Table of Contents 


Chapter 1
The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown

Rabelais, or his wild illustrator Gustave Dor, must have 
had something to do with the designing of the things called flats in
England and America. There is something entirely Gargantuan 
in the idea of economising space by piling houses on top of each
other, front doors and all. And in the chaos and complexity 
of those perpendicular streets anything may dwell or happen, and it
is in one of them, I believe, that the inquirer may find 
the offices of the Club of Queer Trades. It may be thought at the first
glance that the name would attract and startle the passer-by, 
but nothing attracts or startles in these dim immense hives. The
passer-by is only looking for his own melancholy destination, 
the Montenegro Shipping Agency or the London office of the
Rutland Sentinel, and passes through the twilight passages 
as one passes through the twilight corridors of a dream. If the
Thugs set up a Strangers' Assassination Company in one of the 
great buildings in Norfolk Street, and sent in a mild man in
spectacles to answer inquiries, no inquiries would be made. 
And the Club of Queer Trades reigns in a great edifice hidden like
a fossil in a mighty cliff of fossils. 

The nature of this society, such as we afterwards discovered 
it to be, is soon and simply told. It is an eccentric and Bohemian
Club, of which the absolute condition of membership lies in 
this, that the candidate must have invented the method by which he
earns his living. It must be an entirely new trade. The exact 
definition of this requirement is given in the two principal rules. First,
it must not be a mere application or variation of an 
existing trade. Thus, for instance, the Club would not admit an insurance
agent simply because instead of insuring men's furniture 
against being burnt in a fire, he insured, let us say, their trousers against
being torn by a mad dog. The principle (as Sir Bradcock 
Burnaby-Bradcock, in the extraordinarily eloquent and soaring
speech to the club on the occasion of the question being 
raised in the Stormby Smith affair, said wittily and keenly) is the same.
Secondly, the trade must be a genuine commercial source of 
income, the support of its inventor. Thus the Club would not
receive a man simply because he chose to pass his days 
collecting broken sardine tins, unless he could drive a roaring trade in
them. Professor Chick made that quite clear. And when one 
remembers what Professor Chick's own new trade was, one
doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

The discovery of this strange society was a curiously refreshing 
thing; to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was
like looking at the first ship or the first plough. It made a 
man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the
world. That I should have come at last upon so singular a 
body was, I may say without vanity, not altogether singular, for I
have a mania for belonging to as many societies as possible: 
I may be said to collect clubs, and I have accumulated a vast and
fantastic variety of specimens ever since, in my audacious youth, 
I collected the Athenaeum. At some future day, perhaps, I
may tell tales of some of the other bodies to which I have belonged. 
I will recount the doings of the Dead Man's Shoes Society
(that superficially immoral, but darkly justifiable communion); 
I will explain the curious origin of the Cat and Christian, the name
of which has been so shamefully misinterpreted; and the world 
shall know at last why the Institute of Typewriters coalesced
with the Red Tulip League. Of the Ten Teacups, of course I dare 
not say a word. The first of my revelations, at any rate, shall
be concerned with the Club of Queer Trades, which, as I have said, 
was one of this class, one which I was almost bound to
come across sooner or later, because of my singular hobby. The 
wild youth of the metropolis call me facetiously `The King of
Clubs'. They also call me `The Cherub', in allusion to the roseate 
and youthful appearance I have presented in my declining
years. I only hope the spirits in the better world have as good 
dinners as I have. But the finding of the Club of Queer Trades
has one very curious thing about it. The most curious thing about 
it is that it was not discovered by me; it was discovered by
my friend Basil Grant, a star-gazer, a mystic, and a man who 
scarcely stirred out of his attic. 

Very few people knew anything of Basil; not because he was in 
the least unsociable, for if a man out of the street had walked
into his rooms he would have kept him talking till morning. 
Few people knew him, because, like all poets, he could do without
them; he welcomed a human face as he might welcome a sudden 
blend of colour in a sunset; but he no more felt the need of
going out to parties than he felt the need of altering the 
sunset clouds. He lived in a queer and comfortable garret in 
the roofs of Lambeth. He was surrounded by a chaos of things 
that were in odd contrast to the slums around him; old fantastic books,
swords, armour---the whole dust-hole of romanticism. But his 
face, amid all these quixotic relics, appeared curiously keen and
modern---a powerful, legal face. And no one but I knew who he was. 

Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque 
scene that occurred in---, when one of the most acute and
forcible of the English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. 
I had my own view of that occurrence; but about the facts
themselves there is no question at all. For some months, indeed 
for some years, people had detected something curious in the
judge's conduct. He seemed to have lost interest in the law, in 
which he had been beyond expression brilliant and terrible as a
K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to 
the people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a
doctor, and a very outspoken one at that. The first thrill was 
probably given when he said to a man who had attempted a crime
of passion: `I sentence you to three years' imprisonment, under 
the firm, and solemn, and God-given conviction, that what you
require is three months at the seaside.' He accused criminals 
from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal crimes, but of
things that had never been heard of in a court of justice, 
monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity deliberately
encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated diamond 
case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant patrician,
had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give evidence 
against his valet. After the detailed life of the household had
been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again 
to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge
then said, in a sudden, grating voice: `Get a new soul. That 
thing's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.' All this, of course, in the
eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that melancholy and 
farcical day when his wits actually deserted him in open court.
It was a libel case between two very eminent and powerful 
financiers, against both of whom charges of considerable
defalcation were brought. The case was long and complex; the 
advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of
work and rhetoric, the time came for the great judge to give a 
summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity
and pulverizing logic was eagerly looked for. He had spoken 
very little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and
lowering at the end of it. He was silent for a few moments,
and then burst into a stentorian song. His remarks (as reported)
were as follows: 

`O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty 
Highty-ighty tiddly-ighty Tiddly-ighty ow.' 

