Issued Weekly. By Subscription $2.50 per year. Application has been made as Second Class Matter at the N. Y. Post Office, by Street & Smith, 238 William St., N. Y. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1903, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Old Broadbrim Into the Heart of Australia;

OR,

A STRANGE BARGAIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

By the author of "OLD BROADBRIM."

[CONTENTS]

[CHAPTER I. OLD BROADBRIM'S STRANGE BARGAIN.]
[CHAPTER II. THE MIDNIGHT MURDER.]
[CHAPTER III. THE CLEW AND THE TALISMAN.]
[CHAPTER IV. THE LONDON TRAIL.]
[CHAPTER V. IN THE WAKE OF A MYSTERY.]
[CHAPTER VI. SPOTTED IN AUSTRALIA.]
[CHAPTER VII. THE TERRIBLE DEATH-TRAP.]
[CHAPTER VIII. DEMONA, THE RANCH QUEEN.]
[CHAPTER IX. OLD BROADBRIM ONCE MORE.]
[CHAPTER X. A TERRIBLE MOMENT.]
[CHAPTER XI. THE FACE IN THE HAY.]
[CHAPTER XII. OLD BROADBRIM AND THE FAIR AVENGER.]
[CHAPTER XIII. BLACK GEORGE'S WARNING.]
[CHAPTER XIV. THE TEST UNDER THE STARS.]
[CHAPTER XV. OLD BROADBRIM MAKES A BARGAIN AGAIN.]
[CHAPTER XVI. THE DOOM OF WATERS.]
[CHAPTER XVII. OLD BROADBRIM'S CATCH IN PERTH.]
[CHAPTER XVIII. BELLE DEMONA'S MATCH.]
[CHAPTER XIX. OLD BROADBRIM TIGHTENS THE COIL.]
[CHAPTER XX. BACK TO THE DEATH-TRAP.]
[CHAPTER XXI. THE ESCAPE OF THE DOOMED.]
[CHAPTER XXII. OLD BROADBRIM'S DESPERATE HAND.]
[CHAPTER XXIII. THE WOMAN WITH THE REVOLVER.]
[CHAPTER XXIV. THE QUAKER'S TRUMPS WIN.]

[CHAPTER I.]

OLD BROADBRIM'S STRANGE BARGAIN.

The 12th of April, 189—, as Old Broadbrim, the famous Quaker detective, will ever remember, fell on a Thursday.

Just after the noon hour on that day he received a letter asking him to come to one of the most elegant private residences on Fifth Avenue.

He was sure no crime had been committed, and he was puzzled to guess just what the invitation meant.

The owner of the mansion was Custer Kipp, one of the richest and best-known dwellers on the avenue, a man who counted his wealth almost by the tens of millions, so it was said at least, and the detective had seen him often on the street and in his elegant turnout in the parks.

Old Broadbrim answered the letter in person, as was his wont.

He reached the door of the mansion, and his ring was answered immediately, as if he was expected, and a servant conducted him into the library.

In an armchair at the mahogany desk sat the millionaire.

Custer Kipp was a man of sixty-three, a tall, slim, but handsome, person, and withal a person who was approachable to a fault.

He was a widower at the time, and his only child was a son named Foster.

This young man was not in at the time of the detective's call, and the only other person in the house who belonged to the household was the nabob's ward, Miss Nora Doon, a young lady just quitting her teens and the pet of the mansion.

Custer Kipp smiled drearily when the figure of the Quaker crossed the threshold, and invited him to a seat near the desk.

"I am glad you came," said he. "I sent word to my friend, the inspector, to send me one of his best men, and I am rejoiced that he saw fit to send you, of whom I have heard."

Old Broadbrim bowed and waited.

"My case is a peculiar one, and, perhaps, a little out of the line of your business. Do you ever play the part of Cerberus, Mr. Broadbrim?"

"Not very often."

"I thought not," smiled the millionaire. "I have no crime for you to unravel, but if things are permitted to drift as they are going just now, you will have a first-class mystery on your hands ere long."

"You do not want me to wait, I see," said Old Broadbrim.

"That is it exactly. I don't care to wait to be foully murdered."

