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The Trigger of Conscience (Detective Story serial)/Part 2

T was Murdock, the steward, whe first found his voice. “Grant's shot,” he said, and advanced excitedly, brandishing the golf stick which he had stooped behind his desk to pick up the instant before he vaulted over. “Who did it, sir? He's not”

Jack Fraser and Ogden Bowles were beside Estridge, who bent over the body, and the former replied briefly: “I'm afraid so, Ralph!”

But his brother, after hearing the alarm, seemed for the moment to have disappeared, and Estridge, rising, took command of the situation.

“Jack, jump in your car and drive as fast as you can for Doctor Fellowes.” He drew the younger man aside for a moment; then, as the latter nodded in comprehension and dashed headlong down the veranda steps, he returned to the terror-stricken group. “The rest of you go inside, please; let no one leave the club. Murdock, round up all the waiters and cooks and other attendants, and see that they are kept under guard in the billiard room. Bowles, would you mind going with Murdock to see that they are all detained? Landon, call Rutherford Sowerby, will you?”

“Who is this man, anyway?” Phil Dorrance's voice fairly squeaked in his excitement. “Why was he here disguised like that?”

No one paid any heed to him, however. Doctor Fellowes was the general practitioner for the Broadlawns colony, and he was the county coroner as well. There had been a grave significance in Estridge's manner after his examination of the body, and no doubt was left as to the grim capacity in which the physician's presence was required,

“I am here.” Rutherford Sowerby's deep growl sounded close at hand, and he limped painfully forward as the rest, in obedience to Estridge's command, retreated within doors. Here Mrs. Sowerby created a counter diversion by fainting. “Well, Rutherford, somebody has done for our man.” The attorney turned to the other. “Jack Fraser is the only member of the house committee present to-night besides ourselves, and I've sent him for the coroner. I've also seen to it that no one—member, guest, or club attendant—leaves before they are officially permitted to do so.”

“Humph! Locked the stable door after the horse was stolen, have you?” Sowerby stood gazing grimly down at the body. “I heard the shot, but I thought it was a bursting automobile tire. I'm not surprised, though. I was fool enough to let you and the rest of the house committee overrule me, but, if you'll remember, when the idea of planting him here was first suggested, I warned you that he should have some associates at hand to work with him. This wasn't any one-man job. They've got onto him, and he must have discovered something at last. Or, suppose that Harvest Dance affair has been repeated to-night after all, and he's been gotten out of the way!”

At this moment Ralph Fraser reappeared and came quickly toward them.

“Mr. Estridge, you seem to be in charge,” he remarked. “I've had a little experience with affairs of this sort down where I come from, and, if I can be of any assistance, please command me. I take it that this Grant wasn't just what he was supposed to be.”

“He wasn't,” Estridge replied briefly. He was kneeling beside the body, rapidly going through the pockets, and now he rose with a long strip of paper in his hand. “You can help us if you will be so good, Fraser. Here is a list of all the members, guests, club attendants, and extra waiters hired from the caterers for this occasion. Your brother has gone for the coroner, but every one else must remain until they are officially permitted to leave by the authorities, Will you see to it? Bowles and Landon are attending to it, but they can't keep an eye on every one, and naturally all of us are technically under suspicion.”

“Where are all the chauffeurs and the watchman, anyway!” Sowerby glanced out at the semicircle of empty cars. “You slipped up there, Sam!”

Ralph smiled. “That's why I beat it indoors as soon as I saw what had happened, and that Grant had worn a wig and glasses, evidently for no other purpose than to make himself appear some one who he wasn't. I'm only a guest here, gentlemen, a stranger, and not in your confidence, but I surmised something of the truth. Seeing that the driveway was deserted I took it upon myself to corral those whom you might overlook in the first excitement. The chauffeurs and watchman were shooting crap in that room off the kitchen, and, if I'm any judge, they were all so intent that none of them even heard the shot. But I took care to explain to them that it wouldn't be healthy for any of them to leave the room until they were sent for. I had the brass to use your name, Mr. Estridge.”

“I'm glad you did, and you've rendered us all a service in acting so promptly,” the attorney responded cordially. “If Doctor Fellowes isn't out on a case, Jack ought to have him here in a few minutes now, but time is precious, and I'd like to have all the data available for him and the other county authorities that we can gather. Sorry I can't take you completely into our confidence now, but, besides Mr. Sowerby and your brother, no one present to-night, except myself, knows the real identity of Grant, nor why he has been here incognito.”

“No one but the person who fired the shot, Sam,” Sowerby interrupted dryly. “He must either have guessed the truth and been waiting for this occasion and the moment of darkness to rid himself of danger of retribution for what happened before, or planned another coup for to-night. How many cars brought people here this evening? Does anybody know? It would have been easy enough, in that minute before the lights were turned on again, for the murderer to have made off with anybody's car, or slipped away on foot through the shrubbery, for that matter. This thing has been bungled from start to finish, but no one would listen to me!”

“It has been bungled fatally as far as poor Grant is concerned, and I feel criminally responsible for not foreseeing the possibility of this crime, but as the rest—well” Estridge shrugged his shoulders. “Whoever got him is still in the clubhouse, Rutherford, you can depend upon that, or, if he is skulking about the grounds, he will soon be brought in. Do you remember our conversation yesterday? You were impatient that Grant had not accomplished the purpose for which we brought him here, and you predicted a repetition of the Harvest Dance affair. I didn't think it expedient to tell you then what I had arranged on my own initiative, but I happen to know our watchman's predilection for a congenial crap game, and Grant couldn't have been expected to keep an eye on everything to-night. I have some picked men scattered about the grounds and the roads leading to the club. They have orders not to close in before I them a certain signal, no matter what they hear, unless they catch some one trying to leave.”

“Suppose they've closed in on Jack Fraser!” Sowerby suggested.