He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth. 

I was sitting there one evening, about six o'clock, over a 
glass of that gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of
black-letter folios; he was striding about the room, 
fingering, after a habit of his, one of the great swords in his collection; the
red glare of the strong fire struck his square features and 
his fierce grey hair; his blue eyes were even unusually full of dreams,
and he had opened his mouth to speak dreamily, when the 
door was flung open, and a pale, fiery man, with red hair and a
huge furred overcoat, swung himself panting into the room. 

`Sorry to bother you, Basil,' he gasped. `I took a liberty---
made an appointment here with a man---a client---in five
minutes---I beg your pardon, sir,' and he gave me a bow of apology. 

Basil smiled at me. `You didn't know,' he said, `that I had a 
practical brother. This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does
all there is to be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, 
he is a success at everything. I remember him as a journalist, a
house-agent, a naturalist, an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster,
a---what are you now, Rupert?' 

`I am and have been for some time,' said Rupert, with some 
dignity, `a private detective, and there's my client.' 

A loud rap at the door had cut him short, and, on permission 
being given, the door was thrown sharply open and a stout,
dapper man walked swiftly into the room, set his silk hat 
with a clap on the table, and said, `Good evening, gentlemen,' with a
stress on the last syllable that somehow marked him out 
as a martinet, military, literary and social. He had a large head
streaked with black and grey, and an abrupt black moustache, 
which gave him a look of fierceness which was contradicted by
his sad sea-blue eyes. 

Basil immediately said to me, `Let us come into the next room, Gully,' and was moving towards the door, but the stranger said:

`Not at all. Friends remain. Assistance possibly.' 

The moment I heard him speak I remembered who he was, a 
certain Major Brown I had met years before in Basil's society. I
had forgotten altogether the black dandified figure and 
the large solemn head, but I remembered the peculiar speech, which
consisted of only saying about a quarter of each sentence, 
and that sharply, like the crack of a gun. I do not know, it may have
come from giving orders to troops. 

Major Brown was a V.C., and an able and distinguished soldier, 
but he was anything but a warlike person. Like many among
the iron men who recovered British India, he was a man with 
the natural beliefs and tastes of an old maid. In his dress he was
dapper and yet demure; in his habits he was precise to the 
point of the exact adjustment of a tea-cup. One enthusiasm he had,
which was of the nature of a religion---the cultivation of 
pansies. And when he talked about his collection, his blue eyes
glittered like a child's at a new toy, the eyes that had 
remained untroubled when the troops were roaring victory round Roberts
at Candahar. 

`Well, Major,' said Rupert Grant, with a lordly heartiness, 
flinging himself into a chair, `what is the matter with you?' 

`Yellow pansies. Coal-cellar. P. G. Northover,' said the 
Major, with righteous indignation. 

We glanced at each other with inquisitiveness. Basil, who 
had his eyes shut in his abstracted way, said simply: 

`I beg your pardon.' 

`Fact is. Street, you know, man, pansies. On wall. 
Death to me. Something. Preposterous.' 

We shook our heads gently. Bit by bit, and mainly by the 
seemingly sleepy assistance of Basil Grant, we pieced together the
Major's fragmentary, but excited narration. It would be 
infamous to submit the reader to what we endured; therefore I will tell
the story of Major Brown in my own words. But the reader 
must imagine the scene. The eyes of Basil closed as in a trance,
after his habit, and the eyes of Rupert and myself getting 
rounder and rounder as we listened to one of the most astounding
stories in the world, from the lips of the little man in 
black, sitting bolt upright in his chair and talking like a telegram. 

Major Brown was, I have said, a successful soldier, but by 
no means an enthusiastic one. So far from regretting his retirement
on half-pay, it was with delight that he took a small neat 
villa, very like a doll's house, and devoted the rest of his life to pansies
and weak tea. The thought that battles were over when he 
had once hung up his sword in the little front hall (along with two
patent stew-pots and a bad water-colour), and betaken 
himself instead to wielding the rake in his little sunlit garden, was to
him like having come into a harbour in heaven. He was 
Dutch-like and precise in his taste in gardening, and had, perhaps,
some tendency to drill his flowers like soldiers. He was 
one of those men who are capable of putting four umbrellas in the
stand rather than three, so that two may lean one way and 
two another; he saw life like a pattern in a freehand drawing-book.
And assuredly he would not have believed, or even understood, 
any one who had told him that within a few yards of his brick
paradise he was destined to be caught in a whirlpool of 
incredible adventure, such as he had never seen or dreamed of in the
horrible jungle, or the heat of battle. 

