We had been married just three days, when Tod McSwiney for the second time rose from the dead to torment me.

It was like the awakening from some entrancing dream.

For three days Mary and I had been alone together, and for three days life had been to us as a garden full of the most beautiful flowers.

With nothing in the world to disturb us or break into our peace, we had been supremely happy, and both of us realised we could never have quite such happy times again.

We had never once been outside our own gate, and myself I quite dreaded the time when we should have to return to the every day life again.

I knew it was bound to leak out soon that we had not gone away at all, and then would gradually commence again the round of social life and business affairs that would in a way so take us from each other.

But I certainly didn’t expect the end to come so quickly, or in so disagreeable a manner as it did.

We had been married on the Thursday, and on the Sunday night about ten o’clock I was alone in the garden, having a last cigarette before turning in. Mary had just left me, and I was thinking for about the thousandth time that day what an angel she was, when a low whistle at the gates at the end of the drive arrested my attention.

I walked slowly down, wondering if my fancy had misled me, when suddenly I heard some one calling me quietly by name.

“Mr. Stratton. Mr. Stratton,” the voice said, “can I speak to you a moment, please?”

Approaching close to the locked gates I saw in the shadows outside, a man with a bicycle.

“Well, what is it?” I said rather crossly. “I’m Mr. Stratton, what do you want with me?”

“I’m Harker, sir; you remember me, one of the plainclothes men from headquarters. I spoke to you once in the Arcade, and afterwards was at Gawler with you.”

“Oh, yes,” I laughed, “but you needn’t be so soft about it. You mean you were one of the men who arrested me that day and took me to the Chief. Now what do you want?”

“Well, I’ve rather unpleasant news, sir. That McSwiney affair has cropped up again.”

“What the deuce do you mean?” I asked quickly, a lump in my throat.

“Well, sir, last Thursday a small revolver was brought to us. It had been found on Henley Beach. They had been moving one of the bathing huts and it was found behind one of the supports. The people brought it to us, because as they said, they thought perhaps it might have something to do with that affair on the beach of over a year ago.”

“But what’s that to do with me?” I said, after a pause in which I had been thinking very hard.

The man moved out of the shadows, and in the moonlight I could see every line of a face which looked very grave and uncomfortable.

He looked round stealthily, and didn’t speak for a moment, then he said slowly and almost in a whisper:—

“The revolver had the initials J.S. cut into the barrel, sir.”

A feeling of horrible sickness came over me — I knew, of course, the revolver must be mine. It was the one I had killed McSwiney with, and so foolishly, I now realised, buried near the scene of the shooting. What idiocy I thought, had ever made me cut my initials on the barrel. I remembered doing it one afternoon to while away a lazy hour, and that foolishness was apparently now to be my undoing and bring at best a horrible scandal upon Mary and Sir Henry.

But I wasn’t going to let the man see my distress and after a few moments’ thought I said sharply:

“Well, that won’t affect me — I’m not the only J.S. in the world, and if I were, who is there to prove the revolver ever belonged to me?”

“But that isn’t all, sir,” went on the man, and he looked at me narrowly, “the revolver was shown round Finney’s lodging-house on Friday, and Nat Saunders swears he remembers it as belonging to a man who stayed there once, called Rob Turner. He says he distinctly remembers him having it out to clean one day, and he remarked then, he says, upon the difference in the initials.”

My feeling of sickness became worse. Nat Saunders was quite right. I had cleaned it in front of them all one day, but up to that very moment I had forgotten all about it. What on earth was going to happen now?

“But, look here,” I said brusquely, “who’s raking up all this, and why have you come up here to tell me? You’ve not been sent, have you?”

“Good Lord, no, sir,” denied the man warmly, “I’m risking everything in coming up to warn you. If it were known I was up here I should not only get dismissed from the force, but probably get a term of imprisonment as well. I’ve come up here because I reckoned you saved my life at Gawler that afternoon. I was right in front of Hunter, and should have been the first man shot for sure. Besides that — I think it’s a dirty trick they’re doing you. I was in the confidence of the Chief over that McSwiney affair, and know quite well what he promised you. This would never have happened if he’d not been away.”

“Well, but who’s stirring all this up?” I asked, impressed by the man’s earnestness.

“It’s the Acting Deputy Chief Inspector Rubens, Mr. Stratton. He’s doing it all. He’s a very ambitious man, and thinks he’s got hold of a case to make a splash with, now the Chief’s away. Of course, he knows all about you, and he thinks what a fine advertisement it would be for him, to have a man in your position arrested, in the middle of his honeymoon. That’s what it is, that’s all.”

“But he knows well enough,” I argued, “that even if they brought it home to me — which I still deny — there would be no punishment for me — McSwiney was at best a murderer and an outlaw.”

“Yes, Sir, that’s quite true, but it’s the inquest verdict he’s going on, ‘Murder against some person or persons unknown.’ He knows quite well all you did for us afterwards, and the Chief’s promise to you, too. I told him about it straight.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he said the Chief’s promise wasn’t binding on him.”

There was a long pause, and I stood there weighing things up.

“Well, what’s he going to do?” I asked presently. “You know, Harker, guilty or not guilty, it would make a horrible scandal for me. Look how terrible for my wife.”

“Yes, I know that, sir, and I feel as wild about it as you do.”

“Well, what’s he going to do — is he going to arrest me?”