“No fear of that! You saw me draw him aside before I sent him for the coroner; that was to give him a countersign which would be recognized if he were stopped,” replied Estridge. Whipping a large silk handkerchief from his pocket he stooped once more and laid it over the face of the dead man. Then he remarked: “We must not move the body, of course, and I have reasons of my own for preferring to remain beside it until the coroner arrives. In the meantime, Fraser, if you'll just go and see that Bowles and Landon keep the crowd in order and quieted.”

“Certainly.” Ralph Fraser paused in the doorway. “Have you examined the wound?”

“Only superficially,” the attorney responded. “It was caused by a bullet of small caliber, and it must have pierced the heart, but the autopsy will determine the details definitely. There were no powder marks, as you see, so it must have been fired from some distance.”

“'A bullet of small caliber,” repeated Fraser thoughtfully. “I don't know how highly you rate the capabilities of your local authorities, Mr. Estridge, nor what is back of this little affair, but it looks as though they would find their work cut out for them, doesn't it?”

He disappeared within, and Estridge turned to the bank president. “Rutherford, get rid of any one who may happen to be in the locker room and, when you're sure that you are alone, use the farthest booth from the door. Tell the operator to give you a clear wire, and be careful not to speak loud enough for the others to hear you.”

“Say, Sam, it seems to me there's enough darned mystery about this thing without your making more of it! I'm a member of the house committee, too, you know!” interrupted Sowerby. “Of course we deputized you to engage this fellow Grant, but what is the idea of stationing the guards about without taking us into your confidence? I suppose that notice on the bulletin board, which has set so many tongues wagging, meant that those who left early and didn't come to you for your fool, melodramatic countersign would be held up. What excuse would you have given?”

“None but the truth,” Estridge replied quietly. “That, in view of the fact that so many valuable jewels were worn by the ladies present this evening, it had been thought best to station extra watchmen about the grounds who would permit no one to pass out without proving their identity. As a matter of fact no one has attempted to leave.”

“'Thought best!'” snorted the other resentfully. “Who the deuce asked you to think for the whole club, Sam? Not but what the idea was a sensible one, but why didn't you tell, at least, young Fraser and me, as the only other members of the house committee who intended to be present? It was confoundedly irregular of you! What's this mysterious 'reason of your own' for hanging around the poor fellow's body till the coroner gets here, and who was he, anyway?”

“Your last question will be answered if you'll telephone, as I was about to ask you, Rutherford.” Estridge was unruffled by the outburst of his companion. “Call up O'Hare's Detective Agency in New York and tell them that Jim Doyle, the operative whom they assigned to the job out here, has been done in, and that the county authorities have been notified. Give them the barest details, say that you have got to be careful of an open wire, that you are speaking for me, and that I will communicate with them personally and at length in the morning.”

“So he was one of O'Hare's men, eh?” The bank president stared. “I presume you know what that kind of a message will do, don't you? It will bring more of O'Hare's private detectives out here to clash with the local authorities.”

“That is precisely what I want,” returned Estridge. “Not a clash with the local authorities, necessarily, but we can't avoid notoriety now in any case, and we need the most expert assistance we can obtain. O'Hare is not the sort to let an operative of his be killed in the line of duty without knowing why and by whom, and, if I'm not mistaken, he'll put his star man on the job as soon as he can get him here. We'll need him, Rutherford—we're in deep waters.”

“Not too deep for you to swim in, though!” Sowerby's small eyes crinkled at the corners. “I forgot your record in the courts, and I'll take back what I said; I guess you can do the thinking for the club, Sam. I'll phone O'Hare, and then, if you want me, you will find me with the rest.”

Estridge then reached inside the sash and pulled down the shade. Next he closed the window and stood for a minute staring down at the body of the dead detective. Doyle, or Grant, as the other club members had known him, had not been off duty on this night of all nights as the attorney very well realized. Why had he taken up his station at that particular window and never left it? Was it merely to watch the dancing, to carry out his impersonation of the house secretary, the employee who was yet accorded the privilege of looking on at that in which he might not share, or had he had some deeper motive for maintaining that point of vantage?

The opened window gave an unobstructed view of the huge entrance hall which was being used for the overflow from the ballroom: a view, also, of his own closed office door, of Murdock's desk, and the wide staircase between, as well as glimpses of the conservatory on one side, and the supper room on the other. Surely the detective could not have chosen a more central and, at the same time, unobtrusive position, yet there were other windows in the row on either side of the veranda door from which he could have looked in on precisely the same scene—windows above which no glowing lantern hung to make him so sure a mark in that moment of semidarkness!

Estridge glanced involuntarily up at the grotesque dragon swaying above him, and he discovered that the light within it was flickering crazily. He knew that most of the lanterns had been strung on electric wires connected with the main switch, so that they, together with the brackets and chandeliers within doors, might be extinguished for that midnight moment of respect to “absent members,” but at stated intervals along the veranda some were to have been fitted with candles and left to give a slight glow of light. The dragon lantern must have been one of the latter, and now its short candle length was guttering; had the pseudo-secretary known of this arrangement?

While the attorney stood meditating the candle flared suddenly and went out, and the writhing dragon became merely a decoration in red and black, and the lantern itself suddenly collapsed and fell to the floor at his feet. Estridge started mechanically to pick it up when something within it caught his eye—something which gleamed in the electric lights like a coil of sparks.

With an exclamation he glanced about him at the deserted veranda, then, stooping swiftly beneath the line of the window ledge, lest his shadow show against the shade, he drew forth from the base of the lantern a strand which glittered in his hands like living fire.

Backing away from the window he straightened and looked down at the still form at his feet.

“I know, now.” His lips formed the words in a toneless whisper. “You turned the trick, Doyle, even though it cost you your life! You made good, and no man can do more!”

HE shrill note of the siren, which cut the night air not many minutes after Estridge's discovery, was followed by the droning roar of an engine, and Jack Fraser's car swirled madly up the curving drive to stop with a jolt before the veranda steps.

“Is that you, Estridge?” the latter called cautiously. “We're in luck. I found the sheriff playing checkers with Doctor Fellowes and brought him along, too!”