One certain bright and windy afternoon, the Major, attired 
in his usual faultless manner, had set out for his usual constitutional.
In crossing from one great residential thoroughfare to 
another, he happened to pass along one of those aimless-looking lanes
which lie along the back-garden walls of a row of mansions, 
and which in their empty and discoloured appearance give one an
odd sensation as of being behind the scenes of a theatre. 
But mean and sulky as the scene might be in the eyes of most of us, it
was not altogether so in the Major's, for along the coarse 
gravel footway was coming a thing which was to him what the
passing of a religious procession is to a devout person. A 
large, heavy man, with fish-blue eyes and a ring of irradiating red
beard, was pushing before him a barrow, which was ablaze with 
incomparable flowers. There were splendid specimens of
almost every order, but the Major's own favourite pansies 
predominated. The Major stopped and fell into conversation, and
then into bargaining. He treated the man after the manner 
of collectors and other mad men, that is to say, he carefully and with
a sort of anguish selected the best roots from the less 
excellent, praised some, disparaged others, made a subtle scale ranging
from a thrilling worth and rarity to a degraded insignificance, 
and then bought them all. The man was just pushing off his barrow
when he stopped and came close to the Major. 

`I'll tell you what, sir,' he said. `If you're interested in 
them things, you just get on to that wall.' 

`On the wall!' cried the scandalised Major, whose conventional 
soul quailed within him at the thought of such fantastic trespass.

`Finest show of yellow pansies in England in that there garden, 
sir,' hissed the tempter. `I'll help you up, sir.' 

How it happened no one will ever know but that positive 
enthusiasm of the Major's life triumphed over all its negative
traditions, and with an easy leap and swing that showed that 
he was in no need of physical assistance, he stood on the wall at
the end of the strange garden. The second after, the flapping 
of the frock-coat at his knees made him feel inexpressibly a fool.
But the next instant all such trifling sentiments were swallowed
up by the most appalling shock of surprise the old soldier had
ever felt in all his bold and wandering existence. His eyes 
fell upon the garden, and there across a large bed in the centre of the
lawn was a vast pattern of pansies; they were splendid 
flowers, but for once it was not their horticultural aspects 
that Major Brown beheld, for the pansies were arranged in 
gigantic capital letters so as to form the sentence: 

DEATH TO MAJOR BROWN 

A kindly looking old man, with white whiskers, was watering 
them. Brown looked sharply back at the road behind him; the
man with the barrow had suddenly vanished. Then he looked 
again at the lawn with its incredible inscription. Another man
might have thought he had gone mad, but Brown did not. When 
romantic ladies gushed over his V.C. and his military exploits,
he sometimes felt himself to be a painfully prosaic person, 
but by the same token he knew he was incurably sane. Another
man, again, might have thought himself a victim of a passing 
practical joke, but Brown could not easily believe this. He knew
from his own quaint learning that the garden arrangement was 
an elaborate and expensive one; he thought it extravagantly
improbable that any one would pour out money like water for a 
joke against him. Having no explanation whatever to offer, he
admitted the fact to himself, like a clear-headed man, and waited 
as he would have done in the presence of a man with six legs.

At this moment the stout old man with white whiskers looked 
up, and the watering can fell from his hand, shooting a swirl of
water down the gravel path. 

`Who on earth are you?' he gasped, trembling violently. 

`I am Major Brown,' said that individual, who was always 
cool in the hour of action. 

The old man gaped helplessly like some monstrous fish. At last 
he stammered wildly, `Come down---come down here!' 

`At your service,' said the Major, and alighted at a bound 
on the grass beside him, without disarranging his silk hat. 

The old man turned his broad back and set off at a sort of 
waddling run towards the house, followed with swift steps by the
Major. His guide led him through the back passages of a gloomy, 
but gorgeously appointed house, until they reached the door
of the front room. Then the old man turned with a face of 
apoplectic terror dimly showing in the twilight. 

`For heaven's sake,' he said, `don't mention jackals.' 

Then he threw open the door, releasing a burst of red lamplight, 
and ran downstairs with a clatter. 

The Major stepped into a rich, glowing room, full of red 
copper, and peacock and purple hangings, hat in hand. He had the
finest manners in the world, and, though mystified, was 
not in the least embarrassed to see that the only occupant was a lady,
sitting by the window, looking out. 

`Madam,' he said, bowing simply, `I am Major Brown.' 

`Sit down,' said the lady; but she did not turn her head. 

She was a graceful, green-clad figure, with fiery red hair 
and a flavour of Bedford Park. `You have come, I suppose,' she said
mournfully, `to tax me about the hateful title-deeds.' 

`I have come, madam,' he said, `to know what is the matter. 
To know why my name is written across your garden. Not
amicably either.' 

He spoke grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible 
to describe the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny
garden scene, the frame for a stunning and brutal personality. 
The evening air was still, and the grass was golden in the place
where the little flowers he studied cried to heaven for his blood. 

`You know I must not turn round,' said the lady; `every 
afternoon till the stroke of six I must keep my face turned 
to the street.'

Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier 
resolute to accept these outrageous riddles without surprise. 

`It is almost six,' he said; and even as he spoke the 
barbaric copper clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour. At
the sixth the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one 
of the queerest and yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in his
life; open, and yet tantalising, the face of an elf. 

`That makes the third year I have waited,' she cried. 
`This is an anniversary. The waiting almost makes one wish the frightful
thing would happen once and for all.' 

And even as she spoke, a sudden rending cry broke the 
stillness. From low down on the pavement of the dim street (it was
already twilight) a voice cried out with a raucous and 
merciless distinctness: 

`Major Brown, Major Brown, where does the jackal dwell?' 

Brown was decisive and silent in action. He strode to the 
front door and looked out. There was no sign of life in the blue
gloaming of the street, where one or two lamps were beginning 
to light their lemon sparks. On returning, he found the lady in
green trembling. 

`It is the end,' she cried, with shaking lips; `it may 
be death for both of us. Whenever---' 

But even as she spoke her speech was cloven by another 
hoarse proclamation from the dark street, again horribly articulate. 

`Major Brown, Major Brown, how did the jackal die?' 

Brown dashed out of the door and down the steps, but again 
he was frustrated; there was no figure in sight, and the street was
far too long and empty for the shouter to have run away. 
Even the rational Major was a little shaken as he returned in a certain
time to the drawing-room. Scarcely had he done so than the 
terrific voice came: 

`Major Brown, Major Brown, where did---' 

Brown was in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time---
in time to see something which at first glance froze the blood.
The cries appeared to come from a decapitated head resting on 
the pavement. 

The next moment the pale Major understood. It was the head of 
a man thrust through the coal-hole in the street. The next
moment, again, it had vanished, and Major Brown turned to the 
lady. `Where's your coal-cellar?' he said, and stepped out into
the passage. 

She looked at him with wild grey eyes. `You will not go down,' 
she cried, `alone, into the dark hole, with that beast?' 

`Is this the way?' replied Brown, and descended the kitchen 
stairs three at a time. He flung open the door of a black cavity and
stepped in, feeling in his pocket for matches. As his right 
hand was thus occupied, a pair of great slimy hands came out of the
darkness, hands clearly belonging to a man of gigantic 
stature, and seized him by the back of the head. They forced him down,
down in the suffocating darkness, a brutal image of destiny. 
But the Major's head, though upside down, was perfectly clear
and intellectual. He gave quietly under the pressure until 
he had slid down almost to his hands and knees. Then finding the
knees of the invisible monster within a foot of him, he 
simply put out one of his long, bony, and skilful hands, and gripping the
leg by a muscle pulled it off the ground and laid the huge 
living man, with a crash, along the floor. He strove to rise, but Brown
was on top like a cat. They rolled over and over. Big as 
the man was, he had evidently now no desire but to escape; he made
sprawls hither and thither to get past the Major to the 
door, but that tenacious person had him hard by the coat collar and hung
with the other hand to a beam. At length there came a strain 
in holding back this human bull, a strain under which Brown
expected his hand to rend and part from the arm. But 
something else rent and parted; and the dim fat figure of the giant
vanished out of the cellar, leaving the torn coat in the 
Major's hand; the only fruit of his adventure and the only clue to the
mystery. For when he went up and out at the front door, the 
lady, the rich hangings, and the whole equipment of the house had
disappeared. It had only bare boards and whitewashed walls. 

`The lady was in the conspiracy, of course,' said Rupert, 
nodding. Major Brown turned brick red. `I beg your pardon,' he
said, `I think not.' 

Rupert raised his eyebrows and looked at him for a moment, 
but said nothing. When next he spoke he asked: 

`Was there anything in the pockets of the coat?' 

`There was sevenpence halfpenny in coppers and a threepenny-bit,' 
said the Major carefully; `there was a cigarette-holder, a
piece of string, and this letter,' and he laid it on the table. 
It ran as follows: 

Dear Mr Plover, 

I am annoyed to hear that some delay has occurred in the 
arrangements re Major Brown. Please see that he is attacked as per
arrangement tomorrow The coal-cellar, of course. 

Yours faithfully,
P. G. Northover. 

Rupert Grant was leaning forward listening with hawk-like 
eyes. He cut in: 

`Is it dated from anywhere?' 

`No---oh, yes!' replied Brown, glancing upon the paper; 
`14 Tanner's Court, North---' 

Rupert sprang up and struck his hands together. 

`Then why are we hanging here? Let's get along. Basil, 
lend me your revolver.' 

Basil was staring into the embers like a man in a trance; 
and it was some time before he answered: 

`I don't think you'll need it.' 

`Perhaps not,' said Rupert, getting into his fur coat. 
`One never knows. But going down a dark court to see criminals---' 

`Do you think they are criminals?' asked his brother. 

Rupert laughed stoutly. `Giving orders to a subordinate to 
strangle a harmless stranger in a coal-cellar may strike you as a very
blameless experiment, but---' 

`Do you think they wanted to strangle the Major?' asked 
Basil, in the same distant and monotonous voice. 

`My dear fellow, you've been asleep. Look at the letter.' 

