Chapter III (1)

February 18th.--A week has passed away fairly peacefully, and now the last fresh trouble is that we have got to fumigate this house with a very dangerous mixture of vitriol and prussic acid to kill various non-paying guests, such as mice, mosquitoes, etc.--the etceteras being the worst of them all.

Six-and-eightpence had to sleep in the cottage two nights because he had such a very bad cold, and in the morning, when we asked him was it nice sleeping in a room again, he replied, with his usual courtesy, "I should have slept excellently but for the moss--quitoes." Six-and-eightpence is very prim and precise. He never says "mosquitoes" like other people, but always "moss--quitoes," the "quitoes" coming some time after the "moss." Every morning after that he appeared at breakfast with some polite remark about the "moss--quitoes."

"Would a net be any use?" I asked; "for you can have mine." But Six-and-eightpence says that nets would be _no_ use for the special kind of wingless "moss--quito" that apparently infests this cottage at night.

The mere idea was unbearable, and that evening one of the men brought down the _Agricultural Journal_.

"Here's a chapter," said he, "on the only effective way to rid a house of Six-and-eightpence's moss--quitoes. It's very dangerous, and the chapter concludes with directions and pictures as to how to revive anyone who is caught by the fumes before they can bolt. It's much the same as for drowned people. You work their arms and legs up and down, don't you know, and pull out their tongues, and so on."

"Oh, dear," put in Veronica, "I don't feel up to any more dangers. The thunderstorms have stopped for a bit, and I'm longing for some peace. It's not two days since Jaikeran used Jay's Purifier for the pudding instead of milk, finding some mixed ready in a jug, and then put nails and screws into the pudding in mistake for cloves. And what I feel is, do let's have a spell of rest!"

"The thunderstorms may come on any day again," said Mr. H----, "and I don't like moss--quitoes any more than Six-and-eightpence does, and we might have to turn into the house to sleep."

"Decidedly," said our solicitor, trying to scratch his shoulder-blades as gracefully as might be. "I am for exterminating the moss--quitoes."

So it's to be done. We have spent evenings reading up the directions, and it is plain we run the risk of losing our lives, for when the chemist at the nearest town received our order for enough vitriol and prussic acid to finish off a colony, he protested and refused to supply it, making sure some huge plot was on to wipe out the population. Someone is always writing to the papers to say that some section of the community must be got rid of for the good of the country, and the chemist said he would have nothing to do with it.

"But," explained our solicitor, "it's for--ahem--moss--quitoes."

"Oh," said the chemist, greatly relieved, "all right, then; but you must sign for it, please, sir. And I suppose you know the risks? One drop of this vitriol splashing into your face will burn to the bone. As for the prussic acid, a grain wafted by the wind to your open mouth, and you're a dead man."

"Thank you," said Six-and-eightpence, trying to look as if the prospect rather pleased him than otherwise; "good morning!"

Six-and-eightpence sent me a message by the butcher--would I come in to help him carry back the ingredients? The other men had declined, saying they were his moss--quitoes, not theirs, and he was afraid, if he tried to carry eight gallon-bottles of vitriol and nine jars of cyanide (which is prussic acid) down the hill to our cottage, they might fall, and the vitriol burn out his eyes. So I went in to help.

The prussic acid was all sealed up in a most important manner with huge Government seals, and the chemist said good-bye to us as if he would be surprised to see us again.

You get into the train to come here at a level crossing where there is no station, and when you get out at another crossing you yell, as I said before, to the engine-driver, and if he can manage it he stops, though sometimes he can't stop till he has got some way off. This happened with the vitriol and things. They were strewed along the level crossing, and when the train flew past too far they had to be hastily picked up, and as the vitriol was in ordinary whisky-bottles (the corks put in loose, so that it shouldn't splash when we wanted to open them) it was an awful business.

"Hi, there!" said Six-and-eightpence to the guard, who, blithely unconscious of the nature of the bottles he was sweeping up off the line into his arms, began putting them down with bangs close to an old lady with several young children round her. "Hi! Easy! That's vitriol!"

"And pray, sir," said the old lady, who seemed convinced that the only purpose vitriol could have been invented for was to throw into people's faces, "and may I ask what you are doing with vitriol here? Guard, what does all this mean? Heaven knows, this country is infested with enough criminals without our being obliged to travel with vitriol-throwing ruffians!"

"My dear madam," said Six-and-eightpence, politely, "who said that I intended throwing this vitriol at anyone?"

"Of course you intend throwing it at someone!" said the old lady, indignantly. "Do you think I was born yesterday, sir? Do you think I never read the papers? Do you think I don't know what vitriol is for? Guard, stop the train and summon a policeman! At once!"

Luckily we arrived at our stopping-place in five minutes, or what would have happened I don't know. Six-and-eightpence had retreated into the extreme corner of the carriage, clasping the vitriol bottles in his arms and in vain entreating the old lady _not_ to attack him tooth and nail, or she certainly _would_ get the stuff into her face.

We were thankful to find ourselves out on the open veldt.

February 20th.--It's late at night, and I am writing up this record of the doings of Simplicity Hall because by to-morrow evening I may either be unconscious or be sitting contemplating the dead bodies of everybody else, for we all get up very early to-morrow morning to fumigate this house with hydrocyanic gas.