“Good evening, doctor, or rather good morning, for it is past midnight.” Estridge advanced and held out his hand as a tall, slightly stoop-shouldered man with a trimly pointed gray beard mounted the steps, followed by a corpulent, but surprisingly active, figure. “Sheriff, I suppose Mr. Fraser has told you of the crime which has been committed here to-night. I am prepared to give you all the details in our possession and to assure you that no one has been permitted to leave the premises.”

They shook hands, and the coroner proceeded straightway to his investigation of the body, but Sheriff Coburn, after a more cursory glance at it, turned again to the attorney.

“I'll let the doc have his innings first, Mr. Estridge, but I'd like the truth about what Mr. Fraser tried to tell us while we were whizzing out here. I understand that the dead man has been acting as an employee of the club for the past few days, but he was actually a city detective, engaged on the quiet by some of you to find out who has been committing some robberies.” His usually good-natured eyes blinked resentfully in his round face. “I suppose our country methods weren't good enough for you city folks who have settled out our way, but that's neither here nor there. Your smart operative has let the thief get the drop on him, and now it's up to us after all. We'll want the whole story, sir, that we should have had in the beginning.”

“You'll have it, sheriff.” Estridge's tone was the blandly conciliatory one which many an assistant district attorney knew to the cost of his prestige and the loss of the State's case. “Some minor discrepancies appeared in the club's accounts after the departure of our former secretary, Mr. Martin, which we—the house committee—preferred to make up out of our own pockets rather than start a scandal.”

“Didn't strike you, as a lawyer, that you were pretty near compounding a felony, did it, Mr. Estridge?” The sheriff rubbed his chin reflectively.

“Hardly,” Estridge observed. “Martin could have had nothing to do with the crime which we employed this detective to investigate; the robbery took place after his departure for the West—on the night of our Harvest Dance, in fact. You would have been notified at once, but the victim herself objected to any stir being made about it in the neighborhood and preferred to call in a private detective from the city.”

“'Herself?'” repeated the sheriff. “One of the ladies was robbed? What was it, jewelry? Who was it?”

“It was Mrs. de Forest, and she was robbed of this.” As he spoke the attorney drew from his pocket the glistening strand, which he had found coiled about the base of the dragon lantern, and extended it to the county official who retreated a step, his eyes bulging.

“You don't say!” he exclaimed. “That's not Mrs. de Forest's necklace, the famous De Forest diamonds?”

Samuel Estridge nodded. “They dropped or were clipped from her neck some time during the Harvest Dance which was held late in September; as soon as she discovered her loss, with rare presence of mind, she made no scene, but reported the matter quietly to various members of the house committee, of which I was one. After the dance was over we held a special meeting, and the course, which we subsequently adopted, was decided upon,” he resumed. “I was deputized to engage a man from O'Hare's agency to come down here and pose as the new club secretary in order to get in touch with both members and attendants and discover, if he could, the identity of the thief. You see, sheriff, every one here that night was virtually open to possible suspicion of having stolen the string of diamonds, just as every one present this evening is a possible suspect of murder.”

“Then this man didn't find out who had taken the necklace?” demanded the sheriff as he took the strand of gleaming jewels from the attorney and ran it gingerly through his pudgy fingers. “Mr. Fraser didn't have time to tell us whether Grant had made an ante-mortem statement or not.”

“Grant—or Doyle, to give him his real name—must have died instantly, and I am afraid we shall never know the whole truth about to-night,” responded Estridge gravely. “We can only be certain that he discovered the hiding place of the diamonds and was keeping guard beneath it until such time as he might take possession of them without the knowledge of the thief; but the latter must have suspected his intention and fired the fatal shot when the lights were lowered for a few minutes at midnight.”

“What were the lights lowered for? You folks dance till all hours out here. You say that this fellow Doyle was keeping guard beneath the place where the diamonds were hidden; then, if the body hasn't been moved” The sheriff was not permitted to finish his question.

“It hasn't,” said Estridge. “They were inside that Chinese lantern which swung just above the window all this evening. I only discovered them myself by accident, a few minutes before your arrival. The lantern fell, and, if you will examine the diamonds, even in this light you will see that congealed candle grease is still adhering to them.”

Doctor Fellowes had concluded his preliminary examination of the body, and now he approached silently and listened while the attorney briefly, but concisely, summed up the events of the night.

“What do you make of it, doc?” Sheriff Coburn asked with the familiarity of lifelong association. “How far off was the shot fired?”

“A considerable distance, I should say; I don't want to commit myself before the autopsy, but I think a high-powered pistol of small caliber was used, and it might have been fired anywhere from twenty to forty feet away,” Doctor Fellowes replied cautiously. “The bullet penetrated or passed very close to the heart.”

The sheriff was obviously much impressed. “You've hit on a mighty valuable clew right there! It would take a pretty good shot” He broke off suddenly, remembering the presence of Samuel Estridge. While the sheriff walked over to examine the dead man for himself, the coroner asked: “You've got a light motor truck here belonging to the club, haven't you, Mr. Estridge? I've seen it going to the station with golf bags. I'd like to remove the body in that for the autopsy. Have you notified the detective agency of his death?”

“Yes; another member of the house committee, President Rutherford Sowerby of the Tradesmen's Bank, has done so.” Estridge paused. “I may add that only he, Mrs. de Forest, Mr. Jack Fraser, and myself were aware, until to-night's tragedy, that the necklace was stolen, or that Doyle was other than the club secretary he pretended to be. The other members of the house committee, who were present at the special meeting after the Harvest Dance, have been either ill or away since that night, and we had not then decided in what capacity we would introduce a private detective here. For reasons which are obvious, of course, we should like to keep this whole affair as quiet as possible and avoid all the scandal and notoriety that we can, at any rate, until the identity of the criminal has been discovered.”

Doctor Fellowes shook his head, “You won't find that very easy if every one rushed out here after the shot was fired and saw that the man had been palpably disguised,” he remarked. “The caterer's people and the orchestra from the city are bound to talk to reporters.”

