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“The what?” Haggitt asked.

“Carnotite — that’s what uranium comes from. The Lucky Nugget is full of it. You know what that’s worth today. If any of those miners spotted it and the story was in the papers tomorrow morning, you couldn’t buy that stock for a million dollars... It was The Saint, of course,” Mr. Rochborne explained, becoming even more incoherent, “and he was trying to put over the most amateurish job of mine-salting I ever saw; but when he reads about this—”

The Swami was staring at him in a most unspiritual way.

“Just a minute, Mel,” he said. “Are you drunk, or what? First you send me a wire and tell me to meet you at the airport. I watch all the planes come in until my ears are buzzing. Then you send me another wire there about some new buyer for the Lucky Nugget, and tell me to phone the Phelan dame and tell her to hold out for seventy grand in cold cash—”

A horrible presentiment crawled over Mr. Rochborne.

“What are you talking about?” he asked weakly. “I never sent you—”

“I’ve got ’em right here in my pocket.” His colleague’s voice was harsh, edged with suspicion.

“Ohmigod,” breathed Mr. Melville Rochborne. “He couldn’t have salted it twice... he couldn’t have...”

It was Simon Templar’s perpetual regret that he was seldom able to overhear these conversations. But perhaps that would have made his life too perfect to be borne.

Love-in-a-Mist

by Joseph Shearing

Copyright, 1932, by Joseph Shearing

Joseph Shearing is best-known as the author of a series of remarkable novels, each based on a relatively obscure cause célèbre in the annals of French and English crime. Joseph Shearing’s work in this field has stamped the author as one of the most distinguished criminologists of our time. Such experts as Edmund Pearson and William Roughead have publicly hailed the Shearing studies-in-murder as the finest of their kind being published today. Sally Benson, reviewing THE CRIME OF LAURA SARELLE in “The New Yorker,” wrote words of praise seldom accorded a practitioner in the genre of crime:Mr. Shearing is a painstaking researcher, a superb writer, a careful technician and a master of horror. There is no one else quite like him.”

Shearing shorts — an allusive alliteration — are virtually unknown in America. The one we have selected for Mr. Shearing’s first appearance in EQMM is the story of Mary Fryer, a wealthy old maid of dominating personality, a woman who has adjusted her life even to the point of subjugating a secret passion. You may marvel at how a man could have attained so clear an insight into a woman s character — until you realize that “Joseph Shearing” is a pseudonym, that the author is really a woman. Only a few years ago Mrs. Gabrielle Margaret Vere Campbell Long (also know as “Marjorie Bowen”) confessed to the authorship of the “Joseph Shearing” novels.

Mary Fryer made three entries in her commonplace book: Item; to speak to Agatha about her high heels. Item; to have the old bridge in Croom Wood repaired. Item; to replenish the beds below the terrace with Queen Anne’s Lace and Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist).

None of these things was of much importance, but Miss Fryer was a very methodical woman and it worried her when some trifle slipped from her keen memory only to re-occur at some inopportune moment. When she had last been in Croom Wood she had noticed that the wooden bridge across the steep water-break and rapid stream was rotting and, in fact, quite dangerous. But as it was very seldom used — Croom Wood was the loneliest part of her estate — she had forgotten about it until John Portis, the underkeeper, had reminded her of it yesterday.

Then, the flowers — that bed beneath the terrace — required, she thought, a blue color against the stone, not those hot-hued celosia the gardener put in year after year.

Agatha was one of the housemaids, and Miss Fryer, who kept many servants, did not often see her; but it was an acute, if occasional, irritation to hear the tap, tap of those high heels along the wide corridors. Miss Fryer had already spoken to the girl, who, however, continued the offense. There must be an end of that annoyance, Miss Fryer decided; she would herself buy for her a pair of comfortable flat-heeled, wide-toed shoes, summon the girl into her presence, then tell her she must wear them and not the foolish, uncomfortable French shoes which must have cost far more than she could possibly afford.

The acute mind of Mary Fryer made a connection between the bridge and the vanity of the housemaid. Agatha was one of the few people who went through Croom Wood, which was a short cut to her grandfather’s farm at Lyston, and if she, foolish as she was, tried to cross the bridge instead of going round over the head of the water-break, it was quite feasible that she might catch one of those ridiculous heels in the broken planks and fall onto the stones below. The current was strong, deep, and swift, and no one would hear the cries or see the struggles of Agatha, for the spot was quite forsaken.

“I must warn the girl.” Then Mary Fryer smiled. “I suppose that is why Portis reminded me of the bridge.”

The underkeeper was going to marry Agatha in the winter. Miss Fryer had taken a great interest in the improving and garnishing of the cottage which the young couple would occupy. And the dressmaker at Lyston was making, at Miss Fryer’s expense, a generous outfit for the bride.

This was not being done for the sake of the girl, who was treated with great coldness by her mistress and kept at the same distance as all the other servants, but because of Mary Fryer’s concern with John Portis.

She shut up her commonplace book and locked it in her desk. A full day’s work and leisure was before her, for the autumn morning had just begun. It was a pleasure to her to sit in the handsome, gracious room and look out through the long French windows on to the well-kept, carefully cherished gardens with park, meadows, and fields beyond — all belonging to Mary Fryer. She was a happy woman. It did not trouble her that she had missed husband and children, that she was fifty years old and had never been either beautiful or charming. She owned Fryer’s Manor, she was in her proper place, part of a satisfying continuity; she relished, with a keen zest, every detail of her life, she enjoyed her pride of place, her talent for management, the great respect everyone gave her, the comforts and luxuries she could afford to give herself. She continually rejoiced in her possessions, from the rich Manor itself to the least of her frail Worcester tea cups; she was healthy, strong-minded, and had never known a regret.

Without blenching she contemplated, every time she went to church (and on no reasonable occasion was her impressing pew empty), the graves of her ancestors and the place where she would lie herself. These dead Fryers were all living to her; their portraits were on her walls, their names and stories in her heart and often on her lips. She rather believed that if you were a Fryer of Fryer Manor, it did not much matter if you were alive or dead.

In the same spirit of placid and generous pride she regarded her heir, a younger sister’s son; everything would be his with the one proviso — that he took the name of Fryer.

She carefully altered the date on the calendar — September 1st, 1861. September, a delicious month; she looked forward to days and days of delight, to years and years of enjoyment, for she was so strong, healthy, and equable in her temperament — yes, she was sure that she would relish life to the last minute of it, as she relished her father’s good port to the last drop on the tongue.