Every chink has to be closed up to make it effective, and for four mortal hours this evening we have all been cutting brown paper into strips and standing on ladders and chairs pasting up the very badly-fitting doors and windows of this abode so that none of the precious and deadly gas shall escape.

The process is that you first place in each room four receptacles for the ingredients, which when mixed instantly kill everything near--men, beasts, or insects. You have to clear out of the house all food of every kind, all plates, dishes, saucepans, and jugs--in fact, the entire contents of the kitchen; also anything in the way of furniture, clothes, ornaments, pictures, etc., that you don't want to have bleached out of recognition. The _Agricultural Journal_ blithely informs you that the process "causes no inconvenience of any kind," as all you "need remove from the house (to a safe distance) are----" and then follow the above items, which we soon discovered to mean that the entire house had to be dismantled and every stick in it hauled out on to the veldt. You naturally don't want _anything_ you have to be bleached to a cinder, so out it all has to come. The lifting, the shouting, the dragging, and the running to and fro have lasted till now--midnight. Being a fine night, and the barometer high, we decided to get everything out so that at daylight the fumigation could be started, after which everyone has to rush helter-skelter through the doors, shut them, lock them, and paste a notice on them to say whoever goes inside is a dead man. (The Transvaal law compels this.) Then you sit all day on the veldt upon your possessions till eight hours have passed, after which the thing is done, and you start to fix up your house again the same as when you first came into it.

There is a full moon, and by it we can see all our possessions strewed round Simplicity Hall for about half a square mile. Tall cupboards tower towards the stars, the dining-room table has all the chairs and Mr. H----'s packing-case piled on to it, and dressing-tables stand about, hung with bits of everyone's wardrobe, a pyjama suit floating in the breeze here, a lady's nightdress there. In the centre of the circus, in an open ring, sits Jaikeran on the kitchen range (which likewise had to be removed, said the _Agricultural Journal_, "unless you wished to have your oven permeated with prussic acid," the editor evidently thinking it possible that such might be our wish). In this fashion does our domestic prepare, in some sort of style, an evening meal for us on a "Puffing Billy" stove set on the grass.

Everybody is in a temper, and once more the Simple Life is subjected to curses low and deep, as we all sit balancing ourselves on odd pieces of furniture, eating by the light of tallow candles which eternally go out.

We should have done the horrid thing at night and let it work while we all slept in the tents, but the chemist warned us not to dream of attempting it in anything like dusk or darkness. Each person has to be told off to stand ready in one room with their allowance of vitriol, and the prussic acid safely fastened up in a paper bag, tied at the mouth with a long piece of string, so that you can drop it into the vitriol and get away before the fumes suffocate you; which happens in one and a half seconds exactly.

Should you stumble in the dark over something, nothing can save you, though they tell the rescuers how to get on their hands and knees with their heads in a wet blanket, and crawl close to the floor, in the event of a friend being caught, and a cheerful illustration of four corpses in a row is appended. Six-and-eightpence is a very highly-strung man, and is already in a state of nervousness about the whole thing, bordering on hydrophobia or suicidal mania. Anyhow, he has been talking all the evening in a very despondent way, bequeathing things (such as the old Ratner safe in his office, his "Van Dam on Divorce," his book of trout flies, his _kaross_, etc.) to one or the other of us, "just in case anything happens," he says. And we are quite certain that were we to attempt to do this thing at night something would happen for certain. Six-and-eightpence would lose his head, and either lock himself or someone else into one of the rooms after the stuff had been mixed, forgetting which side of the door he was on, or something like that. Or the MacPhairson would be too long and too careful over his mixing and fall senseless; and then, however much we should like to, how could we leave him to die? One of us would have to get into a wet blanket (first pumping the water out of the well half a mile away, by the by) and go to his rescue, and, of course, be overpowered in turn. Someone else would then have to go to _them_, and soon it would be like the ten little nigger-boys--"And then there were none."

So, talking it over--and the pasting-up of the house having taken us till long after dark--we decided to wait until the friendly daylight.

We are now retiring to rest, and all bade each other "Good night" much as shipwrecked castaways would do on an open raft in mid-ocean, with sharks waiting for them, and only someone's blanket and each other left to eat. I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't rather put up with the "moss--quitoes" than all this.

February 29th.--I was aroused at daylight on the 21st by Veronica saying, in sepulchral tones, "The day has arrived, E----. Get up."

I've always pictured that's how the warder rouses condemned criminals from their slumbers, after which somebody else appears with the cheerful query (as Jaikeran now did) as to what you would like for your last breakfast.

The criminal, to judge by narratives, invariably "does himself proud" over that last breakfast, ordering steak and oysters, kidneys on toast, and all kinds of things that can't possibly have time to do him any good.

We each ordered our own favourite dish, and sat down on odd pieces of furniture or boxes to eat it, and gazing at the wide scene of peace around, with the beauty of the typical African morning (it being a very rare thing in Africa to wake to a wet morning), we remarked in turn what a "lovely world it was," and other dying speeches of that sort, and then rose to repair to the house, where the tins had been placed overnight in the rooms, the prussic acid and the vitriol all ready in rows of bottles on a tray, and nothing to do now but the fateful mixing.