“Oh, you'll have to stand for the notoriety, all right, Mr. Estridge!” The sheriff had hung the lightless lantern again on its hook and rejoined them in time to catch the drift of the coroner's words. “Even if Mrs. de Forest hasn't told them by now of the theft of her necklace, it's all bound to come out at the inquest. Here's Mr. Fraser.”

Jack Fraser had parked his car, stopped for a brief conversation with one of the special guards who had been stationed about the grounds, and now he ascended the veranda steps and came toward them. Arrangements were quickly made for him to take out the light motor truck and drive the coroner and his gruesome charge back to the village. The sheriff and Estridge entered the main hall of the clubhouse.

A strange sight met their gaze where so short a time before groups of light-hearted people had dominated the scene. The center of the floor was deserted and littered with gloves, handkerchiefs, and broken-plumed fans. Young Mrs. Sowerby was stretched upon a bench which had been hastily drawn from the conservatory. Jack Fraser's wife and Alice Dare were ministering to her, and, near the closed door of the late pseudo-secretary's little office, Phil Dorrance had buttonholed the reluctant Gerald Landon and appeared to be questioning him excitedly. At the foot of the stairs, where she had halted when the report of the shot came, Mrs. Carter had seated herself, and Ogden Bowles bent solicitously above her, but of Rutherford Sowerby, Ralph Fraser, and Murdock there was no sign,

Sounds of varying degrees of hysteria from the conservatory, ballroom, and supper rooms indicated where the rest of the women members and guests had taken refuge—all save two. Mrs. de Forest was once more in her chair in the corner, tacitly reserved for her at all club functions, but her usually erect figure was huddled, and her face seemed suddenly to have become lined and very old. She was staring straight before her, apparently oblivious to the soothing utterances of her one faithful satellite, Mrs. Dorrance, but she roused herself and glanced up as the attorney and the sheriff approached.

“I have been a proud old woman, Mr. Coburn, and indirectly that poor young man's death lies at my door!” she said brokenly. “If I had not insisted to the house committee on avoiding village gossip and the hounding of society reporters from town by having a private investigation conducted, he would never have come here to meet his end!”

The sheriff had always been secretly in awe of this grand lady of the fashionable colony which had invaded Broadlawns and, like most of the natives, had cloaked this feeling beneath an attitude of swaggering independence. But, before her disarming self-abasement, his good nature reasserted itself, and he replied with grim humor: “No, ma'am. You would probably have called in Constable Meeks, and he would have called in me, and then, if either of us had been as successful as that young man was in what he undertook, we'd most likely be lying where he is to-night; that is, if we'd been as careless as to stay in the light!”

“'Successful!'” Mrs. de Forest caught up the word with a sharp exclamation. She turned in bewilderment to the attorney. “Mr. Estridge, what does the sheriff mean?”

Mrs. Dorrance was staring from one to the other of them with avid interest, and Sheriff Coburn interposed bluntly: “I'll be glad to tell you, ma'am, if you will come where we can talk privately. I understand that this affair isn't to be known generally throughout the club, just yet.”

“Poor Mr. Grant's office is bolted, but why not try the ladies' locker room?” Mrs. Dorrance suggested, rising. “I know there must be some terrible mystery back of what has happened to-night, and I won't intrude, but, dear Mrs. de Forest, I am sure you will confide in me as soon as the opportunity offers.”

She bowed to the sheriff and Samuel Estridge, and, as she moved away, the attorney observed: “That was not a bad suggestion. Shall we adjourn to the ladies' locker room?”

Mrs. de Forest rose, masking her agitation from those in the hall who might be watching them. The three made their way to the room indicated, and here the sheriff, after carefully fastening the door, drew from his pocket the necklace and placed it in the lady's hands.

“My diamonds!” she exclaimed. “But where”

“I'm sorry not to be able to explain now, ma'am, and I'll have to ask you to return them to me again as evidence. I only wanted you to know that they were safe, and I'll give you a receipt for them. You positively identify them don't you?”

“Unless this is a paste replica, which only an expert could detect, it is indeed my necklace,” Mrs. de Forest affirmed. “I would be overjoyed at recovering it if it were not for the fact that it cost that unfortunate young detective his life! Do you know who took it from me at the Harvest Dance, or who fired that shot to-night?”

“No, ma'am.” The sheriff, who had been laboriously writing a receipt, now held the paper out to her. “If you'll just give me back that necklace it will be produced at the inquest and then returned to you, provided nobody's held for trial. Till then I take it that Mr. Sowerby, Mr. Fraser, and Mr. Estridge will be glad if you'd keep as quiet about losing it at all as you have during the past month. Of course all the folks here to-night know that Grant was at the club in disguise, and that he was murdered, but no one knows why, and no one but the murderer himself knows yet who pulled the trigger.”

“Take it!” Mrs. de Forest extended the necklace with a gesture of repulsion. “I feel as though there were a stain upon it! But I don't in the least understand.”

“Mr. Estridge will have to explain to you later, ma'am; I've got other things to do now before the coroner gets back. You know that we work kind of independently in a case like this, and we can't keep the folks here up all night.” Sheriff Coburn wrapped the diamonds in his handkerchief and stowed them carefully in an inside pocket. “Got mighty near onto a hundred people here, counting extra help and all, I understand from Mr. Fraser, and it will be some job to weed them out. Mr. Estridge, can I see you for a minute?”

“Look here, sheriff, what was your idea in hanging that lantern back on the hook from which it fell when the candle guttered?” the attorney asked when they had taken their leave of the lady and started toward the billiard room.

