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About The Alliance herald. (Alliance, Box Butte County, Neb.) 1902-1922 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1916)
SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION chattering masses nf the poor. The section was Inrfly foreign. The patches of color in Homo Italian shawl, the long coats hikI peaked headgear of some mniijik, tlm clatter of the 1 leots seemed all the stranger from the sullen Inulon background of moan shops, dingy lodgings, and low beer houses. For, in the shadows of that underworld of the great metropolis, sodden faces, guttural oaths, dingy rngs, the blow that precedes the word, are the manifestations of the native born. In a side street, the rah diew to a standstill. It was the mortuary, the inspector told me. A young police man nt the door touched his hat, and led the way down a passage to a bare tone chamber. On a slab in the center the body lay with an elderly man in ill-fitting dot hen bending over it. He looked up as we cnlered, nnd nodded to the inspector. "You were quite right, Peace," he said cheerfully; "chloroform first, stran gling afterwards." "They took ii risks, Dr. Chappie." "They made a dean job of it," said the dderly man, looking down nt the slab with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. "Never saw neater work since well, since 1 was invalided home from India." "ThligS?" "Yes; they did it nih as well as a Thug in regular practice." The callous brutality of the con versation filled me with disgust. I turned away, leaning against the wall with a feeling of nausea. "Ami now, if I may tremble you, Mr. Phillips, will you look at this poor fellow, and see if you can recog nize him?" said Peace. I knew him well enough. The black board, the thin, hawk nose, the high and noble forehead were not easily forgotten. Tiilman had introduced me to him at the Art Club's Keocp tion in July, whispering that he was a Pole and a neighbor of his a deuced queer fish, though a clever one. He had exhibited a bust of Nero at the Academy, which attracted much at tcnt ion. "And his name?" asked the inspec tor. "Amaroff. I believe him to be from Poland; that is about all I know of him." "Mow did you come to meet him?" I told him of my int roduct ion. Would I, he asked, give him Talman's ad dress? Most certainly No. 4 Harden place, off the King's road, Chelsea. I had no objection whatever to Talman being roused at one in the morning. By nil means let the old rascal be turned out of bed ami cross-examined. His language would be a revelation to the police it would, really. The inspector left me on the door Btep for a few minutes, while he whis jxTcd to two shabbily dressed men who lounged out of the darkness, and disappeared with the same lack of ostentation. Then we entered our cub, which had waited, and trotted westward, the very air growing clearer as it seemed to me, when the under world of poverty fell nw.iy behind us. It was some time before I spoke, and then it was to ask for a solution to certain puzzles that had been form ing in my brain. "You sail he had been robbed?" I began. "Yes, Mr. Phillips. They had pone through his pockets with every atten tion to detail." "Then how did you know he was a sculptor?" "lie had been called away in a hurry, There was modelling clay in his finger nails, and a splash of plaster on his right trousor leg. It was quite simple, as you Bee." His reply was ingenious, and I liked the inspector the belter for it. The man had something more in him than a civil tongue and a pleasing man ner. "Tell mo what else did you learn?'' "That he wns murdered in a place with a sanded floor, probably nt no great distance from Leman street, seeing that they carried him there on a coster's barrow." "I am not a reporter," I snid. "I do not want guess-work." "I shall probably be able to prove my words in twenty-four hours." "And why not now?" "There are good reasons." 'Oh, very well," I said sulkily; and we drove on through the night in silence. He left me at my door amid polite assurances that I should not again be troubled in the matter. I told him quite frankly that I was very glad to hear it. I did not sleep more than eight hours that night, ami was quite un fitted for work in the morning. I roamed about my studio with nerves on edge. I cursed Pence nnd all his iloings. Kvcn the papers gave me no further information of this exasperating business, being loaded with the pre parations for the Czar's reception in Paris, which was due in two days. In the end I sank so far as to send old Jacob up to the inspector's rooms for the latest news, but he had been out since daybreak. About twelve 1 wandered off to the club. The sight of Talman was a very present joy to me. Ho was engaged in denouncing the police to a select circle, choosing ns his text that the Fniilishman's house is his castle. 1 offered my sincere sympathy when he told me that he had been invaded at one in the morning by inquiring detectives. I suggested that he should write to the Times about it. He said he had already done so. Incidentally he mentioned that Amaroff's address had been No. 21 Harden place. I lunched at the little table by the window; but it was in the smoking room afterwards that the idea oc curred to me. I fought against it for some time, but the temptation in creased upon consideration. Finally I yielded, and told the waiter to call a cab. 1 would myself have a look at the dead man's studio. I dismissed the hansom at the turning off Kind's road and walked down Harden place on foot. It was an eddy in the rush of London im provement a pool of silence in its roaring traffic. There were trees in the little gardens. The golds and browns of the withering leaves pooped and rustled over the old brick walls. Several studios I noticed it was evi dently an artists' quarter before I stopped in front of No. 21. The studio a fair-sized barn of modern brick fronted on the street. The double doors through which a sculptor's larger work may pasa were flanked by a little side, door painted a staring and most objectionable green. On the right the roof of a red-tiled shed crept up to long windows under the eaves. The side door stood ajar a most urgent invitation to my curios ity. After all, I argued, a studio re mains a place whore the strict rules of etiquette may be avoided, even though its owner be dead. And so, without troubling further in the matter, I pushed the door gently open, and walked into a short passage, the further end of which was barred with heavy curtains of failed plush. Bo yond them I could hear a whisper of voices. I drew back the edge of a curtain and pooped