"Now," said the Electrical Engineer (who, having passed in electricity, is supposed to know something about everything else under the sun), "everyone will please take jugs and go and pour your water each into your own cans in the room allotted to you. Then come back here for the vitriol, each carrying your mask."

By the chemist's advice we had made ourselves thick masks of felt, covering the nose and mouth, with slits for the eyes.

These, as soon as the water had been poured into the cans--Jaikeran standing looking on at these preparations with a countenance of terror--we each tied over our faces with tapes. Then we all started to feel our way back into the dining-room, where our vitriol was to be doled out to us.

"My eye isn't big enough," groaned Veronica. "I can't see where I am going. Someone please cut the slits larger for me." And Veronica sat down, and then each of us in turn, while the others stood and applied scissors to the slits, at the imminent risk of cutting out our eyes.

No one could breathe, and the panting in the room was awful.

"Come here," said the Electrical Engineer to Jaikeran, "and have your mask on, you Jaikeran."

Jaikeran, trembling like a leaf, fell on his two knees to the Electrical Engineer and held up his hands in prayer.

"Sahib have mercy on Jaikeran!" he quavered. "Sahib no kill poor Jaikeran this time! Sahib spare my life, and sahib have tit-for-tat." When the Electrical Engineer said, "Don't be a fool!" and tried to fix his mask on for him, he made for the open door, and the exasperated Electrical Engineer started to chase him round and round the cottage.

We would have let him go back to his home--a patch of mealies, two cows, a hut, and a skinny brother--shining clearly about three miles away on the broad table of green, but we had to have Jaikeran to help; so the Electrical Engineer caught him, assured him that (if we could manage it) no one would die that day, and, leading him back by the scruff of his neck, it seemed as if now, at last, all was once more ready.

"I am of o--pinion," said Six-and-eightpence, when we once more stood ready round the table in the dining-room, "that we should each be armed with a wet blanket in case of necessity."

"Jaikeran," said I, "go to the tents and fetch the blankets. Juldee!"

"Now," said the Electrical Engineer, "go, Jaikeran, to the well and fetch a bucket of water, and keep your mask on, Jaikeran; it's too much trouble to fix again. You can see your way through the eyelet holes."

So Jaikeran departed in his mask across the veldt for the water, and returned with a string of affrighted Dutch villagers behind him.

"For certain they are dynamiters," said one old back-veldt Boer.

"Or coiners," said another.

"No," whispered a third. "It is as I told you. The English are all mad. The Indian servant-man says it is to be a mosquito hunt! And each one engaged in it risks his life! Who but lunatics would act so?"

The Dutch contingent now made a kind of cordon round the house and watched proceedings closely, in case it should be necessary to send a runner for the police from the nearest town.

Meanwhile we in the garden proceeded to soak our blankets, wrapped our heads in them, and, re-entering the house, assembled again round the dining-room table and announced we really were ready at last.

"The heat is too cruel!" suddenly said Veronica. "Couldn't we have something to drink before we begin? If not, I shall faint."

It was by this time getting on for 11 a.m., and a cloudless day, such as you expect in the Rand midsummer, and what with the felt masks and the blankets and the fright we were all in, we were in an awful state, and so it was imperative that whisky should be served out to the men and lemonade and sal volatile to the ladies.

"And how are we to drink it?" said someone from under his mask.

"Sit down all of you," said the Electrical Engineer, "and I'll come round and pour it into your mouths while each of you lifts your mask slightly up. We can't undo them now." So we sat in a row, and the villagers crowding towards the house beheld the operation. One of them said this sort of thing could not be permitted to go on, and so he rushed after a cart going up the hill towards the town and told the driver to make for the police-station and tell the mounted police they were wanted at once.

"Are you all ready?" said the Electrical Engineer. "Then come to the table and I'll dole out the vitriol first."

We each stood with a tin pannikin and received the stuff, though it was difficult from under our masks and blankets to see whether it was going into the pannikins or over our hands or feet, which a single drop would, of course, burn to the bone.

"Go quickly," shouted the Electrical Engineer when it was done, "and pour it into the water in the tins. I _quite_ forgot, when I decided on tin pans, that the corrosive fluid will burn through the tin in two minutes. _Run!_"

"How can we run," howled Mr. H----, holding his at arm's length and jerking himself towards the room he had to do, "with this thrice-infernal stuff under our noses?"

"If you don't you'll have no nose left," shouted the Electrical Engineer, making for his own room.

We all got rid of our vitriol without mishap to ourselves, flinging the cans when finished to the floor, where they instantly burnt large holes in the carpets, which had been left standing to get fumigated too.

"Bang goes six pound seven and eight three-farthings!" the MacPhairson was heard to mutter, as a frizzling noise heralded the cremation of his Axminster--bought second-hand for Simplicity Hall. "It's no' me as will beleeve anny more in the Simple Life!"

