E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ It has always been my practice to leave something to Fate. How on earth I was going to get out of the house in Southwell Gardens, if the theft of the necklace were discovered before I could get away by natural means, I had been quite unable to decide. Fate, however, settled the matter for me. I left with flying colors, rescued by the girl with the steadfast eyes, whose lips had mocked at danger on the precipices of the Forêt du Dom.
“Where to?” she asked, as we took our places in her automobile. ”

“ Norman held my hand tightly.
“We are very sensible people, you and I,” he said, “and we are going to look stark facts in the face. It doesn't matter in the least legally, whether Michael is dead or not. He had at least two other wives alive in America when he married you.”
I leaned toward him. Somehow or other, what would have seemed in my saner moments a sheer impossibility, seemed at that moment a perfectly natural and reasonable thing. ”

“ A man like that one today would have money—a pocketbook. Whilst he was unconscious, look you, we would take it. One of us would bring it up here, here where there are a hundred hiding-places, in the ground, the trees, the cracks of the earth. A pocketbook which is lost, is lost. ”

“ One day a chance incident set me thinking. We had paused for a second to fill our pipes with filthy tobacco, barely a dozen yards round one of the hairpin corners of the forest road, leaving our wagons, as usual, in the middle of the thoroughfare. Suddenly a car swung round the corner, traveling too fast for the driver to apply his brakes with safety. With great skill he passed us, grazing the long trunks of the lopped trees and escaping the precipice by a matter of inches. The chauffeur drove on, turning round for a moment, however, to shake his fist and shout abuse at us. ”

“ All the time that we were at work in the forest, lopping the branches from the fallen trees and piling them onto the wagons, we were thinking of what fortune might have in store for us on our homeward crawl. ”

“ The girl's foot apparently slipped from the brake and the car once more gathered speed. She clutched at the wheel but it was obvious that she had never driven. Somehow or other she got round the corner, but at the next—the wagons!
I saw her eyes, as the car came bumping down the hill, hear the wild shouting and exclamations of the old gentleman behind and there came to me one of those extraordinary moment which I make no attempt to explain, moments when action decided purely by impulse, and by an impulse irreducible law. We had made the most careful plans to wreck this auto mobile. ”

“ Remember that I deliberately planned to wreck your car as I had done others. It was only a fancy which made me change my mind. Believe me, I am not a creditable acquaintance.”
“But you might be,” she persisted. “Wont you try?”
I shook my head.
“It is too late,” I told her. “I am a hunted man today, and shall be to the end. There is no country in the world where I could find safety or even rest for a little time. And what is coming to me I have earned.” ”

“ There were crowds of people at the house in Southwell Gardens where Norman's sister was giving a reception for us. Everybody was wonderfully nice to. me, and I made new friends at every moment. Just as I was warned that it was time for me to go and change into my traveling gown, an uncle of Norman's, a Mr. Harold Greyes, asked me to show him the pearl necklace which had been Norman's present to me. ”

“ I righted the car without much difficulty, applied the brake, gently but with increasing force, took the corner with only a moderate skid and brought the car to a standstill within a few feet of the wagon. When the girl saw it, the first look of fear crept into her face She looked at me with shining eyes.
“You were just in time,” she said. “That was a wonderful jump.”
“What was the matter with your chauffeur?” I asked.
“Our own chauffeur was taken ill, and this was a boy we engaged in Cannes,” she answered. “He was not equal to driving the car. He lost his nerve at the top of the hill.” ”

“ Norman Greyes and I are old enemies. He has hunted me as only man can hunt man. His wife is an old acquaintance. It flattered my vanity to attend his reception unrecognized and to help myself to his wife's pearls. Allow me.”
I took off my silk hat and laid it upon the opposite seat. Then I passed my hand slowly from my forehead back over my hair, pressed the top of my skull and handed her the necklace. ”

“ I assured her. “We rather thought of wrecking your car, but I watched you coming down the hill, and afterward I only thought of saving you.”
She laughed a little nervously, but for the moment she avoided meeting my eye.
“You are a strange person,” she declared. “Why were you masquerading as a woodman?” ”

“ If our wagons had been an inch or two nearer the outside corner of the road, or the man in the automobile a shade less skillful, he could not possibly have escaped. His automobile would have been smashed, and he would have gone over the edge of the precipice. ”

“ They cheated at cards—we had one filthy pack which had lasted them for a year before I came; they drank to excess, when they could afford the wine or the fiery brandy of the country; and I am convinced that they would have murdered anyone for a few francs, if they could have been sure of evading detection. ”

“ I ordered Pierre to move the wagons over to our own side of the road, and we secreted the pocketbook among the logs we were carrying. Then we waited for events, and although I really cared not in the least whether the man lived or died, I found myself, to my surprise, bathing his head and loosening his clothing. Presently a public touring car from Cannes, on its way to Hyères, arrived. The accident was explained; room was made for the injured man ”

“ The detective first closed the door and then came back into the room. We both of us looked around. Besides myself and my companion, Mr. Harold Greyes, there were present a very charming girl called Beatrice Kindersley, a great friend of Norman's, an elderly lady, Mrs. Phillipson, and a slim, soldierly-looking man who was a complete stranger to me but who, on account of his sunburnt complexion, I put down as an Anglo-Indian.
“Dear me,” the latter exclaimed, “this is very distressing! A great many people have passed in and out during the last half-hour.” ”

“ The gifted Mr. Oppenheim handles this thrilling episode in the adventures of a master criminal with his usual skill, The story is told, at the outset, by the criminal himself, Michael Sayers.
FOR many months after my somewhat ingenious escape from the café of Madame Ponadour in the Maritime Quartier of Marseilles, I lived in the Forêt du Dom, on the far side of Hyères, the life of a dog. There were three of us woodmen in the hut—Pierre, Jacques and myself. ”