`I am looking at the letter,' said the mad judge calmly; 
though, as a matter of fact, he was looking at the fire. 'I don`t think it's
the sort of letter one criminal would write to another.' 

`My dear boy, you are glorious,' cried Rupert, turning 
round, with laughter in his blue bright eyes. `Your methods amaze me.
Why, there is the letter. It is written, and it does give 
orders for a crime. You might as well say that the Nelson Column was
not at all the sort of thing that was likely to be set up in Trafalgar 
Square.' 

Basil Grant shook all over with a sort of silent laughter, 
but did not otherwise move. 

`That's rather good,' he said; `but, of course, logic like 
that's not what is really wanted. It's a question of spiritual atmosphere.
It's not a criminal letter.' 

`It is. It's a matter of fact,' cried the other in an agony 
of reasonableness. 

`Facts,' murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, 
far-off animals, `how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly---in
fact, I'm off my head---but I never could believe in that 
man---what's his name, in those capital stories?---Sherlock Holmes.
Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally 
to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like the
thousands of twigs on a tree. It's only the life of the tree 
that has unity and goes up---only the green blood that springs, like a
fountain, at the stars.' 

`But what the deuce else can the letter be but criminal?' 

`We have eternity to stretch our legs in,' replied the mystic. 
`It can be an infinity of things. I haven't seen any of them---I've
only seen the letter. I look at that, and say it's not criminal.' 

`Then what's the origin of it?' 

`I haven't the vaguest idea.' 

`Then why don't you accept the ordinary explanation?' 

Basil continued for a little to glare at the coals, and 
seemed collecting his thoughts in a humble and even painful way. Then he
said: 

`Suppose you went out into the moonlight. Suppose you passed 
through silent, silvery streets and squares until you came into
an open and deserted space, set with a few monuments, and you 
beheld one dressed as a ballet girl dancing in the argent
glimmer. And suppose you looked, and saw it was a man disguised. 
And suppose you looked again, and saw it was Lord
Kitchener. What would you think?' 

He paused a moment, and went on: 

`You could not adopt the ordinary explanation. The ordinary 
explanation of putting on singular clothes is that you look nice in
them; you would not think that Lord Kitchener dressed up like 
a ballet girl out of ordinary personal vanity. You would think it
much more likely that he inherited a dancing madness from a 
great grandmother; or had been hypnotised at a sance; or
threatened by a secret society with death if he refused the 
ordeal. With Baden-Powell, say, it might be a bet---but not with
Kitchener. I should know all that, because in my public days 
I knew him quite well. So I know that letter quite well, and
criminals quite well. It's not a criminal's letter. It's all 
atmospheres.' And he closed his eyes and passed his hand over his
forehead. 

Rupert and the Major were regarding him with a mixture of respect 
and pity. The former said 

`Well, I'm going, anyhow, and shall continue to think---until 
your spiritual mystery turns up---that a man who sends a note
recommending a crime, that is, actually a crime that is 
actually carried out, at least tentatively, is, in all probability,
 a little casual in his moral tastes. Can I have that revolver?' 

`Certainly,' said Basil, getting up. `But I am coming with 
you.' And he flung an old cape or cloak round him, and took a
sword-stick from the corner. 

`You!' said Rupert, with some surprise, `you scarcely ever 
leave your hole to look at anything on the face of the earth.' 

Basil fitted on a formidable old white hat. 

`I scarcely ever,' he said, with an unconscious and colossal 
arrogance, `hear of anything on the face of the earth that I do not
understand at once, without going to see it.' 

And he led the way out into the purple night. 

We four swung along the flaring Lambeth streets, across 
Westminster Bridge, and along the Embankment in the direction of
that part of Fleet Street which contained Tanner's Court. 
The erect, black figure of Major Brown, seen from behind, was a
quaint contrast to the hound-like stoop and flapping mantle 
of young Rupert Grant, who adopted, with childlike delight, all the
dramatic poses of the detective of fiction. The finest among 
his many fine qualities was his boyish appetite for the colour and
poetry of London. Basil, who walked behind, with his face turned
blindly to the stars, had the look of a somnambulist. 

Rupert paused at the corner of Tanner's Court, with a quiver 
of delight at danger, and gripped Basil's revolver in his great-coat
pocket. 

`Shall we go in now?' he asked. 

`Not get police?' asked Major Brown, glancing sharply up 
and down the street. 

`I am not sure,' answered Rupert, knitting his brows. 
`Of course, it's quite clear, the thing's all crooked. 
But there are three of us, and---' 

`I shouldn't get the police,' said Basil in a queer voice. 
Rupert glanced at him and stared hard. 

`Basil,' he cried, `you're trembling. What's the matter---
are you afraid?' 

`Cold, perhaps,' said the Major, eyeing him. There was 
no doubt that he was shaking. 

At last, after a few moments' scrutiny, Rupert broke into a curse. 

`You're laughing,' he cried. `I know that confounded, silent, 
shaky laugh of yours. What the deuce is the amusement, Basil?
Here we are, all three of us, within a yard of a den of ruffians---' 

`But I shouldn't call the police,' said Basil. `We four 
heroes are quite equal to a host,' and he continued to quake with his
mysterious mirth. 