We next collected to receive our bags of cyanide. We all stood round while the Electrical Engineer uncorked the big sealed bottles and started removing the prussic acid, which was in powder and lumps, each lump being large enough to polish off a town full of people. We drew our masks very close over our mouths during this part of the proceedings. The back doors, and, indeed, all the doors, had to be left wide open through which to effect our escape the instant the chemicals mixed, and we all knew that if one speck of the poison floated down anyone's throat, that person was done for. A joyous breeze blew through the cottage, and the prussic-acid powder flew about and no one dared breathe, much less speak.

The Electrical Engineer poured the lumps and powder into our paper bags, Jaikeran standing by, his mask on, a blanket round his head, and his knees simply knocking together.

"Now," said the Electrical Engineer, "the moment has arrived! Keep your heads! Each take your bag, please" (out went all our hands), "and walk quietly into your allotted rooms. Carry the bag by its string, held well away from you. Walk up to the tins, where the water and the vitriol will be already mingled. Slight fumes will be already rising, so _don't_ go too near. Drop your bags into the vitriol and water, and instantly, without one second's delay, rush from the house, shutting and locking doors behind you. Jaikeran! Clear out, unless you want to die!"

Before we each reached our allotted room, Jaikeran was making for the horizon and his skinny brother, and we haven't seen him since....

There was a deathly silence as we each entered the different rooms. It is impossible to say what we looked like--for a moving lump of dripping blanket was all that could be seen of anyone.

"What the dickens!" shouted Mr. H----, colliding with Six-and-eightpence in his room. "Who and what are you? Get out of my way!"

"My dear fellow, whoever you are," said the muffled voice of Six-and-eightpence, "this is _my_ room. I can't see a thing. Where the dickens are the tins of vitriol?"

"Is that you, Six-and-eightpence?" said Mr. H----.

"Yes. Is it you?" responded the other. "This isn't your room, old chap; it's mine. Yours is next door. For Heaven's sake, get out. The others have thrown in their stuff. They're off. We shall be overpowered, I tell you."

"Well, I can't find my room," said Mr. H----, desperately. "Here, throw the stuff down anywhere. I'm off; come on."

As it turned out later, Six-and-eightpence's prussic acid did go into the tins, or at any rate most of it. But Mr. H---- lost his head, thinking he could smell through his blanket the deadly fumes already pouring from the other rooms, and, hearing everyone else making a dash for the open air, he upset his with a crash.

He rushed for what he thought was the door, but it was the window, all pasted up. His blanketed head went crash at the glass, luckily not breaking it, and then, realizing that he had made a mistake, he groped round for the door. But--it was shut and locked! Muffled in his blanket, Six-and-eightpence, thinking Mr. H---- had gone out before him, had run out, slamming and locking the door behind him! His prussic acid was already mingling with the vitriol. Mr. H---- could smell it!

When we all got outside we threw off our masks and blankets, and someone said, "Where is H----?"

"He's not here!"

"Then he must be in the house!"

"Good heavens! Not here?" said Six-and-eightpence, looking round him in a dazed way and rubbing his eyes. "Why, yes; I must have done--yes! I've locked him into my room! This comes of our being muffled in these blankets!"

"Good heavens, man!" yelled the Electrical Engineer, "he'll be dead by now!"

We all made a run for the house, clean forgetting our blankets, and burst open the hall door again.

It was strange; but there were not half the fumes we expected. What did it mean?... However, we did not stop to inquire....

Six-and-eightpence dragged open his bedroom door, and there, prone on the floor, lay Mr. H----, rolled in his blanket and kicking faintly. "Who's there?" he demanded. "I'm almost done for, you fellows!"

"Wonder you're not done for entirely," said they, hauling him out by his blanket and the hair of his head combined. "Didn't we say old Six-and-eightpence would do just this? Out you come!"

And in a few seconds the rescued one lay on the veldt, and kneeling beside him we all cried, "Saved!" and tried very hard to shed tears of joy....

* * * * *

The day passed somehow, all sitting on the veldt, and Mr. H---- (in the only arm-chair, propped up affectionately with pillows) described to us in moving terms what it had felt like to be face to face with death.

"Did you see the whole of your past life laid before you in a flash--like they say drowning people always do?" we asked.

"Yes," said Mr. H----, in tones of gloomy triumph; "I did, and I can tell you it wasn't pleasant."

Privately, I wasn't surprised to hear it, though I didn't say so.

"What was it like--the going off under the fumes?" asked someone else.

"It was like being rocked to sleep," said Mr. H----, in a sentimental tone. "And I heard church bells ringing, and I said to myself, 'They are ringing for my funeral. My poor, poor mother! And the guv'nor, too! This will bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'"

"Please don't talk of it!" cried Veronica, wiping her eyes. "I feel (I don't know if you do, E----?) that this should be a lesson to us all to be more charitable to each other. I didn't believe, Mr. H----, and I must freely confess it, that you had it in you to feel and speak like this! It shows how we may be mistaken."

"I don't wear my heart on my sleeve," replied the hero, languidly, leaning back in his chair. "I knew you all misunderstood me, but I made up my mind to bear it, certain that the truth must out, even though I _didn't_ give a potato-masher to the establishment."

"And," said I, "truth is stranger than fiction any day."

The hero glanced sharply at me, for I was sitting gazing up at our roof-tree, and now and then I sniffed.

