the uninhibited adventures which Mr. Beeston has framed in words have served as an important part of a balanced detectival diet.
So we now make this sincere appeal to Mr. Beeston: send us more stories — more tingling thrillers out of the thousand you have written.
Whenever I hear mention of the Hotel Sumptuous in Piccadilly, as I did just now,” said Storer, “there rises before me a keen mental photograph of Room 333, and the queer thing I saw there.”
“Good! We must hear all about that, Storer,” said his host, going round the table with a box of cigars.
The seven men in the dining room of a Wimpole Street house all looked at Storer expectantly.
“I noticed when I named the Hotel Sumptuous,” said a big man with a convex shirt-front, “that you threw up your head as if hit by a powerful reflection. Thank you, do you mind if I keep to my own cigars? They are as strong as they are black, and they are incidentally killing me; but that is my trouble.”
“Right-o!” The host snapped down the cedar-wood top and dropped into his chair at the head of the table. “Go ahead, Storer,” he begged.
“The mystery began with three lines in an unsigned letter,” started the narrator. “The communication entreated me, in a most earnest manner, to be at Room 333, at the Sumptuous, at 10 o’clock on a certain night in November. Of course my curiosity was fired. Anyone’s curiosity would have been fired. So I went eagerly.
“As I was shown into the room I saw two men there whom I recognized at once. Their names were Hanlon and Bailey. Also, it was evident from their constrained look and movements that they were there without knowing why; in short, both had received invitations similar to mine. This pleased neither them nor me. I had unconsciously anticipated something strictly personal and private, and my conceit got jarred accordingly. However, we chatted together and wondered what the deuce was on foot.
“During the next ten minutes three other men were shown into the room. Their names were Howis, Bell, and Mansford, and we were all very well acquainted. It was amusing to see the look of slightly disgusted surprise on the face of each visitor as he made his appearance. But that sort of feeling quickly passed off, and we endeavored to guess the reason which had caused the mysterious invitation to be sent to each of us.
“ ‘Anything in the nature of the delicately charming seems ruled out by an over-plus of the masculine element,’ said Hanlon, ruefully.
“ ‘A suspicion that we are being hoaxed tingles my backbone,’ ventured Howis.
“ ‘I don’t know; I shouldn’t like to say that,’ dissented Mansford, thoughtfully. ‘There may be something deep here. It has dawned upon me that the six of us were all together on a previous occasion. I allude to a weekend which we spent, about two years ago, at Sir Hugo Parly’s place at Wendover, in Bucks, and which is burned into our memory by a certain deplorable event.’
“ ‘Ah, but there were eight of us, including Sir Hugo,’ Bailey corrected.
“ ‘True; but Parly is abroad,’ answered Mansford, ‘and as for the other man — Wayridge — why, we all know where he is. I cannot help thinking that our being called together in this strange fashion may be connected with that astonishing affair—’
“ ‘Your surmise is perfectly correct,’ said a deep and troubled voice which made us all start.
“As we spun round we saw a man standing at an inner door which had been concealed by a tapestry curtain. We recognized him at once, though suffering had sadly marked him since our last meeting. He was Hugh Wayridge.
“His fine features had the pallor of one who has lived a long time in the dark. And so, in a manner, he had; in a most terrible darkness. My last glimpse of him had been when he was led from the dock, sentenced to two years of imprisonment.
“We stared at him, and we looked at one another, and we coughed, and Mansford and Bell edged towards the door.
“ ‘I implore you not to go away, gentlemen,’ interrupted Wayridge, with emotion. ‘I have brought you here by a trick; but I ask you in God’s name to forgive me, because I have something to say to you, and I could think of no other means of getting you together to listen to me.’
“Mansford and Bell came back when they saw that the rest of us had remained still. Wayridge closed the door, then crossed the room to the fireplace, and holding a corner of the mantelpiece, with his strong face averted, he again broke a silence which no one present had cared to interrupt.
“ ‘I want to tell you why I have been in prison,’ he said, gulping once or twice. ‘That must sound strange to you, since you were witnesses of my shame — my crime. You are aware that I was convicted of an abominable theft; that I stole from a man, while I was enjoying his hospitality, a jewel of great price. You saw it in my hands. I confessed it at the time; I pleaded guilty at my trial. And yet, believe me if you can, that was not the true reason why I went to prison, why I became an outcast. I am going to tell you that reason, which is so strange that you will almost certainly not believe me. Nevertheless, I must speak.