Rupert turned with impatience and strode swiftly down the 
court, the rest of us following. When he reached the door of No.
14 he turned abruptly, the revolver glittering in his hand. 

`Stand close,' he said in the voice of a commander. `The 
scoundrel may be attempting an escape at this moment. We must fling
open the door and rush in.' 

The four of us cowered instantly under the archway, rigid, 
except for the old judge and his convulsion of merriment. 

`Now,' hissed Rupert Grant, turning his pale face and burning 
eyes suddenly over his shoulder, `when I say ``Four'', follow me
with a rush. If I say ``Hold him'', pin the fellows down, whoever 
they are. If I say ``Stop'', stop. I shall say that if there are
more than three. If they attack us I shall empty my revolver on them. 
Basil, have your sword-stick ready. Now---one, two
three, four!' 

With the sound of the word the door burst open, and we fell 
into the room like an invasion, only to stop dead. 

The room, which was an ordinary and neatly appointed office, 
appeared, at the first glance, to be empty. But on a second and
more careful glance, we saw seated behind a very large desk 
with pigeonholes and drawers of bewildering multiplicity, a small
man with a black waxed moustache, and the air of a very average 
clerk, writing hard. He looked up as we came to a standstill.

`Did you knock?' he asked pleasantly. `I am sorry if I did not 
hear. What can I do for you?' 

There was a doubtful pause, and then, by general consent, 
the Major himself, the victim of the outrage, stepped forward. 

The letter was in his hand, and he looked unusually grim. 

`Is your name P. G. Northover?' he asked. 

`That is my name,' replied the other, smiling. 

`I think,' said Major Brown, with an increase in the dark 
glow of his face, `that this letter was written by you.' And with a loud
clap he struck open the letter on the desk with his clenched 
fist. The man called Northover looked at it with unaffected interest
and merely nodded. 

`Well, sir,' said the Major, breathing hard, `what about that?' 

`What about it, precisely,' said the man with the moustache. 

`I am Major Brown,' said that gentleman sternly. 

Northover bowed. `Pleased to meet you, sir. What have you to 
say to me?' 

`Say!' cried the Major, loosing a sudden tempest; `why, I want this 
confounded thing settled. I want---' 

`Certainly, sir,' said Northover, jumping up with a slight 
elevation of the eyebrows. `Will you take a chair for a moment.' And
he pressed an electric bell just above him, which thrilled and 
tinkled in a room beyond. The Major put his hand on the back of
the chair offered him, but stood chafing and beating the floor 
with his polished boot. 

The next moment an inner glass door was opened, and a fair, 
weedy, young man, in a frock-coat, entered from within. 

`Mr Hopson,' said Northover, `this is Major Brown. Will you 
please finish that thing for him I gave you this morning and bring
it in?' 

`Yes, sir,' said Mr Hopson, and vanished like lightning. 

`You will excuse me, gentlemen,' said the egregious Northover, 
with his radiant smile, `if I continue to work until Mr Hopson is
ready. I have some books that must be cleared up before I get 
away on my holiday tomorrow. And we all like a whiff of the
country, don't we? Ha! ha!' 

The criminal took up his pen with a childlike laugh, and a 
silence ensued; a placid and busy silence on the part of Mr P. G.
Northover; a raging silence on the part of everybody else. 

At length the scratching of Northover's pen in the stillness 
was mingled with a knock at the door, almost simultaneous with the
turning of the handle, and Mr Hopson came in again with the 
same silent rapidity, placed a paper before his principal, and
disappeared again. 

The man at the desk pulled and twisted his spiky moustache 
for a few moments as he ran his eye up and down the paper
presented to him. He took up his pen, with a slight, instantaneous 
frown, and altered something, muttering---`Careless.' Then
he read it again with the same impenetrable reflectiveness, 
and finally handed it to the frantic Brown, whose hand was beating
the devil's tattoo on the back of the chair. 

`I think you will find that all right, Major,' he said briefly. 

The Major looked at it; whether he found it all right or not 
will appear later, but he found it like this: 
 Major Brown to P. G. Northover.
                                                       s.d.
 January 1, to account rendered 
                                                    5   6 0
                                                          
 May 9, to potting and embedding of zoo pansies 
                                                    2   0 0
                                                        
 To cost of trolley with flowers 
                                                    0  15 0
                                                      
 To hiring of man with trolley 
                                                    0   5 0
                                                       
 To hire of house and garden for one day 
                                                    1   0 0
                                                      
 To furnishing of room in peacock curtains, copper ornaments, etc. 
                                                    3   0 0
                                                     
 To salary of Miss Jameson 
                                                    1   0 0
                                                       
 To salary of Mr Plover 
                                                    1   0 0
                                                      
                                                    --------
                                               Total
                                                  14   6 0
                                                      
 A Remittance will oblige.


`What,' said Brown, after a dead pause, and with eyes that 
seemed slowly rising out of his head, `What in heaven's name is
this?' 

`What is it?' repeated Northover, cocking his eyebrow with 
amusement. `It's your account, of course.' 

`My account!' The Major's ideas appeared to be in a vague 
stampede. `My account! And what have I got to do with it?' 