The sheriff winked slyly. “Unless you yourself put that necklace there, Mr. Estridge, nobody but us and the coroner knows that it has been discovered. I put the lantern back in place before Mr. Fraser came up to the porch after parking his car, and I figured that, as soon as he dared, the thief would be looking for the jewels where he hid them,” he replied. “That wouldn't be right away—not within half an hour or so after the body was taken off—for fear of drawing attention to himself, but I'd like to swear you in as a special deputy, until I can get one of the boys out from the village, and have you kind of hang around where you can watch that lantern from now on and see who goes near it. As a club member you could do it in a natural sort of way that would scare the fellow off, whoever he is, without his actually suspecting that you knew anything. Got a revolver or pistol here at the club?”

“None that I know of, sheriff,” Estridge said. “Suppose, in spite of my presence near that lantern, either inside the window or out on the veranda, the murderer takes a chance and, on some plausible excuse attempts to remove it? He must be pretty desperate, you know, and he's playing for high stakes. I'm not as young as I was, but I'll tackle him if you say so.”

“I believe you would, sir!” the sheriff responded admiringly. “We've heard out here of a few fellows, whom you've had sent up, who threatened to get you when they came out, but none of them tried it yet! However, I'm not asking you to look for trouble; if nobody actually tries to touch the lantern don't bother 'em, just get a good look at anybody who hangs around so that you can identify 'em later. But, if anybody tries to tamper with it, don't stop to question 'em, cover 'em with this!”

They had paused in a deserted corner of the rear hall, and Sheriff Coburn thrust into the hands of his newly appointed deputy a short, but heavy, old-fashioned revolver, which Estridge inserted in the pocket of his dinner jacket. He rarely appeared at the club in more formal evening attire.

“I understand, sheriff.” With a nod he sauntered back across the rotunda. The return of Jack Fraser's car, bearing Doctor Fellowes and a third man on the spare seat, gave him an excuse for evading the eager questions which assailed him from all sides.

“The sheriff is interviewing the waiters and assistant stewards in the billiard room, I believe,” Estridge replied to the coroner's inquiry. “The watchman and the chauffeurs are in a room off the kitchen, and you'll find the members and guests scattered about within doors.”

“Good! This is Constable Meeks.” Doctor Fellowes indicated the tall, shambling, ungainly figure which had occupied the spare seat in the little runabout. “Any parties, club members, or extra help whom he conducts outside you'll know the sheriff and I have finished with for the time being. Mr. Fraser can give them the word that will let them past your special watchmen if they should be stopped in the grounds.”

Estridge nodded to the constable, and the three entered the hall. Estridge then took up his solitary vigil. Pacing the veranda he seemed lost in thought, but in reality he was watching keenly for a flitting shadow against the windows, or a stealthy movement among the branches of the shrubbery that swayed and rustled in the night wind upon the lawn,

The other candle-lit lanterns had long since gone out, and the one which had contained the necklace hung inert. Its once fiery dragon had become an indistinguishable design of inky black, but no one approached it either from within the house or without. Presently a club bus or two rattled up to the door and departed with the orchestra, jazz band, and extra waiters and cooks. Later the members and their guests began to depart in their various cars, each group escorted to the steps by the constable.

A distant village clock struck three, and still the attorney's vigil remained unrelieved and unrewarded. With the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance, bearing the still hysterical Mrs. Sowerby, the constable came toward the watcher and announced: “Sheriff Coburn told me why you were out here, Mr. Estridge. He and Doc Fellowes reckon they'd rather have you in there with them now, being as it was you hired that city detective that got killed, and I'm going to take your place. Ain't seen anything suspicious, have you?”

Estridge assured the constable that he had not, and, relinquishing his commission and the weapon which was sagging down his coat pocket, he returned to the hall of the clubhouse. Here he found Rutherford Sowerby holding forth.

“This is an outrage! You people are only trying to show your petty authority by keeping us here, but I have an important directors' meeting in town in the morning, and I need my rest!”

“That's all right, sir!” the sheriff retorted pugnaciously. “You folks don't mind cutting up and raising high jinks till morning when you're giving a party, but when it comes to a murder inquiry you're not to be kept out of your beds.”

“'High jinks!'” The irate bank president was ready to explode. “I'll have you know that I've had gout for the past ten years! As for this murder, I know no more about it than you! I was playing bridge with three other members in the card room when the lights dimmed at midnight, and we had barely risen when the sound of the shot came. Samuel Estridge had taken command of the situation by the time I reached the veranda, and he asked me to go and telephone to O'Hare's Detective Agency in town and tell them that their man had been killed. I did so and then went to see that none of the chauffeurs or waiters left the premises. Good heavens! My estate in this one-horse village of yours is worth over sixty thousand dollars; you don't think I am likely to run away, do you?”

“I guess we can trust you, Mr. Sowerby,” the coroner interposed smoothly. “We'll want you at the inquest, but you will be notified, and, if Sheriff Coburn agrees, we will excuse you now.”

“I should like to take my wife home, also,” Jack Fraser interrupted. “She was dancing with my brother, and I was dancing with Miss Dare when the signal came for the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne.' Neither of us left our partners' sides until the report of the shot. At least a score of people must have seen us.”

“It is an imposition to keep the rest of the ladies here, anyway, at this hour!” Ogden Bowles declared hotly. “I'm not a member of the house committee, and I don't know why Grant was killed or who killed him, but the ladies, at least, should be exempt from this all-night grilling! Mrs. Carter, for instance, is really ill, and Mrs. de Forest and her niece

“Thank you, Mr. Bowles.” From her chair, where by her very presence she seemed to dominate the group, Mrs. de Forest cast a withering glance upon him. “Neither my niece nor myself are of the weakly hysterical breed! I will speak for us both, and we will remain to see this inquiry through!”

Before any one could speak again the roar of a car with the muffler cut out sounded from the drive, and it drew up at the steps. Constable Meeks' slightly nasal tones came to them mingled with a quick, authoritative masculine voice, and then the door opened, and a slender, lithe young man strode into the room.

“I have motored out from the city in response to a telephone message from here,” he announced. “My name is Renwick Crane.”