"I would think not. It isn't a very pleasant prospect, but perhaps it is not as bad as you suppose."

"It is very bad. I am in the shadow of death, but I don't care to go into details just now. I want you to guard my person for one year, and if at the end of that time I am still in the land of the living, why, your work ceases."

"It's a strange commission," replied the detective.

"I thought you would call it such. I am to be guarded against an enemy insidious and merciless. I am on the 'black list.'"

"On the black list, eh?"

"Exactly," and the rich man turned a shade paler. "I will give you twenty-five thousand dollars if you guard me for one year. You will not be required to make your home under my roof—I could not ask that—but you will be asked to take care of my foe if he should prove too aggressive."

"But, sir, to be able to do that I shall have to know something about this enemy."

"Just so. You don't know him now—have never seen him, perhaps, although you may have passed him fifty times on the street within the last six months since he landed in this city."

"Oh, he's a foreigner, is he?"

"I can't say that he is, though he has passed some years under a foreign sky. This man is not alone in his dark work; he has a confederate, a person whose beauty years ago nearly proved my ruin."

Old Broadbrim did not speak.

Already the traditional woman had entered the case.

"For one year, Mr. Broadbrim," continued Custer Kipp, coming back to the original proposition. "Is it a bargain?"

The detective sat silent and rigid for a few seconds.

Never before had a proposition of that sort been made to him.

It would take him from cases that might spring up to demand his attention.

After all, the man before him might have no enemy at all, and the time spent in watching him might prove lost time, though twenty-five thousand dollars would be his at the end of the year.

"If you accept, remember that for one year you belong to me, will be subject to my commands, will have to go whither I send you, and you will not be permitted to follow your calling beyond them."

"It binds one rather close," said Old Broadbrim.

"I want a man who will belong to me. He must devote his whole time to keeping the hand of death away from me, and——"

Custer Kipp leaned forward and opened the desk.

Running his hand into it, he pulled out a package and untied it before the detective's eyes.

"This is a picture of the man as he looked twenty years ago," he said, throwing a photograph on the desk. "He has changed some, of course, but he is the same cool-headed demon he was then."

"And the other—the woman?"

The nabob started.

"I have no picture of her save the one I carry in my memory. I haven't seen her since a fatal night at Monaco."

He laid the picture down and looked squarely at the detective.

"No more now. Will you accept?"

It was a novel and romantic engagement and appealed strongly to the detective's curiosity.

He thought rapidly for ten seconds, after which he looked into Custer Kipp's eyes and said:

"I accept."

"A thousand thanks! I feel younger already—I feel that I will yet escape this vendetta, that I have years of useful life ahead and that I will die in my house when my time comes. But one word. Not a whisper of this bargain beyond the walls of my house. Not a word to my children, for I call Nora my child the same as Foster. It must be our secret, Mr. Broadbrim."

"It shall be ours."

"That's right. Now, sir, if you will come back to-morrow I will give you the commission in detail. I will study up all the points you should know, and then you will see into your task and will know just what you will be expected to do."

Old Broadbrim, a man of brevity, picked up his hat.

"I will be here," he said. "Thee can trust me," using, as he did at times, the Quaker formula.

In another moment he had turned his back on the millionaire and was walking toward the hall.

At the door he glanced over his shoulder and saw the figure of Custer Kipp bent over the desk, and the face was buried in the arms.

Old Broadbrim closed the door and went away.

Down in his office, in the room in which he had thought out more than one tangle of crime, he threw himself into his armchair and took up a cigar.

"What have I done?" he asked himself. "Is the man mad? What is this invisible fear which almost paralyzes him? Why does he send for me to watch him for a year when he could fly to the ends of the world, for he has money to take him anywhere, and thus escape the enemy? But I'll do my part."

The day deepened, and the shadows of night fell over the city.

Old Broadbrim came forth, and walked a few squares after which he turned suddenly and rapped at a door belonging to a small house in a quiet district.

The portal was opened by a man not very young, but wiry and keen-eyed.

"Come in. I've been waiting for you," said this person. "I have a case for you—one which the police have not yet discovered. It will produce rich results."

