Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

er at top speed when there came a sud

g, "it must be old Lund to

elderly man clad in a faded dressing gown. It was a

fiercely. "This is a boarding house and not a private reside

and placed him in a morris chair. "Come in and give me your opinion of the kind of cigar sm

re him. And he found his petulance vanishing. He wondered why it was that although he had before this come raging to Anthony Trent's door, he alwa

when I'm working," said

f his grievance, "you choose the wrong hours to work. Mrs.

matrimony I could work so many hours a day and begin at nine like any business man. But I don't. I begin to write just when the world

remarked. His grievances were vanishing. His opinio

ime. I could take you now into the great restaurants on Broadway or Fifth Avenue and point out to you some of the kings of crime-men who are clever enough

ch a festive crowd. He felt in that moment that an early manhood

or later," asserted the li

rook, Mr. Lund, you'll have to map out your plan of life as carefully as an athlete trains

crime. I am perfectly content with my own line." This, with unconscious sarcas

. He generally gets caught in the end as all such clumsy asses should. The really big man in crime often gets caught because he is not aware of h

nd returned with some dignity. "I h

ed at him

y make you want t

o think of it,"

is most unusual not to drink, and the man who doesn't is almost always under suspicion. The great thing is to

not," Lun

hing but gentlemen born. Despard was. I was in Devonshire on my last trip to the other side and I made a pilgrimage to the place where he wa

id Lund, as one man of

f his regiment anyway and went to Cape Town. One night a very large diamond was stolen from a bedroom of the Mount Nelson hotel and he was suspected. They couldn't prove anything, but he came over here to New York and sold it, under another name, and

st, I suppose?"

ked quarrels with some of them. He beat up one of them in a fist fight in the club billiard room. This fellow brooded over his licking for a long time and then with another man, also inflamed with cocktails, went up to Despard's room to beat him up. Despard was out, so they broke his furniture. They found that the legs of chairs and tables had bee

ied this thing deep

inals and their crimes. The police do too, but I know more than they. I make a st

femme," Mr. L

odged in a gutter pipe on the roof. Vierick told the young man who had hit it there how to get it. It was so dangerous looking a climb that the lad refused. Some of the guests suggested in fun that Vierick should try. They made him mad. He thought they were laughing at his two hundred pound look. They were not to know that a more expert porch climber didn't exist than this man who had been a profe

ted. He was thoroughly taken up with the subje

could keep on all night. Your town of Somerville produ

e had buried in his breast for years. Now it seemed to admit him to somet

professor of anatomy on the subject of strangulation. Blodgett had his own th

ed. "He would have done if I hadn't had suffici

t of them to the chair. And yet," he mused, "it's a great life. One man pitting his courage and knowledge against all the forces

ought to the rather timid and elderly man the impression of ruthless strength and tireless energy. He had been a score of times in Anthony Trent's room and had always found him amusing and light hearted. Nev

o brace up his courage he reverted to his former grievan

our typewriting machine. Everybody seems to be in bed an

ent came t

, it is never quiet. A myriad strange sounds are blended into this stillness you call night." His voice sank to a

woman," Lund ad

iting for a man and he ought to be by in a few minutes now. She's known in every rogues' gallery in

timidly. He shivered. "It's

tself before your eyes in a little while. She's waiting for a ba

whispered. "I don't like

ther," mutte

ed a tall man come toward the

arn him," Mr.

aved his life and he deserted her. Pereira's pretending to be drunk. I wonder w

commanding as his inches permitted, w

e and Pereira when it was only poor Mrs. Clarke waiting for that dru

. It was Clarke making his bedward w

like that for nothing," said Anthony Tr

. Lund insisted. "I t

ght and I've got to put them down on the old machine. Somewhere a Gipsey Lee is waiting for a defaulting South American banker or a Captain Despard is planning to get a pric

m the window and breathe

g by letting my hook down into the night and drawing up a mystery. You must

th an air of firmness, "you'll let crook stories alone and ch

elf from the room. Anthony Trent fed his an

's right," muse