`Well,' said Northover, laughing outright, `naturally I prefer 
you to pay it.' 

The Major's hand was still resting on the back of the chair 
as the words came. He scarcely stirred otherwise, but he lifted the
chair bodily into the air with one hand and hurled it at 
Northover's head. 

The legs crashed against the desk, so that Northover only got 
a blow on the elbow as he sprang up with clenched fists, only to
be seized by the united rush of the rest of us. The chair had 
fallen clattering on the empty floor. 

`Let me go, you scamps,' he shouted. `Let me---' 

`Stand still,' cried Rupert authoritatively. `Major Brown's 
action is excusable. The abominable crime you have attempted---' 

`A customer has a perfect right,' said Northover hotly, 
`to question an alleged overcharge, but, confound it all, not to throw
furniture.' 

`What, in God's name, do you mean by your customers and 
overcharges?' shrieked Major Brown, whose keen feminine
nature, steady in pain or danger, became almost hysterical 
in the presence of a long and exasperating mystery. `Who are you?
I've never seen you or your insolent tomfool bills. I know 
one of your cursed brutes tried to choke me---' 

`Mad,' said Northover, gazing blankly round; `all of them 
mad. I didn't know they travelled in quartettes.' 

`Enough of this prevarication,' said Rupert; `your crimes 
are discovered. A policeman is stationed at the corner of the court.
Though only a private detective myself, I will take the 
responsibility of telling you that anything you say---' 

`Mad,' repeated Northover, with a weary air. 

And at this moment, for the first time, there struck 
in among them the strange, sleepy voice of Basil Grant. 

`Major Brown,' he said, `may I ask you a question?' 

The Major turned his head with an increased bewilderment. 

`You?' he cried; `certainly, Mr Grant.' 

`Can you tell me,' said the mystic, with sunken head 
and lowering brow, as he traced a pattern in the dust with his sword-stick,
`can you tell me what was the name of the man who lived in 
your house before you?' 

The unhappy Major was only faintly more disturbed by this 
last and futile irrelevancy, and he answered vaguely: 

`Yes, I think so; a man named Gurney something---a name with 
a hyphen---Gurney-Brown; that was it.' 

`And when did the house change hands?' said Basil, looking 
up sharply. His strange eyes were burning brilliantly. 

`I came in last month,' said the Major. 

And at the mere word the criminal Northover suddenly fell 
into his great office chair and shouted with a volleying laughter. 

`Oh! it's too perfect---it's too exquisite,' he gasped, beating 
the arms with his fists. He was laughing deafeningly; Basil Grant
was laughing voicelessly; and the rest of us only felt that our 
heads were like weathercocks in a whirlwind. 

`Confound it, Basil,' said Rupert, stamping. `If you don't 
want me to go mad and blow your metaphysical brains out, tell me
what all this means.' 

Northover rose. 

`Permit me, sir, to explain,' he said. `And, first of all, 
permit me to apologize to you, Major Brown, for a most abominable and
unpardonable blunder, which has caused you menace and 
inconvenience, in which, if you will allow me to say so, you have
behaved with astonishing courage and dignity. Of course 
you need not trouble about the bill. We will stand the loss.' And,
tearing the paper across, he flung the halves into the 
waste-paper basket and bowed. 

Poor Brown's face was still a picture of distraction. 
`But I don't even begin to understand,' he cried. `What bill? what blunder?
what loss?' 

Mr P. G. Northover advanced in the centre of the room, 
thoughtfully, and with a great deal of unconscious dignity. On closer
consideration, there were apparent about him other 
things beside a screwed moustache, especially a lean, sallow face,
hawk-like, and not without a careworn intelligence. Then 
he looked up abruptly. 

`Do you know where you are, Major?' he said. 

`God knows I don't,' said the warrior, with fervour. 

`You are standing,' replied Northover, `in the office of 
the Adventure and Romance Agency, Limited.' 

`And what's that?' blankly inquired Brown. 

The man of business leaned over the back of the chair, 
and fixed his dark eyes on the other's face. 

`Major,' said he, 'did you ever, as you walked along the 
empty street upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for
something to happen---something, in the splendid words of 
Walt Whitman: ``Something pernicious and dread; something far
removed from a puny and pious life; something unproved; something 
in a trance; something loosed from its anchorage, and
driving free.'' Did you ever feel that?' 

`Certainly not,' said the Major shortly. 

`Then I must explain with more elaboration,' said Mr 
Northover, with a sigh. `The Adventure and Romance Agency has been
started to meet a great modern desire. On every side, 
in conversation and in literature, we hear of the desire for a larger theatre
of events for something to waylay us and lead us splendidly 
astray. Now the man who feels this desire for a varied life pays a
yearly or a quarterly sum to the Adventure and Romance Agency; 
in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes
to surround him with startling and weird events. As a man is 
leaving his front door, an excited sweep approaches him and
assures him of a plot against his life; he gets into a cab, 
and is driven to an opium den; he receives a mysterious telegram or a
dramatic visit, and is immediately in a vortex of incidents. 
A very picturesque and moving story is first written by one of the
staff of distinguished novelists who are at present hard at 
work in the adjoining room. Yours, Major Brown (designed by our
Mr Grigsby), I consider peculiarly forcible and pointed; it 
is almost a pity you did not see the end of it. I need scarcely explain
further the monstrous mistake. Your predecessor in your 
present house, Mr Gurney-Brown, was a subscriber to our agency,
and our foolish clerks, ignoring alike the dignity of 
the hyphen and the glory of military rank, positively imagined that Major
Brown and Mr Gurney-Brown were the same person. Thus you 
were suddenly hurled into the middle of another man's story.' 