After a pause I said, sniffing again:--

"Does anyone smell a very strong smell of some gas--hydrocyanic gas, I suppose? Where is it coming from? We pasted up all the windows and doors," I added, rising from my chair.

Everybody now sniffed in turn, and all declared that the smell grew stronger and stronger.

Suddenly both I and Veronica gave a shout together.

"Veronica! Everybody!" I cried. "We pasted up the windows and doors and forgot to shut the ventilators of the chimneys. Every bit of gas has escaped! All our trouble has been for nothing. And as for your death throes, Mr. H----, well, I don't want to be rude, but it has all been----"

"_Bunkum!_" finished Willy-Nilly. "Church bells and all, old chap!"

* * * * *

At eve we re-entered the cottage--cautiously at first, then more boldly.

Nothing had happened--nothing at all!

Flies buzzed in hundreds around us as if they had enjoyed the nice aromatic bath they had had. Every scrap of gas had gaily escaped up the wide chimneys. It was two in the morning before we had got the cottage shipshape again, and the breakages and general damage would be hard to calculate.

"I've done with the Simple Life," said Mr. H----, the erstwhile hero of this memorable day. "If you don't mind, I think I'll leave. There's not enough repose about the life, don't you know."

"And I, too," said the MacPhairson. "It's too expensive! Me Axminster's ruined, me bagpipes have gone to glory, and me tent's in smithereens."

So these two have left.

As for those of us who still remain at Simplicity Hall, we have decided to leave the "moss--quitoes" and "etceteras" alone, hoping that, as we mean to sleep in the tents till the Rand winter comes on, we may in the end starve them out.

+The End.+

Some Experiences in Malaya.]

+By Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Mackenzie.+

For many years the author was Chief of Police in one of the
native States of the Malay Peninsula, and here relates three
queer little adventures which befell him in his official
capacity.

"Do you mean to say you can't get any evidence whatever to go on?"

"No, Tuan."

_From a Photograph._]

"Then you and your detectives must be a lot of fools! In England a burglar or a murderer might be clever enough to hide all traces of his crime, but out here they are all coolies, and must leave no end of evidence which any officer who knows his work could easily follow up. If you can't do the simplest detective work, you and your men had better return to duty and leave your work to me. The next crime I will investigate myself. You can go."

I was Chief of Police of the native State of Sungei Ujong,[4] in the Malay Peninsula, and Detective-Sergeant Cassim stood rigidly at attention before me in my office. As I finished he saluted and left.

[4] Now combined with Jelebu and Negri Sembilan.

I was a fool--doubly a fool, for I had not only made a statement which I knew was wrong, but I had lost my temper. The Malay is dignified, if he is nothing else, and to lose one's temper with him is to lower one's own dignity, and that means lowering his respect.

When a man is worried, however, he is apt to forget the little niceties. Two gang robberies and a murder within ten days, and not a particle of evidence to go on, would fret most policemen's tempers, to say nothing of receiving one's reports back from the Resident minuted, "The police appear to be doing their duty in a somewhat perfunctory manner." I had to trust to my detectives, and they had failed to help me.

The following morning Barton, the Collector of Land Revenue, came to my office.

"Morning, old chap," he said. "You might send a detective to my house to see if he can find out anything. A burglary was committed last night, but the beggar must have been disturbed, for he only took away a Bee clock."

"I'll go myself," I said. I would show Sergeant Cassim how easily a crime could be detected, I told myself.

Like most of the houses in the place, Barton's was a bungalow. The upper halves of all the outer doors were venetianed, the doors themselves being merely fastened by bolts top and bottom. We did not go in for locks.

The burglary seemed quite simple of explanation. The "boy" must have forgotten to bolt one of the doors, and a midnight thief had simply walked in. Of course, the "boy" denied having failed in his duty--a Chinaman naturally would do so. But why the thief was contented with a clock, value two dollars, when he could have taken twenty times that amount beat me entirely.

As we left the compound to return to the office the doctor met us on his pony.

"You are the very man I was looking for," he said to me. "I had a thief in my house last night. One of the veranda doors was found open, but the queer part of the business is that he only took a clock. Thank goodness, he did not walk off with the Sultan's Cup."

"That's funny!" I replied. "Exactly the same thing happened to Barton last night, even to the article stolen. Let's go and have a look."

Examination convinced me that the robbery had been carried out in identically the same manner, and I grew puzzled.

"What does your 'boy' say?" I asked. "He probably forgot to bolt the door. I am almost sure that is what happened at Barton's."

"I can answer for that," replied the doctor. "I am a pretty late bird, as you fellows know; I did not turn in till about two last night, and I fastened the two doors myself."

If ever I searched a house thoroughly I did that one, but not a scrap of any sort of evidence could I find, in spite of my boast. I next sent the sergeant-major to scour the pawnshops, but without success; no one had tried to pawn a clock that day.

The climax was reached the following morning when, as I was returning from early parade, one of the Resident's "boys" met me with a note:--

"You might come up to the Residency and investigate a burglary which took place here last night. A clock was stolen."

I trust neither the boy nor my Sikh orderly fully understood my remarks on the subject. The doctor and Barton might pass their little robberies off as a joke, but a burglary at the Residency was a very different matter.

