Bertram Atkey

“ The eyes of Monsieur Santoin glistened swiftly over Mr. Brass and came suddenly to rest full upon the blandly smiling orbs of the adventurer.
“Mr. Brass,” he said earnestly, “I am your true friend. You are a man of the world. I, too, am a man of the world. It is a good thing to be men of the world; but men of the world must live, and to live one needs money—”
“Certainly,” said the Honorable John. “Certainly a man must live. ”

“ Brass to confide in his wealthy friend, who, he conceived, being well known in New York, might be able to help him.
“I’m really going to the States on behalf of an old friend of mine,” he told Lord Fortworth. “The black sport you see always hanging round near me is a sort of secretary of his. He’s in awful trouble. He’s a man you’d never think could have any trouble in the world, but he has. It only shows you. The girl he’s in love with is in jail in New York. ”

“ Brass should go with him, but the Honorable John wanted to “take things easy” for a while. He had been doing well for a considerable time past, and wished to employ a few months in learning to shoot and in getting an idea of golf. Be it remembered, this was in the Honorable John’s early days. Hence he had decided to relieve the nobleman of his company for a while. He had already relieved him of more than enough money to pay the expenses of his “rest.”
Suddenly the telephone on the table at Lord Fortworth’s elbow gave a musical imitation of an agitated rattlesnake. ”

“ ALL the financial arrangements were made to the Honorable John’s satisfaction, and carrying about fifteen hundred pounds cash for emergencies, he crossed the Atlantic with Lord Fortworth, much to that nobleman’s delight—and loss, for Mr. Brass magicked eight hundred pounds from him between Queenstown and New York at poker. Mirza Khan was there, but he was not obtrusive, although he was never far away from the Honorable John. ”

“ We trust each other perfectly—” He paused a second, listening. Then, lowering his voice he whispered rapidly, with deadly earnestness: “Monsieur Brass, I will pay you one hundred pounds for the address of the lady.” He took from his pocket a small bundle of bank notes. “Quick!”
The Honorable John took the notes.
“Certainly,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s this. Write it down: ‘Kate the Gun, Over the Road, New York, U. S. A.’ She told me so herself—and she knows!”
M. Santoin looked puzzled.
“Over the Road,” he whispered. “Where is ‘Over the Road’?”
“‘Over the Road’ is jail, my lad. ”

“ I bribed the prison staff, from the Governor to the cook and back up again, but once they’d got the money they just laughed and told me to go chase myself. In fact, they just skinned me like an eel. I’ve got no excuse to make, Rajah. I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I apologize.” He fumbled in his pocket. “I’ve saved a little from the wreck—only a little, but the best I could manage.”
He drew out a check of his own for five hundred pounds. ”

“ IMMEDIATELY he reached London the Honorable John, delaying only long enough to make at his bank a deposit of a magnitude which caused the manager to smile, went to the Southern Grand Hotel and very shortly was ushered into the presence of the Rajah.
“Well?” said the ruler of Jolapore rather casually.
“Nothing doing, Your Highness,” responded the Honorable John. “I’m not clever enough for New York. I’m a simple old British stick-in-the-mud—steady, solid, honest, and dull as ditch-water. Kate’s quodded for ever and ever. Twenty-five years in fact. They’ve got her and they mean to keep her. ”

“ Too dark to be European, with extraordinary bronze hair, curiously straight dark eyebrows, a cold, clean-cut face, rather thin but perfectly-shaped lips, a nose with a faint, hardly perceptible curve, and steady, black, heavy-lidded eyes. ”

“ One Lucien Santoin announced that he desired to get into communication with the person who had given shelter in his flat to a gentleman of high rank, who had lost his memory some few months previously—and the Honorable John knew that the person in question was himself. He felt a thrill of excitement as he turned to his host, for Lucien Santoin was confidential secretary to His Highness the Rajah of Jolapore—the “gentleman of high rank” in question. Mr. ”

“ The idea was to surround the prisoners with all the comforts of home life, and by judicious hypnotism gradually quench all that was ill in a woman’s nature and develop all that was good. The Honorable John smiled as he pictured the professors lining up to mesmerize Kate. He gathered from Mr. MacQuoid that the Chief Warden or Governor was named Hoit—Colonel Jackson Hoit—and, after a few words at the telephone, that Kate’s number was sixty-six. More information than this Mr. MacQuoid did not offer, and not much liking the severely legal look of the attorney, Mr. ”

“ Mr. Brass—with Mirza carefully in tow—lost no time in looking up his brother Tony, and Fanchon his wife. These two were detectives, working with Westerton’s, the detective agency. Fortunately, he decided to call at the office first. ”

“ Brass & Clumber—but this story, “The Rajah’s Commission,” is, so to speak, “just Brass.”
By Bertram Atkey
DESPITE the regrettable necessity which drove the Honorable John Brass to remember with the utmost strictness the adage that “business is business,” his friendship with Lord Fortworth daily grew firmer—the last application of cement thereto being, so to speak, a certain lunch in which they both indulged a few weeks after their Mogador trip. The lunch finished, Mr. Brass gazed contentedly across the table at his friend Lord Fortworth, and Lord Fortworth gazed contentedly back at Mr. ”