`How on earth does the thing work?' asked Rupert Grant, 
with bright and fascinated eyes. 

`We believe that we are doing a noble work,' said Northover 
warmly. `It has continually struck us that there is no element in
modern life that is more lamentable than the fact that the 
modern man has to seek all artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he
wishes to float into fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes 
to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to
soar into heaven, he reads a book; if he wishes to slide down 
the banisters, he reads a book. We give him these visions, but
we give him exercise at the same time, the necessity of leaping 
from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down
long streets from pursuers---all healthy and pleasant exercises. 
We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin
Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under 
the splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that
godlike time when we can act stories, be our own heroes, and at 
the same instant dance and dream.' 

Basil gazed at him curiously. The most singular psychological 
discovery had been reserved to the end, for as the little business
man ceased speaking he had the blazing eyes of a fanatic. 

Major Brown received the explanation with complete simplicity 
and good humour. 

`Of course; awfully dense, sir,' he said. `No doubt at all, 
the scheme excellent. But I don't think---' He paused a moment, and
looked dreamily out of the window. `I don't think you will 
find me in it. Somehow, when one's seen--- seen the thing itself, you
know---blood and men screaming, one feels about having a 
little house and a little hobby; in the Bible, you know, ``There
remaineth a rest''.' 

Northover bowed. Then after a pause he said: 

`Gentlemen, may I offer you my card. If any of the rest of 
you desire, at any time, to communicate with me, despite Major
Brown's view of the matter---' 

`I should be obliged for your card, sir,' said the Major, 
in his abrupt but courteous voice. `Pay for chair.' 

The agent of Romance and Adventure handed his card, laughing. 

It ran, `P. G. Northover, B.A., C.Q.T., Adventure and Romance 
Agency, 14 Tanner's Court, Fleet Street.' 

`What on earth is "C.QT."?' asked Rupert Grant, looking over 
the Major's shoulder. 

`Don't you know?' returned Northover. `Haven't you ever heard 
of the Club of Queer Trades?' 

`There seems to be a confounded lot of funny things we haven't 
heard of,' said the little Major reflectively. `What's this one?' 

`The Club of Queer Trades is a society consisting exclusively 
of people who have invented some new and curious way of
making money. I was one of the earliest members.' 

`You deserve to be,' said Basil, taking up his great white 
hat, with a smile, and speaking for the last time that evening. 

When they had passed out the Adventure and Romance agent wore 
a queer smile, as he trod down the fire and locked up his
desk. `A fine chap, that Major; when one hasn't a touch of the 
poet one stands some chance of being a poem. But to think of
such a clockwork little creature of all people getting into 
the nets of one of Grigsby's tales,' and he laughed out aloud in the
silence. 

Just as the laugh echoed away, there came a sharp knock at 
the door. An owlish head, with dark moustaches, was thrust in,
with deprecating and somewhat absurd inquiry. 

`What! back again, Major?' cried Northover in surprise. `What 
can I do for you?' 

The Major shuffled feverishly into the room. 

`It's horribly absurd,' he said. `Something must have got 
started in me that I never knew before. But upon my soul I feel the
most desperate desire to know the end of it all.' 

`The end of it all?' 

`Yes,' said the Major. ` ``Jackals'', and the title-deeds, 
and ``Death to Major Brown''.' 

The agent's face grew grave, but his eyes were amused. 

`I am terribly sorry, Major,' said he, `but what you ask is 
impossible. I don't know any one I would sooner oblige than you;
but the rules of the agency are strict. The Adventures are 
confidential; you are an outsider; I am not allowed to let you know an
inch more than I can help. I do hope you understand---' 

`There is no one,' said Brown, `who understands discipline better than 
I do. Thank you very much. Good night.' 

And the little man withdrew for the last time. 

He married Miss Jameson, the lady with the red hair and the green 
garments. She was an actress, employed (with many
others) by the Romance Agency; and her marriage with the prim old 
veteran caused some stir in her languid and intellectualized
set. She always replied very quietly that she had met scores of men who 
acted splendidly in the charades provided for them by
Northover, but that she had only met one man who went down into a 
coal-cellar when he really thought it contained a
murderer. 

The Major and she are living as happily as birds, in an absurd villa, and 
the former has taken to smoking. Otherwise he is
unchanged---except, perhaps, there are moments when, alert and full 
of feminine unselfishness as the Major is by nature, he
falls into a trance of abstraction. Then his wife recognizes with a concealed 
smile, by the blind look in his blue eyes, that he is
wondering what were the title-deeds, and why he was not allowed 
to mention jackals. But, like so many old soldiers, Brown is
religious, and believes that he will realize the rest of those purple 
adventures in a better world. 

Chapter 2
Table of Contents 

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