Exactly the same thing had occurred. A door had been found open and a clock gone. Nothing else had been touched. The Resident's remarks on the efficiency of my force as guardians of the peace were not complimentary, but distinctly to the point. Very sore, and very much mystified, I put my pride in my pocket and sent for Sergeant Cassim.

When he arrived I took him on one side and discussed these three bewildering robberies with him.

"Perhaps you can make something out of them," I said. "I believe it is the servants in each case."

He walked round the Resident's drawing-room, examined the floor of the veranda and the steps, and then said:--

"I shall be able to tell the Tuan to-morrow morning who committed the robberies."

"If you are so certain, why not now?"

"The Tuan must give me time to think and act."

That afternoon I received a letter through the post addressed to me in Malay. It contained a slip of paper bearing the following words, also in Malay:--

"If the Tuan will pretend he is going away to-night, and will return about eleven and hide near the veranda of his house, he will catch the burglar."

I have received a fair number of anonymous letters in my time, which usually meant nothing, but this was the oddest of them all. Why on earth should I pretend to leave for the night? Why could I not have been told merely to hide?

Suddenly the reason flashed across my mind--the guard! When I was living at head-quarters a guard, consisting of a lance-corporal and three men, was posted at my house from sunset till sunrise; in that district it was extremely useful to have four fully-armed men ready to accompany me anywhere at a moment's notice. When, however, I was absent on a tour of inspection the guard was dispensed with. It was apparently essential for the detecting of the burglar that the guard should be absent.

Of course, it might be only an excuse to get the house unguarded till the hour named in order that the burglar could enter before my return, and so doubly fool me; but I determined to risk it.

Accordingly I sent for the sergeant-major and told him I was going to investigate the last gang robbery myself on the spot, and that I should not be back till the following morning. He need not therefore post my guard.

A little before sunset I drove to a police-station about six miles away, and sent my dogcart back with instructions to return for me at six the following morning. I then told the sergeant in charge of the station that I was going to investigate the matter of the gang robbery, and that I should probably stay the night at the Towkay's (Chinese headman).

I visited the place, and, after spending an hour or so making inquiries--incidentally having to split a bottle of the vilest apology for champagne with the hospitable Towkay--I walked back to my house.

I suppose I must have been hiding at the side of the veranda for nearly an hour when a figure appeared at one of the dining-room doors. Being barefooted, I had not heard him approach the house, and I must confess that his sudden appearance was somewhat startling. He fumbled with the venetians for a couple of minutes; then the door opened silently and he entered the house. No sooner had he done so than the light of a bull's-eye lantern began to flash about the room; the man was evidently no ordinary thief.

Creeping on tip-toe to the door he had entered by, I waited with what patience I could muster, intending to commence operations by knocking the thief down as soon as he appeared. Presently the light went out, and I had drawn my arm back to let him have my fist on the side of his head, when a voice said:--

"Tuan, here is the burglar."

It was Sergeant Cassim himself!

"What on earth does this mean?" I demanded. "Where is the man?"

"I am he. Did not the Tuan see me enter the house?"

"Of course I did; but what is the meaning of it?"

"The Tuan told me I was a fool, and that no man committed a crime in this country without leaving some trace of it; also that the Tuan would prove this to me by investigating the next case himself. I am a Malay, Tuan, and do not like to be called names when I have not deserved them. I knew that crimes were often committed and no trace left, so I thought I would prove this to the Tuan. Did I leave any traces?"

"No, you certainly did not."

"But if the Tuan had only thought, he must have known these were not real burglaries; they were all exactly alike, even to the article stolen. Has the Tuan ever known such a thing happen before? Even the letter did not help him. Surely no thief gives himself away--in this country, at least! I was quite prepared for the Tuan to tell me he saw the whole thing when he got the letter. He must have forgotten how he spoke to me."

Cassim was evidently a reader of character and knew how I would take his rebuke, which I had undoubtedly fully deserved.

"You are right and I was wrong, Cassim," I said; "I am sorry I spoke as I did. But you were doing a very risky thing. Suppose Tuan Barton, or the Tuan Doctor, or the Tuan Besar (the Resident) had caught you in their houses?"

"Who would have suspected or said anything to me? I am the detective-sergeant, and if I find a house open at night it is my duty to investigate the matter. I _was_ seen, but the Tuan never thought of asking even that. If he had asked the Sikh sentry at the Residency, he would have said he had seen me walk round the building, for he challenged me. Why did the Tuan forget such a simple inquiry?"

"Of course, no one knows anything of this?" I said, evading his last question.

"Surely the Tuan can trust me?" he replied.

"All right. Keep it to yourself. I am much obliged to you for the lesson, and in future we will work together. Produce the clocks, and make up any story you like as to how you found them. The thief, of course, must have cleared out, and these burglaries must go in the crime book as 'Undetected: property recovered.' Oh, I forgot. How did you manage to open the doors?"

"That is very easy, Tuan," he replied, and he proceeded to show me. It was the simplest thing imaginable, but I am not going to give it away, for obvious reasons. Perhaps they have not got locks on the doors out there yet. I do not, however, mind telling a brother police-officer.