within. In the center of the big room was a tall pedestal upon which was sot the bust of Nero, which had won no small measure of fame for poor Amaroff in that year's Academy. Under the proud nnd merciless features of the Roman Kmpcror stood Inspector Peace smoking a cigarette and talking to a big follow with a thick black beard. A couple of men kneeling at their feet were replacing a mass of loose papers in the drawers of a roller-top desk that had boon pulled some dis tance from the wall. . I was just about to announce my self, when one of the men knocked over a brass candlestick which stood on the desk, so that it rolled to the further side. With a grunt of annoy ance, he stepped leisurely round and dropped on his knees to recover it. Once out of sight of his companions, however, he whipped out a square of wax from his pocket, aiid with extra ordinary rapidity took an impression from a key that he had kept con cealed in his hand. It was all over in five seconds, and from the shelter the desk gave to him, no one but my self could have been the wiser. He rose, replaced the candlestick, and con tinued his work. Whether the fellow had played his companion a trick or not, I had no desire to be caught acting the spy. So, pulling the curtains aside, I walked into the room. They all turned quickly upon me, the black-bearded man staring hard as in attempting to recall my face. But I'eace was the first to speak. "tlood afternoon, Mr. Phillips," he said, as if I were a visitor he had expected "You are just in time to drive me b'ack. Have you a cab waiting?" "No." I hesitated. "It's of no consequence. We can find another at the top of the street. And now, Mr. Nicolin," he continued, turning to the big man, who had never taken his eyes off me, "arc you quite satisfied, or do you wish your men to make a further search?" "No, Mr. Insboctor," he answered, with a heavy foreign accent, "we are quite content. Noding more is necessary." "Shall you be wanting to come again?" "No for us it is sufficient. It is for you to continue. Mr. Insboctor. You tink you will catch those men who kill him, hein?" "We shall try," said Peace, with a modest droop of the eyes. "Ach but where can there be cer tainty in our lives? Come now, my children, lot us be going. Alexandre, you have the door-key of the studio; give him to the Insboctor here." So it was the door-key, thought I, of which Mr. Alexandre obtained a memento behind the roller-top desk! Peace gave a polite good-bye to his companions on the step, locked up the little green door, and then started down the street at my side. "I had no business to come poking my nose flito your affairs," I said, "Anything you say I shall thoroughly deserve." "Don't apologize," he smiled. "I was pleased to see you." "And why?" 'You can do better things than remain a wealthy dilettante, Mr. Phil lips. You are too broad in the shoul ders, too clear in the head, for living i the world that is dead. Such little incidents as these they drag you out of the shell you are building about you. That is why I was pleased to see you. I have spoken plainl are you offended?" "Oh, no," 1 said, waving my stick to a passing hansom, though I did not refer aiiain to the topic which I foresaw was likely to become person ally offensive to mo. He sat ba a in his corner of the cab, filling his pi.-e with dextrous fingers, while 1 watched him out of the corner of my eye. When it wt. well alight, he began again on a now subject. "London's a queer place," he sai l, "though perhaps you have not had t.io time to find it out. There are for eign colonies, with their own religions and olu an I politics, working t icir way through life just ns if tin y we;e in Odessa or Hamburg or Milan. There are refugees Heaven know s how many, for we do not that have fled bo fore all the despotisms that succeeded and all the revolutions that failed from Siam to the Argentine. Tolstoi fanatics, dishonest presidents, anar chists, royalists, Armenians, Turks, Carlists, and the dwellers in Meso potamia a finer collection than oven America itself can show. On the Con tinentwell, we should be running them in, and they would be throwing bombs. But here no one troubles them so long as they pay rent and taxes, nnd keep their hands out of each other's pockets or from each other's throats. They understand us, too, and stop playing at assas sins nnd conspirators. But once in a while habit is too strong for them, ami something happens." "As it happened to Amaroff?" "Yes as it happened to Amaroff." "It was a political crime?" "Yes." "And the reasons?" "They have the advantage of sim plicity. Amaroff was a member of the Russian secret -service, detailed to mix with and observe the Nihilist refugees. The Czar enters Paris in two days, and when the Czar travels the political police of all the capitaU are kept on the run. 1 suppose Amaroff showed an excess of zeal that made his absence from London desirable. Anyway, he was found dead, and the Russians reasonably conclude it is the Nihilists who killed him." "Who were those men in the studio?" "The big fellow was Nicolin, the head of the Russian service over hero. I don't know a bettor man in his profession nor one with fewer scruples. The other two were assistants. They came down to the Yard this morning with a request that they might search the studio for certain private papers which Amaroff had and which belonged to them. So we fixed the nppoiut mont into w hich you have just walked." "And they finished their search?" "You heard them say so." "Kxactly, but why, then, did thev want, an impression of the studio key?" He turned upon me with a sudden impatience in his eyes. "What do you moan?" he asked. I told him of my arrival, and what I had seen from my post behind the curtains of the doorway. He did not speak when I had finished, but. sat, pulling at his short pipe, and staring out over the horse's oars. So we arrived at our door. "If you have further news tonight will you call in before going to bod?" I asked him as we stood on the pave ment. "I cannot promise you that. I have some important inquiries to make in the F.ast Find this evening, and I do not know when I shall return." I suppose I looked depressed at his answer; indeed the prospect of a lonely evening in my rooms with such a mystery in course of solution out side, seemed oddly distasteful to me." "It is a rough district, as you know." he said, watching me; "but would you care to come along?" "There is nothing I should like bet tor," I answered simply. (Continued on Pag 10) "-portance tr tn community. pla. nnrl well known thruout the Valley? 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