S the newcomer mentioned his name, Sowerby and Bowles glanced at each other) and Estridge started eagerly forward. Even the sheriff uttered an exclamation beneath his breath. In the past year or two Renwick Crane had become celebrated for his success in the solving of more than one notoriously baffling crime, and the newspapers had sung his praises to the chagrin of the regular metropolitan police department, O'Hare had sent his star man to avenge the death of a lesser colleague.

“Mr. Crane, I believe we have met in court. I am Samuel Estridge.” The attorney spoke hastily and turned toward the local officials, “I am sure that Coroner Fellowes and Sheriff Coburn will be delighted to have so distinguished a consultant. You have come, of course, to inquire into the circumstances of the death of your friend who was known among us as the house secretary, James Grant. As the reason for his presence here has not been generally disclosed I propose that the coroner, the sheriff, Mr. Sowerby, and Mr. Fraser of the house committee, and you and I go into a brief, private session. If the rest of you will wait, I promise you that we shall not be long.”

He led those whom he had named to the billiard room and closed the door. The others divided themselves insensibly into couples. Mrs. Jack Fraser seated herself beside Mrs. de Forest, and Alice Dare, after hovering about her aunt for a moment, retired to a discreet distance behind her chair, where she indulged in a whispered conversation with Gerald Landon. Ralph Fraser and Ogden Bowles were talking by the fireplace, and only Mrs. Carter sat alone and a little apart.

Her pale, almost classic, face between the bands of rich red hair was as expressionless as ever, and her slim hands were folded in her lap, but her lids drooped over her tawny eyes, and it seemed with difficulty that she essayed a faint smile when Bowles at length crossed to her side.

“You are utterly worn out!” he said. “It is a shame to keep you here after the shock of the tragedy, particularly as you are not well. I blame myself for persuading you to come this evening.”

“Indeed you mustn't,” she replied softly. “I am unnerved, of course, but it is of that poor man I am thinking, and of the strange mystery of his presence here. He was a detective, we know that, but I have heard of no robbery at the club, have you?”

Bowles shook his head. “It's bound to come out at the inquest, anyway, so I can't understand why the house committee are so secretive now. I shouldn't be surprised if the matter turned out to be more of a domestic scandal than a criminal affair,” he said. “However, I'm not a he-gossip, and people don't kill for the mere sake of preserving a reputation!”

“Not without warning, even down where I came from,” Mrs. Carter agreed. “It really does seem rather silly not to tell the members of the club why a detective was employed to spy upon them, especially now that the poor man is dead.”

Behind locked doors in the billiard room, Rutherford Sowerby was voicing somewhat the same sentiment, but in less complimentary terms.

“As long as that old she-dragon's necklace has been recovered, I don't see why the whole story shouldn't be given to the boys of the press when they come swarming out in the morning!” he exclaimed. “I could have bought the thing for her twice over, and now it has created the worst scandal a country club ever endured, aside from causing the death of that poor fellow, Doyle. Doctor Fellowes says he'll hold the inquest on Monday at the latest, and that is only two days off. This is Saturday morning.”

“I want those two days.” Renwick Crane spoke quietly, but with an intensity of purpose which brooked no denial. “Since the coroner and the sheriff have been good enough to give me a free hand in my own investigation and have agreed to coöperate with me in every way compatible with their offices, may I suggest that, until it is needed as evidence at the inquest, the dragon lantern be taken down with the other lanterns and put away as is usual after an entertainment? I have brought some of my own operatives with me from the agency, and one of them will watch any one who approaches that lantern until it is put in evidence. Your constable can be released for more important duty.”

“But what could be more important?” asked Jack Fraser in surprise. “Surely when you get the man who had a guilty knowledge of the whereabouts of that necklace, you will have caught the murderer of James Doyle!”

“Not if he can present an alibi, which you are unable to shake, for that minute of semidarkness during which the shot was fired!” Crane retorted, rumpling his curly brown hair. “Don't you see, gentlemen, that you've got merely the vaguest sort of circumstantial evidence as to why the murder was committed, but not even an idea of the possible identity of the murderer? I'm not out here to discover who stole the necklace or hid it in that lantern; I'm here to find out who killed Jim Doyle!”

His crisp, clear-cut tones broke slightly as he mentioned the name of his late associate, but his keen eyes flashed, and he set his jaw in uncertain lines. The dominating force of the man's personality, together with his peculiar insight and power of deduction, which had gained him his reputation, began to be manifest even to the local authorities, and the sheriff exclaimed: “I never thought of that! There might have been more than one of them in the plot!”

“Doctor”—Crane turned to the coroner—“the most superficial examination of the wound should have shown the general direction from which the shot came.”

“It did,” Doctor Fellowes responded. “I told you that I wouldn't commit myself before the autopsy, but I have already given you my unofficial opinion, as I had previously given it to Mr. Estridge and the sheriff, that the shot was fired from a distance of twenty to forty feet, straight in front of Doyle. Of course it might have come from a little to the left or right, which would depend on how he was standing. Only the autopsy will show the depth of penetration and the course of the bullet—whether it was slightly upward or downward—but it undoubtedly passed through the open window before which he stood.”

“That's good enough as a working basis,” Crane's glance darted to the attorney. “Mr. Estridge, what architect designed this club?”

The unexpected question made the others eye each other in surprise, but, as though following the detective's train of thought, Estridge smiled as he replied: “Peter van Horn, of Hopping & Van Horn, in the city. However, a copy of the plans of the club, drawn to scale, are filed in the secretary's office here, and I am sure that the rest of the house committee will be glad to place them at your disposal at any time.”

“Thanks. Then suppose we join those of your members who are still being detained?” Crane suggested. “I noticed several ladies present, and, as Mr. Sowerby remarked before, it is nearly morning.”

The cold light of dawn was indeed faintly streaking the east when they reëntered the hall to find the little groups much as they had left them, save that Alice Dare had fallen asleep on the bench that had been brought from the conservatory, Mrs. de Forest was nodding in her chair, and Mrs. Fraser pacing nervously back and forth. Of the women, only Mrs. Carter maintained her attitude of impassive, yet alert, calm. Crane, after discovering that the majority of the members and guests, who had been detained were not in line with the window, dismissed them summarily, The sheriff turned to Mrs. Carter.