The detective's countenance seemed to drop.

Here it was already.

He began to see how foolish he had been to make a bargain with Custer Kipp.

"What is it, Clippers?" he asked.

"It's just the sort o' case you've been looking for," was the reply. "On the next street is a dead man—a man whose life must have gone out violently yesterday or last night. You don't know him, but I do. Jason Marrow has been a study and a puzzle to me for three years. We have met occasionally, but never got on familiar terms. Now he's dead and is there yet, in his little room, with marks of violence on his throat and the agony in his glassy eyes. Won't you come with me? I have been holding the matter for you."

Old Broadbrim said he would at once take a look at the mystery, and Clippers, his friend, offered to conduct him to the scene of the tragedy.

The two entered a little house near the mouth of an alley, and Clippers led the way to a room to the left of the hall.

"He's a mystery—got papers of importance hid in the house, but we'll find them in course of time," he chattered. "It's going to be a deep case, just to your liking, Mr. Broadbrim, but you'll untangle it, for you never fail."

At this moment the pair entered the room and the hand of Clippers pointed to a couch against the wall.

Old Broadbrim stepped nimbly forward and bent over the bed.

A rigid figure lay upon it, and the first glance told him that death had been busy there.

"Who is he?" asked the detective.

"It's Jason Marrow. You didn't know him. Precious few people did. The papers which he has hidden will tell us more and we'll find them. It's your case, Mr. Broadbrim."

"I can't take it, Clippers."

The other fell back with a cry of amazement.

"You can't take it?" he gasped. "In the name of Heaven, are you mad, Mr. Broadbrim?"

"I hope not."

"But it's just the sort o' case you like. There's mystery in it. Killed by some one as yet unknown. Strangled by a hand unseen and dead in his little den."

"Yes, I know, Clippers, but it's not for me."

"Why not?"

"I'm engaged."

"On something better? On a deeper mystery than the death of Jason Marrow?"

"I don't know. I only know that I can't take this matter into my hands."

"Well, I'm stumped!" cried Clippers.

"And I'm sorry," answered the great detective. "I'll tell the police. I'll see that Hargraves or Irwin get the job. That's all I can do. For one year I belong to—to another master."

There was no reply to this; Clippers showed that he was "stumped."

[CHAPTER II.]

THE MIDNIGHT MURDER.

"Come!" said Clippers, when he got second wind, "maybe you can get the other one to release you."

"He won't do that. The bargain's been sealed."

"You're not going to retire?"

"Well, hardly."

"That's good, anyhow. If the other fellows, Hargraves or Irwin, get at fault you won't refuse to join in the hunt for the murderer of poor Marrow?"

"I will be free at the end of a year under certain contingencies—perhaps a good deal sooner."

"Well, I wish it was to-morrow," cried Clippers. "I want you to take this case; but we'll have to see the others and let Tom or Pappy reap new fame."

Half an hour later the two detectives named Hargraves and Irwin knew all there was to know at the time of the death of Jason Marrow.

It was not much, for the slayer had done his work with great secrecy and had left no clews behind.

The matter was destined to become a mystery to the department, a deep puzzle to the best men on the force for months.

Old Broadbrim went back to his room after the find in the house near the mouth of the alley.

"Confound it all! why did I bind myself for a year to play Cerberus for Custer Kipp?" he mused. "Here's the very sort of case I've been looking for, but my hands are tied, and I can't get out of the matter unless I go to his house and absolutely back out of the bargain. In that case I would lose the twenty-five thousand dollars and—— No, I'll stick!"

For long into the night there was a light in the detective's room, and he might have been found at the table at work.

It was near midnight when a footstep came to the door and stopped there.

Old Broadbrim heard the noise and waited for the rap.

When it sounded he crossed the room and opened the door.

A young man with a very white face and a figure that trembled a little stepped forward.

"You're the gentleman, I guess? You're Josiah Broadbrim?"

"I am."

"You are wanted at once at Custer Kipp's home on Fifth Avenue. Miss Nora sent me and I didn't go in to look at him."

"To look at whom?" asked the detective.

