THE COMPLETE JIM MAITLAND SERIES. H. C. McNeile / Sapper

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СКАЧАТЬ he said, quietly. "But if you imagine that my wife and I are going a fifty-mile drive, or for that matter a fifty-yard one, because some renegade Irishman gets gay, you misunderstand the situation. And while I am at it I must apologise for a small deceit I have practised on you. I'm really Lord Sussex. Hildebrand is a sort of family name."

      With another smile he was gone, and a sort of sigh went round the room. And it struck me that the general feeling was voiced by One-eyed Mike as he pessimistically finished the whisky.

      "I don't know nothing about Sussex—nor family names," he remarked. "But what I do know is that there's going to be dirty work here to-night, and I guess he's going to be the dirt."

      I found Jim at the shanty when I got back. He had shaved, and changed his clothes, and with his feet on the mantelpiece he was reading a month-old newspaper. He glanced up as I came in, and dropped the paper on the floor.

      "Anything doing?" he asked.

      "Quite a lot," I answered. "Your friend John James Hildebrand has quite distinguished himself."

      He listened while I told him what had occurred, and a faint look of surprise crossed his face.

      "I didn't know he had it in him," he remarked thoughtfully. "In fact, I have always been under the impression that his principal claim to notoriety lay in the fact that being his father's eldest son, he would in the fullness of time become a duke."

      And for, I think, the first time in our friendship I saw Jim Maitland sneer.

      "What of it, Jim?" I said. "Why the sarcasm?"

      "Nothing, old man," he answered. "At any rate nothing that I care to go into. It's an old story anyway, and I thought it had died in my mind years ago. Only seeing him unexpectedly this evening brought it back—that's all."

      "Well, from what I gathered there is every possibility of trouble to- night," I said. "I must say that that man Cornish is quite the ugliest- looking customer I've ever seen. And I didn't like the absolute silence in which he left the bar. If he'd sworn or made a fuss it would have been more natural."

      Jim shrugged his shoulders.

      "John James must fight his own battles."

      "He seems quite capable of it," I answered shortly. "But I wish his wife weren't there."

      "His wife?" said Jim very slowly. "His wife, did you say?"

      "Certainly. Stopping at the hotel with him."

      He was staring at me almost dazedly.

      "Ruth—at that hotel? Good Heavens! man—she can't be!"

      I made no comment on his use of her Christian name.

      "He told us so," I answered, "at the same time as he announced who he was."

      And now Jim was pacing up and down the room with his hands in his pockets. He was frowning deeply, and every now and then he paused and stared out of the window.

      Already some of the boys had begun their celebrations, and occasional shouts of half-drunken laughter came from the street outside.

      "The fellow must be mad!" exploded Jim suddenly. "Stark, staring mad to bring her to a place like this on Christmas Eve. Confound it! has he left his nurse in England?"

      "It's not the boys I'm worried about, Jim," I said gravely. "They won't hurt a woman even if they are a bit tight. And, anyway, presumably she will stop in her room. It's that man Cornish who frightens me. I tell you the men at that bar dried up like so many frightened puppies as he came in. And he means murder."

      Jim laughed contemptuously.

      "You've got Cornish on the brain, Dick."

      And even as he spoke the door was flung open and One-eyed Mike came in. He had been running and he spoke in gasps.

      "Cornish!" he cried. "Pete Cornish! He's raving mad up in the hotel. He's got that Lord fellow who threw the liquor in his face, and he's got his wife, and he's doing trick-firing with a couple of revolvers."

      And as he finished I realised we were alone: Jim was, racing up the darkening street towards the hotel.

      I heard six shots ring out like bullets from a machine-gun; as I followed him, and just ten seconds behind Jim I turned, into the bar I had so recently left. It was an amazing' scene, and that first impression of it is photographed indelibly on my brain. Huddled in small groups sat some twenty miners, and even the drunkest of them seemed to have sobered up. In the centre of the room and hanging from a beam swung a smoking naphtha lamp. Underneath it stood Pete Cornish, holding in one arm a girl, whose look of frozen horror failed to hide her loveliness.

      Seated on a chair against the wall was the fifteenth Marquis of Sussex, and like a halo round his head there was a row of holes in the wall. As Mike said, Pete Cornish was trick-firing.

      The man on the chair was sitting bolt upright, while his knuckles gleamed like ivory where his hands gripped the seat. His face was white, but with rage—not fear: and his blazing eyes met those staring blue ones without a quiver.

      "Don't move, my darling," said Cornish with an ugly snarl. "You might spoil my aim. And that would be a dreadful thing for your dear husband, wouldn't it?"

      Again the six shots rang out, and the wood round the seated man's head splintered anew. The girl moaned piteously, and her husband cursed and stirred in his chair.

      "My other gun," said Cornish thoughtfully, and a horrible-looking brute came forward with a freshly loaded six-shooter. And at that John James Hildebrand sprang. It was his only chance, but it was pitiful to watch. As well might a Pekinese spring at a bull-terrier, if one may so insult a grand breed of dog by comparison with Pete Cornish.

      He tried to get home with his fist, did John James—and Cornish hit him once. He hit him straight in the face with a grunt of passion, and the poor devil pitched forward and lay still.

      "I still want my gun," said Cornish thoughtfully, and as he spoke one solitary shot rang out. The man who was holding the revolver cursed hideously as his hand was shattered, and Jim laughed gently. Slowly the blue eyes came round and fastened on him, staring unwinking; and for a moment or two there was silence—broken at length by a little gasping cry of "Jim!" from the girl.

      "Did you fire that shot?" asked Cornish softly, dropping the girl and taking a step forward.

      "I did," answered Jim, equally softly. "And I would suggest your standing very still, because I'm now going to fire five more. Stand away, Ruth,"—but the girl was on her knees beside her husband.

      The five shots cut away a strip from Cornish's shirt, and they sounded almost continuous so incredibly quickly were they fired.

      "I have also another gun," drawled Jim, "so that any attempt to pick up your own would be a little unwise. Dick, would you retrieve it?"

      But Cornish never moved a muscle. The scar on his face showed red and angry, but the eyes, unwinking as ever, stared, and went on staring at Jim.

      "Quite passable shooting," he said at length. "And what do you propose should be the next move? Or do we stand like this all night?"

      "We СКАЧАТЬ