“Mrs. Carter, this is Mr. Crane, a detective, who has come out from town to look into the death of Mr. Grant.”

Mrs. Carter bowed. “Mr. Crane's reputation has preceded him,” she said demurely. “We did not know until to-night, however, that the poor man, whom we had all grown to like and trust as the new house secretary, was a detective also.”

“You have no idea why he was here, Mrs. Carter?” asked Crane.

Her eyes widened. “I cannot imagine, but I suppose the house committee had some excellent reason. I have scarcely given that a thought. His death and the manner of it seem all a part of some horrible dream, and yet I stood right there!”

“Where?”

“At the foot of the staircase. I was coming down from the ladies' rest room on the second floor, where I had gone to remain until the singing was over.” She paused. “I had been out on the veranda and had seen and spoken to poor Mr. Grant—or whatever his name was—only a few minutes before. Oh, it is all too terrible to realize!”

“You were out on the veranda?” the detective repeated.

“Yes; I was waiting for Mr. Bowles to bring my cloak. I have not been well lately, and so much dancing had made me dizzy. I thought a breath of fresh air would do me good, but it was too cold out there, and I decided to go upstairs and rest until supper. I did go up and lie down during the final dance, but, when the lights were turned out and the orchestra commenced the first bars of 'Auld Lang Syne,' I started down to join in the singing with the rest. I could see nothing but shadowy groups of people standing about and just the faintest glow from the lanterns on the veranda, and I had to feel my way to keep from falling. I had just reached the foot of the stairs when the sound of the shot came!”

She paused again with a shudder, but the detective inexorably urged her on.

“What did you see then, Mrs. Carter? What did you hear? What were your impressions?”

“I don't know!” She passed a hand across her eyes. “It was all confused, like some hideous phase of delirium! I remember a dreadful, crumpling sound as of something heavy and soft, falling—some woman screamed—it may have been I, but I was unconscious of it I have a vague recollection of some man's voice calling for the lights to be turned on, and then they flashed suddenly in my eyes, and everybody rushed forward, but I couldn't move; I felt as though I had turned to stone! I don't know how long I stood there before Mr. Bowles came and told me that poor Mr. Grant had been shot—that he was dead! Then I collapsed, my limbs seemed to give way beneath me, and I sat down on the stairs. It was only gradually that I became aware that people were fainting and hysterical all about me, I was simply stunned. Really, that is all that I can tell you, Mr. Crane.”

In spite of the repression, which it evident that she had placed upon herself, her face appeared all at once haggard, and drawn and Renwick Crane, with a softening of his manner, said, “Well, with the permission of the sheriff and the coroner, we won't trouble you any further, Mrs. Carter. You live near here?”

“Yes, scarcely a mile away, at the Horton Cottage. I shall be glad to receive you there at any time and give you any assistance in my power, but I really know nothing more than I have told you.” She hesitated before she added: “But is Mr. Bowles going to take me home? He brought me to the dance last night in his car.”

The eyes of the others turned involuntarily to the fireplace, before which Bowles stood with Ralph Fraser and Gerald Landon, and an added tension made itself manifest in the air. As though conscious of it himself, the broker unconsciously squared his shoulders as he advanced, and, although he smiled with an assumption of ease, his eyes shifted slightly before he met the detective's gaze.

“By Jove, I believe Estridge, Landon, and myself are the only ones left who haven't given an account of ourselves yet for those fateful moments when the lights were out!” he exclaimed with a laugh. “Estridge, of course, is out of it.”

“I should think he was!” said Sowerby, glaring. “I've known Sam Estridge all my life, and, moreover, he was in the card room watching a bridge game when the shot was fired. I would have been out on the veranda myself as quick as he was if it hadn't been for my gout and the fact that some fool woman got in my way!”

“And I,” said Bowles, “can attest to Mr. Landon's presence here in the main hall. Doubtless a score of others can give the same testimony.” Bowles smile had become less strained. “I saw him, but whether he saw me or not I don't know. I was standing alone in the door leading to the smaller supper room—that one over there, to the right of the steward's desk. Mrs. Carter had promised me the final dance before the singing, and, when at the last moment she decided that she must go upstairs and rest until supper, I told her that I would be waiting for her at the foot of the stairs after the singing. She was to go in to supper with me. During the final dance I went into the smaller supper room to see that our table had been arranged, and, when the jazz music abruptly ceased and the string orchestra started up the introduction to 'Auld lang Syne,' I came to the door to add my voice to the general chorus. It was then that I saw Mr. Landon standing in the conservatory door opposite. I remained where I was until the sound of the shot came. Then I rushed out upon the veranda with the rest.”

There was a slight pause, and then, as it was broken by neither the sheriff nor the coroner, Renwick Crane asked: “You live here in Brooklands, Mr Bowles?”

“No, I merely run out occasionally and put up here at the club if there is room; if not, at the Brooklands Inn. I am a broker with offices in Wall Street and a bachelor apartment in town at the Margrave. I shall hold myself unreservedly at your service and that of the authorities here.” He paused and added with his old, easy manner: “As a member of this club, I feel as deeply as any of the rest can the fact that this poor fellow came to his death in the performance of his duty, even though I was not in the confidence of the house committee and I did not dream that he was other than he appeared.”

“Well,” the sheriff remarked after a glance at the coroner who nodded, “I guess, if Mr. Crane don't want to ask you any more questions just now, we won't keep you longer from taking Mrs. Carter home. Did you notice Mr. Bowles, Mr. Landon?”

“No, I was watching the dancers, but I'm mighty glad he saw me, for I, too, was alone,” the young man responded frankly. “I ran out on the veranda with the rest when Grant was shot, and Mr. Estridge, who had taken charge, asked me to call Mr. Sowerby. I am employed in town in the bank of which Mr. Sowerby is president. I am not a member of this club, but a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Fraser, with whom I am staying.