I have never told this yarn before; it would not have been fair to Cassim while he was in the service. It happened over fifteen years ago, and he must now have retired on pension. I hope it is the highest he could get, and that he is enjoying life under the shade of his own coco-nut plantation, for he was a thorough good fellow. No doubt he sometimes chuckles when he thinks of how he taught the Tuan Superintendent a lesson, not only in dignity, but also in the art of detecting crime.

Meanwhile the two gang robberies, which were the cause of Sergeant Cassim's little joke at my expense, seemed as far off discovery as ever. They had taken place within forty-eight hours of each other and less than five miles apart; and, so far, not a vestige of a clue could be found to work on.

"Look here, Cassim," I said, the morning after his exploit at my house, "something has got to be done. It is absurd, our being beaten like this. I don't want the Tuan Besar to report to the Tuan Governor that the police have not been able to do anything in the matter, or someone will get into trouble about it."

Cassim was as much bothered as myself, for complaints would probably mean the loss of his stripes, if nothing worse. An undetected crime of any magnitude was an unpardonable offence.

"Shall I read the Tuan my notes on the robbery at Ah Sing's again?" he asked.

"Yes. We may find we have overlooked something."

He got out his note-book and proceeded to read.

"Towkay Ah Sing reports that shortly before midnight on Thursday he was awakened by the door of his house being broken open. He was sleeping in a small room at the back, and his two coolies were asleep in the kitchen. He rushed out to see what had happened, and found the front room full of men; he thinks there were about a dozen. Their faces were blackened, and he could not recognise any of them; one had a lighted torch in his hand. The two coolies came in almost at the same time as himself. One of them had a stick, which he raised to strike a member of the gang, but he was stabbed in the side with a knife. Ah Sing and the two coolies were then knocked down, their hands and feet tied, and they were carried into the kitchen and thrown upon the floor. After about ten minutes the robbers left. One of the coolies managed to free his hands, and he unbound the other two. The gang took away a box containing clothing and jewellery from the front room, and another containing seven hundred dollars which Ah Sing kept under his bed. That is all, Tuan."

"And you found no traces of the robbers in or round the house?"

"Nothing except the extinguished torch."

"Ah Sing gave you a full description of all the articles stolen?" I asked.

"Yes, Tuan. He also says the money was in rolls of a hundred dollars, and that each roll had his 'chop' (private mark) on it."

"Well, he can say good-bye to his dollars," I said. "The robbers won't be such fools as to keep the 'chopped' papers they were wrapped in."

"The only other thing Ah Sing could state was that the men spoke the Fuhkien dialect," said Cassim.

"That is not much use as a clue, I am afraid. There are hundreds of Fuhkiens in the State. I will give a hundred dollars to the detective who can clear up this case. Why not try and earn them yourself, Cassim?"

"I will try, Tuan," he replied. "Shall I read the notes of the other robbery?"

"No; one at a time is enough. If we discover this one it may help us with the other."

As he left the office my Chinese clerk came in with a number of passes for me to initial.

In order to protect employers of Chinese labour, no coolie was allowed to leave any of the native States without a pass. Before a man could obtain a pass he had to produce from his employer a certificate giving his name and province and stating that he owed nothing to the mine or estate. This was attached to the pass, which was in English and Malay, and signed by the chief police-officer. On every road, at its junction with the neighbouring State, was a police-station, where all passes were examined.

"So-and-so, Fuhkien," began the clerk, putting the letters down in front of me, one by one, to be initialed.

What was it Cassim had said? "Ah Sing says the men spoke the Fuhkien dialect." Now, the robbers would not attempt to dispose of the stolen property in the State where the robbery had been committed. They knew that every police-station and pawnshop had been warned. They would therefore try and take it out of the country. I would mark every Fuhkien's pass and have him searched at the frontier station he tried to leave by.

"Hold on," I said; "I have not been listening to what you read out. Begin again." He did so, and I initialed every Fuhkien's pass in red pencil, those of other provinces in blue. When the passes were brought in, I also signed all the Fuhkiens' in red ink.

I then telegraphed to each frontier station:--

"Search all Chinese whose passes are signed in red ink; detain all who cannot account satisfactorily for their property, and report."

At six that evening I received a telegram in Malay from one of the police-stations:--

"Eleven Chinese with passes signed in red ink arrested this afternoon, accompanied by a bullock cart in which is a box containing clothing and jewellery and seven hundred dollars. Can give no satisfactory account of themselves."

Within half an hour a sergeant and six Sikhs were on their way to bring the Chinamen to head-quarters.

They arrived the following morning, and I at once sent for Ah Sing. As soon as he entered the charge-room he exclaimed:--

"Why, Tuan, there is my box which the robbers took away; it has my 'chop' on it!"

Sure enough it was, and it contained all the stolen property, tallying exactly with his description, even to the rolls of dollars in the "chopped" wrappers.

If ever a detective was astonished, Sergeant Cassim was.

"Who has won the hundred dollars, Tuan?" he asked.

"I have," I replied.

"But how did the Tuan discover it?"

"You gave me the clue yourself," I said. "You told me the robbers spoke the Fuhkien dialect, so I signed all the Fuhkien passes in red ink, and ordered that every man with one of these was to be searched at the frontier stations."