“No, I don’t think he’s going to do that yet. He’s waiting now for Inspector Kitson. He’s written to the Inspector — I know that for certain, for I saw the letter — and until he gets an answer I’m sure he’ll not move. He doesn’t know you’re here. I didn’t know it myself. I only came up on the chance to see if I could get your address from any one who was looking after the house.”

“Well, Harker, I’m very much obliged to you. Be sure you let me know anything that happens. I’ll see you don’t lose by it.”

“Very good, sir — look out for me any evening about this time. Good-night.” And the man disappeared into the darkness. I went slowly into the house with a great load of anxiety in my heart. It was not for myself I cared a rap. Even if I were arrested, I had only to tell my tale openly, and I knew perfectly well there would be no penalty at all. But for Mary and poor Sir Henry the scandal would be awful.

Pulling myself together I went into our room, and I always think back now with pride that Mary all along never had the slightest inkling of any trouble affecting me.

I lay awake a lot that night, scheming and thinking what I could possibly do. The situation was certainly rather an alarming one, but still at the same time I believed if it were handled boldly I might yet escape, as I had done once before.

The next day the servants all came back, and Mary and I went shopping in the car, much to the interest of all who saw us.

I felt so proud of my wife. The crisp autumn air gave a lovely colour to her face, and she looked so radiantly happy as she sat by my side. I didn’t wonder at all that everyone had a good stare at us wherever we went.

On the Tuesday night near about ten o’clock I went down again to the gates and almost immediately Harker glided up like some ghostly minister of fate.

He had some news to tell me. Inspector Kitson had written back promptly to the Deputy Commissioner, and according to Harker had thrown a lot of cold water upon any idea of reopening the case of McSwiney. The authorities, he wrote had had all along a pretty shrewd idea as to how the man had met his death, and even were sufficient new evidence now unearthed to unerringly bring home the affair to me, nothing would in the end be gained. Nothing but a foolish error of judgment in hiding the body could at best be proved against me, and in the light of my subsequent services to the State in the matter of discovering the other man, in his opinion — it would be a piece of culpable bad taste to interfere with me again.

“At any rate,” concluded Harker, “he’s given Chief Inspector Rubens a nasty snub, and as good as told him to shut up.”

“But what does Rubens say now,” I asked. “Is he going to drop it, do you think?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid not — in fact, I’m sure not. He’s rather spiteful about it, and says for some reason Inspector Kitson is trying to shield you. His opinion is, however, that the possession of the revolver is a trump card, and there will be no getting away from the verdict of the coroner’s jury.”

“Well, what’s he going to do then?”

“Oh, he believes there’s no immediate hurry, and he’s waiting now for the return from Perth of another plain clothes man who worked on the case with me last year. This man, Clark, will be back on Friday week, and I think, sir, he intends to arrest you the next day at the races at Morphettville.”

“The damned blackguard,” I swore.

“Yes, sir, he made inquiries today, and found out you are running a horse in the Welter there on Saturday week, and he thinks it would be very dramatic to serve the warrant on the course, perhaps just before the race. He says he intends to make it as public as possible.”

For a moment I was dumbfounded with the news. The man’s cynical and brutal disregard of all nice feeling and decency made me quite speechless with anger.

I could picture it all in my mind — the bright afternoon at Morphettville — the happy crowds at the meeting — my horse being saddled for the race — Mary and I amongst all our friends and then — this brute having me arrested in so shameful and public a manner that whatever happened afterwards the shame and horror of it all would be for ever uppermost in men’s minds when they either thought or spoke of me.

But the very vileness of the man’s intention steeled me to a resolution that to carry through I might otherwise have lacked strength.

All my nervousness left me, and I became at once cold, calculating, and full of resource.

“Now, look here, Harker,” I said bluntly, with no mincing of my words, “Money’s no object to me — I’ve got to get hold of that revolver somehow. Can it be done? Think carefully. I don’t mind what it costs.”

The man was silent for quite a full minute, then he said, speaking very deliberately, “It might be done, Mr. Stratton, but it’ll be a very difficult business. In any case, I don’t want any money from you. Anything I do will be just because you helped the force so finely last year, besides saving me at Gawler. I’ll help you all I can, but the worst of it is I don’t see where to commence.”

“Well, to begin with,” I asked quickly, “has the revolver been photographed?”

“No, ‘I don’t think so; in fact, I’m quite sure it hasn’t; I should know at once because”— with an amused smile —“I’ve practically got charge of the case.”

“Where’s it kept?”

“In the safe in the Chief’s room.”

“And the key of the safe?”

“On a bunch with other keys at the end of a chain in Chief Inspector Rubens’ pocket.”

“Hum! Is the safe a good one?”

“Not particularly, but still I don’t know of the man who could open it quietly — without a key?”

“Well, who has access to the Chief’s room?”

“Oh, plenty of us; the door’s seldom kept locked. As you know, the room’s right in the middle of the building, and to get to it one has to go along a passage and through two other rooms, where there are always several men on duty. I’m afraid it’s a hard nut to crack.”

“Well, Harker,” I said after a long pause, “let’s both think it over. At any rate, I take it I can depend on you to give me at least a little warning before I’m tapped on the shoulder again — that is so, isn’t it?”

“For sure, Mr. Stratton, I can promise you faithfully nothing shall be sprung on you. You shall know beforehand, and in plenty of time too. But I’ll come up and see you again on Friday.”

The ensuing few days were ones of great anxiety to me, but I never for a moment allowed myself to lose heart.

One thing I was fully resolved on. If the worst came to the worst, and I knew for certain my arrest was determined on, I would myself precipitate matters and make public in my own way a full account of my ad............