The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason

by Melville Davisson Post

"He is to be here at ten, you say?"

"At ten, sir," answered the little man, going out into the other office and closing the door behind him. When the door was closed, Parks went over to a corner of the room, took up a hackman's overcoat and fur cap, put them into one of the bookcases and locked the sliding top. Then he went quietly out of the room and down the steps to the entrance of the building.

In the private office Randolph Mason walked backward and forward with his hands in his pockets. He was restless and his eyes were bright.

"Another weakling," he muttered, "making puny efforts to escape from Fate's trap, or seeking to slip from under some gin set by his fellows. Surely, the want of resources on the part of the race is utter, is abysmal. What miserable puppets men are! moved backward and forward in Fate's games as though they were strung on a wire and had their bellies filled with sawdust! Yet each one has his problem, and that is the important matter. In these problems one pits himself against the mysterious intelligence of Chance,—against the dread cunning and the fatal patience of Destiny. Ah! these are worthy foemen. The steel grates when one crosses swords with such mighty fencers."

There was a sound as of men conversing in low tones in the outer office. Mason stopped short and turned to the door. As he did so, the door was opened from the outside and a man entered, closed the door behind him, and remained standing with his back against it.

Randolph Mason looked down at the stranger sharply. The man wore a gray suit and gray overcoat; he was about twenty-five, of medium height, with a clean-cut, intelligent face that was peculiar; originally it had expressed an indulgent character of unusual energy. Now it could not be read at all. It was simply that silent, immobile mask so sought after by the high-grade criminal. His face was white, and the perspiration, was standing out on his forehead, indicating that he was laboring under some deep and violent emotion. Yet, with all, his manner was composed and deliberate, and his face gave no sign other than its whiteness; it was calm and expressionless, as the face of the dead.

Randolph Mason dragged a big chair up to his desk, sat down in his office chair and pointed to the other. The stranger came and sat down in the big chair, gripping its arms with his hands, and without introduction or comment began to talk in a jerky, metallic voice.

"This is all waste of time," he said. "You won't help me. There is no reason for my being here. I should have had it over by this time, and yet that would not help her, and she is the only one. It would be the meanest kind of cowardice to leave her to suffer; and yet I dare not live to see her suffer, I could not bear that. I love her too much for that, I——"

"Sir," said Mason, brutally, "this is all irrelevant rant. Come to the point of your difficulty."

The stranger straightened up and passed his hand across his forehead. "Yes," he said, "you are right, sir; it is all rant. I forget where I am. I will be as brief and concise as possible.