"The Tuan was right," cried Cassim. "Every man leaves some trace of his crime, and I thank the Tuan for proving it to me."

No defence was offered by the prisoners--they had none; and in due course they were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude each.

Thirteen years afterwards I was Secretary to the Council and Chief of Police of the international settlement of Kulangsu, in the province of Fuhkien.

One afternoon I was taking a walk on the mainland, when a Chinaman met me.

"Tabek, Tuan," he said.

As about a third of the male population of the province have at one time or another been immigrant coolies in the Malay Peninsula, it was no uncommon thing to be greeted in that language.

I returned his salutation, and was passing on, when he stopped and said:--

"Does not the Tuan remember me?"

"No, I can't say I do," I answered. "Where did you know me?"

"In Sungei Ujong. Does not the Tuan recollect a gang robbery at Towkay Ah Sing's, when one of the Towkay's coolies was stabbed? The gang was caught, and each man got ten years in jail."

"Yes, of course I remember it," I told him; "but what do you know about it?"

"I was one of the robbers, Tuan. The Tuan saw me every day in the jail for four years. I was put to mat-making."

"Oh, you were, were you?" I said. "Well, I hope you have given up gang robbery now?"

He grinned.

"By the by," I continued, "there was another gang robbery committed close to Ah Sing's and only two days before it. Did you ever hear anything about that?"

"Suppose the Tuan found out who did it, would he have the men arrested?" he asked.

"It was so long ago that even if I found out it would probably be impossible to get up a case, for it would now be only hearsay evidence. No; I don't think I would do anything."

"We committed that robbery also, Tuan," he said.

At one time or another most people have gone in for collecting things; for twenty years my hobby was savage weapons. My Malay sergeant-major took a keen interest--or, with his innate courtesy, pretended to do so--in my collection, and I owe many of the weapons I have to him. Many of them have curious histories, but none more so than that connected with two Booghis krises.

Under our paternal rule the Malay is not allowed to wear his kris. He has a keen sense of his own dignity, and he wore his kris, as our ancestors did their swords, to uphold it. The resenting of an insult by the shedding of blood being contrary to our modern ideas, however, we disarmed him.

One day Sergeant-Major Etot brought before me a man who had been arrested for carrying a kris. He was an ordinary-looking Malay, but he had a deep scar across one side of his face, from the nose nearly to his ear. He said he was a Booghis, and that his tribe lived in the interior of Sumatra; that he had only the day before arrived from there, and did not know he was not allowed to wear his kris.

The sergeant-major showed me the kris, and said he had never seen one quite like it before; he had questioned the man about it, and he had told him that the Booghis had two kinds of krises only, which they named the "male" and the "female," which were very similar to each other, having but a slight difference.

The man in question was wearing a "male" kris. I asked him if any distinction was made as to who wore either weapon, and he said that the wearing of the "male" kris was dependent on a man's valour--in other words, I take it, the number of people he had disposed of. It seemed somewhat hard on him, a stranger, to be deprived of his weapon when he did not know he was committing an offence by wearing it, so I gave him a dollar for it.

"If you come back to this country," I said, "bring a 'female' kris, and I will buy it from you."

Some two years later I was sitting in my office one morning when I heard the sergeant-major order the reserve duty men to fall in with their rifles; half a minute later he appeared before me and reported that a man had run "amok" in the village, and after killing one man and wounding two others he had bolted into the jungle.

Now an "amok" is akin to a mad dog, and can only be treated as such. As soon as the fit has left the man he never offers resistance, but so long as he is under its influence the only course to pursue is to shoot him and so stop his murderous career.

"Serve out buckshot to the men," I ordered (we were armed with Sniders), "and send them into the jungle in pairs to look for him. They are to take him alive if they can, but if he is still 'gelah' (mad) they must shoot him. When you have sent them, come down to the village with me."

When we arrived there we found one man dead, stabbed through the heart; two others had also been stabbed, but had only received flesh wounds. No one knew anything about the affair save that a man had suddenly appeared, had run "amok," and then made for the jungle. No one knew who he was. I sent the body of the dead man to the hospital to await an inquest, and the other two to the doctor to have their wounds attended to.

About a couple of hours later the sergeant-major again appeared in my office. He was accompanied by a Malay constable, who reported as follows.

He and another constable had been searching the jungle for the "amok," but, not having found any trace of him, set off on their return to head-quarters. As they were walking along a narrow path in Indian file he suddenly saw a man dash out and stab his comrade, who was in front of him, in the neck with a kris. Realizing that he must be the man they were searching for, he jammed home the breech-block, cocked his rifle, and let the stranger have the charge of buckshot in the head, dropping him dead. The wounded policeman died within a minute or two, and, seeing he could do nothing for him, the survivor returned at once to report the matter.

The sergeant-major and I accompanied him to the spot, and there we saw a ghastly sight. The unfortunate policeman lay dead, with his carotid artery severed, while his murderer was sprawled on his face about a couple of yards away, also dead, half the back of his head blown away. The sergeant-major turned the man over on to his back, and there, staring at us, was the Booghis from whom I had got the "male" kris a couple of years before; there was no mistaking the curious scar right across one side of his face.