"Why, at Mr. Kipp. He was found dead in the library an hour ago."

The detective started violently and looked at the man in his chair.

"Is it murder?" he asked.

"I can't say. Miss Nora didn't tell me, but from the aspects of the case I think it's serious."

"I'll come."

The young man arose and hastened from the room.

"Not so soon, I hope?" said the detective to himself. "Can it be that my espionage ends almost before the bargain is cold? Dead in the library? It's marvelous."

Old Broadbrim soon appeared at the Kipp door and was admitted.

He found the parlor well filled with strange people, for the most part neighbors in the upper circles of city life, but here and there was a representative of the lower classes who had edged their way into the mansion.

The moment the detective crossed the threshold he was approached by a young girl, with clear blue eyes and a good carriage, who instantly addressed him.

"You are Josiah Broadbrim?" she said questioningly. "Yes, you are the detective whom I sent for?"

Old Broadbrim nodded.

"Then, come with me. He is in the library and I have locked the door."

The detective was conducted from the parlor and the nabob's ward opened the door of the library.

In another instant she had closed it and they stood in the large chamber, elegantly furnished, and containing rows of books magnificently bound, for Custer Kipp had spared no pains with his tastes.

"There he is," said the girl with lowered voice, as she pointed toward a figure in the armchair. "No one has touched him, for I forbade it, and you are the first person to see him dead beside myself and the person who did the deed."

The detective stepped forward, and the hand of Nora Doon turned the gas a little higher.

Custer Kipp was leaning back in the chair with his white face turned toward the ceiling.

The arms hung downward as if they had slipped over the sides of the seat, and the face showed traces of the death agony.

"I heard but little," said Nora, while the detective looked at the dead. "I go upstairs early when I am not at the opera or elsewhere. I remained at home to-night for I had letters to write, and he came home from a ride about seven.

"I heard him in the library bustling about for an hour while I read in my room, and then everywhere silence seemed to come down over the house. When I arose to retire I thought I would look downstairs, as is my wont, and see if all was snug. As I came down the stairs I peeped over the transom of the library, as one can do from the head of the flight, and to my horror I saw him in the position you see him now.

"There was something so unnatural in the pose, something suggestive of sickness if not death—for I must own that the thought of sudden death interposed itself—that I bounded to the foot of the stair and opened the door, which was not locked.

"In another moment I knew all. I saw that he was dead, and, what is more, I saw that he had been killed. You will notice the dark marks which linger still at the throat, as if he had been strangled like the thugs serve their victims. Isn't it terrible? To have him taken away in this manner, and to-morrow was to be his birthday."

She ceased and glanced at the man in the chair, while a shadow of fear and inward dread seemed to take possession of her soul.

"I don't know just where Foster is," she went on. "He went away nearly a week ago, and I never heard papa say where he is. However, he will see the news in the papers, and will be here in a short time. I told Simpson, the servant, as soon as I recovered, for I lost all control of myself under the terrible discovery, and there's no telling how long I lay in a swoon on the carpet here. As soon as I could I sent him after you."

"But," smiled Old Broadbrim, "how did you know where to find me?"

"I found your card in the desk. I remember seeing you in the house to-day, though I knew nothing of the nature of your mission. He has been in fear of something for some time. I have noticed this, and think it has not escaped Foster's eye. But we'll know about this when he returns."

"My card was all you found, miss?"

"Yes; but I'll admit that I did not look thoroughly. The front door was unlocked when I went thither after the discovery in this room, but—— What is it, Simpson?"

The servant had entered the room and stood near the door with his eyes riveted upon the young girl.

When she spoke his name he came forward and extended his hand.

"I picked this up in the hall just now. It's a curious bit of paper, part of a letter."

Nora took the find and glanced at it, then handed it to the Quaker man-hunter.

Old Broadbrim looked at it, going over to the desk where the droplight swung.

"Tell the people in the parlor that they can go now, Simpson," said Nora. "The police will be here in a little while. The detective is already here."

Old Broadbrim looked up at Nora as Simpson left the room, and his look drew her toward him.

"Is it anything?" she asked.

The detective still held the bit of paper in his hand.

