The master criminal

by G. Sidney Paternoster

The whole of Cornelius Jessel's cringing heart and slinking soul was put into the work which the Master had given him to do. He loved to peer and pry into other people's business, even when no hope of any immediate advantage to himself promised to reward his curiosity. But when such work produced solid, golden results, no one in the world could have devoted himself with more keenness to it than "Ma" Norton's "Shadder Man." And the Master was no niggard. When he paid his visit to Inspector Kenly's house in Melpomene Road, he had left behind him twenty pieces of gold. "If I am satisfied with you, I shall continue to pay you the same amount at the end of every four weeks," he had said; "but remember that I shall do so only on condition that you act strictly on my instructions."

Cornelius had protested a determination to devote himself absolutely to fulfilling his employer's commands, while his eyes glistened at the sight of the gold.

The Master did not trust entirely to the spy's avarice. "You had better obey," he sneered, "for if you do not you will probably find that one or two little incidents in your career, with which you have not hitherto been identified, will become known in quarters where you are not likely to be viewed with any special favour."

Cornelius Jessel had shivered at the tone his patron adopted, and had renewed his protestations.

"I warn you first," the Master had continued coldly, "so that you may be free to refuse or accept as you please. Once you accept, however, remember that you will have to reckon with me, and I never forget to repay the man who plays me false."

Jessel had accepted when he had learned that he was required to do nothing which could by any chance bring him into conflict with the law, that he was merely required to watch over and report upon the doings of a certain Guy Hora. One reservation the Master had been compelled to make, even though he realised that it might have the very opposite effect he desired. He warned Cornelius to make no inquiries concerning the young man's own family. "I know all about his father and sister," he remarked, giving his own address, "and, besides wasting your time, any interference in that direction might upset my plans. What I want you to do is to find out who are his friends and all about them, what houses he visits and for what purpose. You know the way to set about it by getting hold of the servants and so on."

Yes, Cornelius knew, and it tickled his vanity to think that the Master had realised his talents in that direction.

Then another thought had seemed to strike Hora. "The young man," he said, "has a manservant to look after him, who was dismissed from his last berth for drunkenness. He pretends to be retrieving his character. Well—if by any possibility he were to lose it again—I think I could manage to get you his berth. I need hardly point out that in such a position you might be in a position to earn the salary I propose to pay you with great case to yourself."

Cornelius understood. He suspected from the Master's words that Guy was a well-feathered pigeon upon whom the eyes of a hawk were fixed. When the time came for plucking, he realised that one or two stray feathers might easily be blown in the servant's way. He said nothing of his thoughts in this direction, but, when the Master had left him, he was as keen to find out all he could concerning Guy as his patron could have wished. He would have started that same night only he had been forbidden to do so.

Accordingly, it was not until the next day that Guy became possessed of two shadows. He was not aware of the fact. He did not know that outside the door of his chambers in the Albany a shadow lurked to mingle with his own, and to follow him wherever he went. He did not know that it accompanied him to his tailor's, and peered through the window while he was fitted with the latest thing in waistcoats. He did not know that it rode behind his cab to the club, and waited there until he emerged, and then, picking its companion up, went hand in hand with it to the theatre, where it was lost in the shadows of the pit, while he sat in the stalls. He could not know, therefore, that this second shadow was utterly unlike his own, in that it possessed an avid curiosity to learn what he was doing within the doors which alone proved a barrier to it. He did not know that when it had followed him three days in one week to Captain Marven's town-house that the door no longer proved impassable to it. He could not have known that when he was in the drawing-room Cornelius Jessel was in the kitchen eagerly listening to details of the gossip of the servants' hall which had already decided that "that nice young gentleman, Mr. Guy Hora," seemed to have "attracted Miss Meriel's fancy for sure," and that both the "master and the mistress were just doing their level best to bring the match about."