"It may not be of any use," said he, slightly elevating the paper. "Some one of the people out there may have dropped it."

The gaze of the young girl fell upon the paper, and Old Broadbrim continued:

"Did Mr. Kipp ever have any correspondents in Australia?" he asked.

Nora shook her head, but the next instant she lost some color.

"Stay!" she cried. "I remember now that he received a letter some months ago, which seemed to trouble him a great deal. That letter was from Australia."

"Do you remember from what particular part, Miss Nora?"

"I do not."

"Could we find it among his effects, think you?"

"I am sure we cannot. Of that I say I am very positive. He destroyed it."

"That is bad."

"Is that message from that part of the world?"

And the hand of Nora Doon pointed at the paper in the detective's hand.

"It is merely the fragment of a letter. It is little better than an address. It is—— But you shall see it for yourself."

Old Broadbrim extended the paper, and the girl took it eagerly, but with some show of fear.

He watched her as she leaned forward and looked at the writing in the light of the dropjet.

Suddenly the young lady uttered a cry, and then turned upon the man-hunter with a frightened face absolutely colorless.

"It's from the same part of the world; I remember now!" she exclaimed. "The postmark on that letter was Perth. The whole thing comes back to me. The postman brought the letter to the house, and I carried it to his desk to await his coming home. It the same name—Perth. Where is it?"

"You mean in what part of Australia, miss?"

"Yes, yes."

"It is in West Australia, and beyond it lie the barren and death lands of the great island. But what is the name?"

"Merle Macray," spoke Nora, in a whisper. "What a strange name it is, and don't you see that the handwriting is that of one of my sex? And the line above the address—just look at it in the light of this murderous deed. 'Don't let him see sixty-four!' That means that the command to kill Custer Kipp comes from that far part of the globe. It makes it all the more terrible."

Old Broadbrim took the paper and put it away.

"Not a word about this, please," he said to the girl.

"I am your secret keeper," she answered. "This matter is in your hands. When Foster comes home you can tell him about the torn letter if you wish, but I will not without your authority. The slayer of my benefactor must be found."

"He shall be."

"Even if the trail leads across the sea?"

"Yes, even if it leads around the world and into the heart of the wild Australian bush."

In after days Old Broadbrim, the tracker, was to recall his words with many a thrill.

[CHAPTER III.]

THE CLEW AND THE TALISMAN.

The death of Custer Kipp, the nabob, startled the whole city.

For some time New York had been in the midst of a carnival of crime, but this murder capped the climax.

No one thought of the other case, that got into the newspapers at the same time.

The death of Jason Marrow in his little den near the mouth of the alley did not take up half the space, and the reporters did not care to discuss it.

But the life of the millionaire was published; his past was ventilated so far as the reporters knew it, and they made out that he was one of the pillars of the metropolis, and there were loud calls for swift and certain vengeance.

Old Broadbrim was not to be found.

The inspector probably knew what had become of him, for he put Hargraves and Irwin on the case, and intimated that for once the Quaker detective would not stand between the pair, nor wrest from them the laurels to be gained in the Fifth Avenue mystery.

Custer Kipp did not go to the morgue, but Jason Marrow did.

The surgeons went at him in the most approved style, and decided, after more cutting than was necessary, that the man had died from strangulation.

The forenoon of the day after the discovery of the murder on the avenue, Old Broadbrim went back to Clippers' house.

The wiry little man received him with a good deal of excitement, and immediately took a package of papers from his bosom.

"I found them—the papers which I knew Jason had hid somewhere in the house," he exclaimed. "It took a long hunt, and I ransacked the whole place, but here they are."

Old Broadbrim took a seat at the table and began to open the jumbled papers.

"Where did Jason come from, Clippers?" he asked while he worked.

"I don't know. He would never tell me much about his past, but he had traveled some. He had been around the world, and at one time lived in Australia."

Just then something fell out of the package, and Old Broadbrim picked it up.

It was the counterpart of the photograph Custer Kipp had shown him in the library—the face of his deadly foe.

How had it come into Jason Marrow's possession?

Where did the occupant of the alley den get hold of it, and what did he know of the man it represented?

Clippers stood over his friend, the detective, and folded his arms while Old Broadbrim read the written papers found in the little house.

"It's strange, very strange," muttered the detective. "These may give me a clew to the other mystery."

"Those documents, eh?"

"The documents and the photograph."

"It's an old affair, the picture, I mean."

"Yes, taken years ago, but the man may wear the same features to some extent, and by this picture I may know him."

"Who do you think he is, Mr. Broadbrim?"

Old Broadbrim looked up into the face of Clippers.

"Perhaps the man who killed Jason Marrow," he said.

"Then, you are going to take the trail and beat Hargraves and Irwin to the end of it?"

"I am on another trail," quietly spoke the detective. "I am not going to bother the boys unless my trail crosses theirs—then I will play out my hand boldly."

After reading over the papers left behind by Jason Marrow, Old Broadbrim arose and thrust them into an inner pocket.

His face was as serene as ever, and nothing told that he had found what might prove a clew.

From Clippers' house he went direct to the offices of the Cunard Line.

It was the day for the sailing of one of that line's boats for Liverpool, and the detective was soon looking over the list of passengers.

Suddenly his eye stopped at a name and rested there.

It was a name he had just seen in the papers he had read in Clippers' house.

"Too late!" said the detective, as he turned away. "A few hours too late. The murderer is gone. Ere this he is fairly at sea on the deck of the Campania and I—I am in New York!"

Old Broadbrim quitted the office and got once more into the sunlight.

Taking a cab, he hastened to the offices of the White Star Line, and entered coolly but anxious.

He inquired at the proper desk when the next steamer of the line sailed for Liverpool.

"The Oceanic will leave her dock this afternoon."

The face of the detective seemed to flush with rising joy.

On the instant he engaged a cabin and walked out.

"We will see how the chase ends," said he, in undertones. "It may prove a long one, but, thanks to Jason Marrow's story, I may not be altogether on the wrong trail."

An hour later he stood once more beneath the roof of the murdered millionaire.

This time he was met by Foster Kipp, the dead man's son, a young man of twenty-five, with an open countenance, but eager and determined.

"I heard of this terrible affair in Albany, whither I went on some business for father. It came sooner than he expected."

"He expected it, then?"

"Yes; once he confided to me that he had an enemy, and said he was 'blacklisted.' I never pressed him for particulars, for he was reticent, but I firmly believe that the blow which fell last night was the one he dreaded."

"It was," said the detective. "Your father was killed by a hand in whose shadow he must have been for at least six months."

"Yes; nearly that long ago I found him in a faint on the carpet of the library, for he had received a warning of some kind and I failed to get the secret from him. It must be the old enemy—the one he made in Europe."

"He traveled through the Continent, then?"

"I believe he made a tour of the world. I recall some of his descriptions of places which are very far apart. But the most terrible thing connected with this is that he should be killed in his own house, deliberately strangled, while Nora was quietly reading in her boudoir upstairs."

"It makes it the more mysterious. The murderer entered by the front door and made his exit that way. He knew the mansion; he knew that your father was at home and unprotected."

"It must have been thus. Had I been at home the blow would not have fallen. He was killed on the eve of his sixty-fourth birthday. Why didn't the monster permit him to round out the year?"

"Perhaps that was in the scheme."

"Heavens! I never thought of that!" cried Foster Kipp. "It must have been a part of the diabolical game—to kill him before he became sixty-four. I remember last year he received a letter which threw him into a white rage, and tearing it up in this room he declared that he would pass this day safely and live many years yet. But it was not to be; the foe found him."

For half an hour longer the detective talked with the son and drew from him all he knew about his father's past.

"I nominate you his avenger," said Foster, looking calmly into Old Broadbrim's face, while they occupied armchairs near the desk in the fatal library. "I send you out on this trail asking you to follow it wherever it leads, through thick and thin, never losing sight of it till you close in upon the murderer. Drag him from his hiding place; stand him under the noose and then come to me for your reward. It will not be small. Father left millions behind, and they are mine now—mine and Nora's, and she joins me in this hunt for the murderer."

Old Broadbrim stood before the young man and looked into his white face, earnest with anxiety and seamed with eagerness that seemed to be devouring him.

"I believe, after talking with Nora, that the enemies are foreign ones," continued Foster Kipp. "Father has within the last five years received letters at intervals which came from some remote corners of the world. One of them, I saw by a fragment of the envelope, came from London, another from Paris and a third from Melbourne. This would seem to indicate the restless nature of the enemy. But the trail leads across the water, Mr. Broadbrim. I am sure of this. It may be a long one, but you are equal to it."

Old Broadbrim stood at the door of the mansion and was looking into Foster's face when he heard a sound in another room, and Miss Nora bounded forward.

"What do you think?" she cried, stopping before the detective. "Is it to be a trail across the water?"

"It looks that way, miss," was the answer.

"Then take this for luck—take it with the prayers of Nora Doon," and she pressed into the detective's hand a little packet quite flat and much smaller than his hand.

Old Broadbrim looked at it, but did not open it.

Placing it in his pocket he shook hands with Foster Kipp and Nora and turned away.

Many a month was to pass ere they looked upon his face again.

Many a dark danger was to be met and surmounted, many a wild scene passed through before he could look upon the sunlight of success, and the path he had selected to tread within the last few hours was a path of death.

In his little office the detective made hasty preparations for departure.

He went in light marching order, but provided in many ways for the long journey.

Booked for London, he packed his little grip, and on the street below looked around upon familiar scenes perhaps for the last time.

He hastened to the White Star offices and went on board the vessel in which he had taken passage.

In the little stateroom he made ready for the voyage, and sat down to think a moment.

All at once the little packet which Nora Doon had placed in his hands came to his mind, and he fished it from the depths of the inner pocket.

With a half smile at his lips the detective opened it slowly and then the smile broadened.

He held in his hand a four-leaved clover, and on the paper upon which it rested were "The best wishes of Nora Doon."

The detective tore the paper into bits, but carefully preserved the little talisman.

Ten minutes later the steamer was moving from her dock and the famous detective went up on deck.

He was on the longest and most exciting trail of his life; the chase across the ocean had begun, and Old Broadbrim, as he looked out over the water, wondered what the end would be.

[CHAPTER IV.]

THE LONDON TRAIL.

Before stepping upon the deck of the Oceanic Old Broadbrim did two things that have not been recorded.

In the first place, he went back to the office of the Cunard Line and obtained a fair description of the man who had taken passage in the Campania under the name of Rufus Redmond.

This man he had every reason for believing was Merle Macray, the person he wanted.

Having done this, the detective cabled to his friend, Tom Owens, the well-known Scotland Yarder, in London, the description of the passenger, with a request that he watch for him and shadow him till he (Old Broadbrim) could reach England.

He knew that his wishes would be carried out to the letter, and that Tom Owens would spot his man the moment the steamer arrived in Liverpool, so on this score Old Broadbrim rested easy.

No one on board the Oceanic suspected that the plain-looking business man with the agile step and the glossy gray beard was the famous Quaker.

He did not confine himself to his stateroom, but came up on deck to chat with his fellow-travelers, and almost before the vessel had passed Sandy Hook he knew them all.

He could not expect to overtake the Cunarder, therefore he could only hope to reach London and find his man, who, in the meantime, would be shadowed by Tom Owens.

The detective had the promise of a fine voyage and the steamer plowed her way through the deep in magnificent style.

Old Broadbrim was found on deck every day, and as the Oceanic neared the English shore he became a little anxious.

The moment he stepped upon the dock in Liverpool, after a short run, in which the record was nearly broken, he hastened to a little house not far from the pier which was a rendezvous for detectives.

If Tom Owens had been in Liverpool there would be a message for him, and he was not disappointed.

Old Broadbrim found in a secret box in the house this brief note:

"I have found him. He leaves for London to-night, and so do I.

Tom"

With this encouraging message from the Scotland Yarder, Old Broadbrim went leisurely to his breakfast, and soon after finishing it started for London.

Nothing happened to mar the progress of the chase, and at last he stepped from the cars in the great station.