“Since every one now present has accounted for themselves or been accounted for, may I suggest that all may be permitted to leave?” Samuel Estridge remarked. “Mr. Crane will be accommodated, here at the club, of course, and it may be that you gentlemen would like to question the stewards and other attendants.”

He turned to the sheriff and coroner, and, after a brief consultation between them, the latter announced: “Mr. Estridge is right. All of you are well known to me, and most of you are my patients; I think I can depend upon your presence at the inquest. Sheriff Coburn and I represent the county authorities, and Mr. Crane is working with us. I know you'll give him all the assistance you can, and in the meantime we won't detain you any longer.”

During the bustle of departure which ensued, Crane observed that Mrs. de Forest made an almost imperceptible gesture toward him and then walked into the ladies' cloak room, imperiously waving back her niece. Mrs. Fraser was already wrapped in her cloak, and Bowles was solicitously assisting Mrs. Carter with hers in the foyer. The detective, as unobtrusively as possible, managed to slip away. He followed the elderly woman and found her alone.

“Shut the door!” she commanded without preamble, and, when he had complied, she faced him before the long mirror. “Young man, the sheriff is a good detective of chicken thieves, and as a coroner, Doctor Fellowes may be efficient in ordinary cases, but I've heard of you and some of the things which you have accomplished, and I'm going to trust you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. de Forest,” he responded with immense respect. “Do you mean that you heard or saw something which you have not mentioned? Have you a possible theory as to who shot my former associate?”

“I've lived too long to form theories about anything, and you needn't thank me until you learn how trivial a supposition I have to suggest to you!” she retorted. “I caught only a glimpse of he body on the veranda, The sound of the shooting had stunned me for a moment, and I was slow in rising from my chair; I had scarcely reached the door when Mr. Estridge ordered everybody back, and I was not sorry. I am not squeamish ordinarily, but neither have I any hysterically morbid tendencies, and I had no desire to look upon the result of a tragedy for which I felt indirectly responsible. It was on my behalf that your unfortunate colleague was engaged to come here.”

She paused, and the detective, who had not shifted his gaze from her face, seized quickly upon one salient phrase which she had used.

“You say 'the sound of the shooting,' Mrs. de Forest,” he repeated. “I understood that only one shot was fired.”

Mrs. de Forest's stately shoulders rose in a slight shrug.

“So they tell me,” she replied. “As I have just informed you, I did not catch more than a glimpse of poor Mr. Grant's body, but I gathered from the gruesome details imparted to me that there was but one wound. Nevertheless, although I am getting on in years, Mr. Crane, my senses are, I think, still unimpaired, and I fancied—I could most have sworn—that two distinct but practically simultaneous, detonations rang through the rotunda. It may have been merely the echo, of course the effect of the acoustics, or just an old woman's notion. I offer it to you for what it may be worth.”

“And I accept it most gratefully,” Renwick Crane assured her in a very sober tone. “I shall not betray your confidence, but I will give the possibility you have suggested my fullest attention. It may be that more than one person was concerned in the theft of your necklace, and more than one person in the murder of Jim Doyle!”


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 any man in Vienna be of worth to undergo such ample grace and honour, it is lord Angelo." And now the duke departed from Vienna under pretence of making a journey into Poland, leaving Angelo to act as the lord deputy in his absence; but the duke's absence was only a feigned one, for he privately returned to Vienna, habited like a friar, with the intent to watch unseen the conduct of the saintly seeming Angelo.

It happened just about the time that Angelo was invested with his new dignity, that a gentleman, whose name was Claudio, had seduced a young lady from her parents; and for this offence, by command of the new lord deputy, Claudio was taken up and committed to prison, and by virtue of the old law which had been so long neglected, Angelo sentenced Claudio to be beheaded. Great interest was made for the pardon of young Claudio, and the good old lord Escalus himself interceded for him. "Alas," said he, "this gentleman whom I would save had an honourable father, for whose sake I pray you pardon the young man's transgression." But Angelo replied: "We must not make a scare-crow of the law, setting it up to frighten birds of prey, till custom, finding it harmless, makes it their perch, and not their terror. Sir, he must die."

Lucio, the friend of Claudio, visited him in the prison, and Claudio said to him: "I pray you, Lucio, do me this kind service. Go to my sister Isabel, who this day proposes to enter the convent of Saint Clare; acquaint her with the danger of my state; implore her that she make friends with the strict deputy; bid her go herself to Angelo. I have great hopes in that; for she can discourse with prosperous art, and well she can persuade; besides, there is a speechless dialect in youthful sorrow, such as moves men."

Isabel, the sister of Claudio, had, as he said, that

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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68

The queen her beauteous maidens did thereupon command

To leave the windows straightway: they ought not there to stand,

A gazing-stock for strangers! they readily obey’d.

And what the ladies next did hath since to us been said:

They decked themselves for sake of the visitors unknown,

As comely women ever since days of old have done.

Then to the narrow windows they quickly came again,

Whence they could see the heroes,— and gazed with might and main.

There were of them four only, who came unto the land.

Bold Siegfried now was leading a horse along the sand;

The comely dames beheld him, across the window shelf:

Whilst Gunther thought with pride that they gazed upon himself.

He held it by the bridle,— the shapely animal,

It was so sleek and handsome, so big and strang withal,—

Until the king had mounted, and in the saddle sat.

Thus Siegfried did him service; which he erelong forgat.

Then Siegfried fetched his own steed, which in the ship did stay;

Such service had he rendered but seldom till that day,

To stand at a man’s stirrup, until he was astride!

The fair and noble ladies this from their lattice spied.

These two high-mettled heroes— to one ensample clad—

White chargers and white raiment like snow new-fallen had,

Each matching with the other; their solid bucklers bright

Shone, on the left hand hanging of either goodly knight.


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24297

Federal RegisterVol. 86, No. 86Thursday, May 6, 2021 Proclamation 10199 of April 30, 2021

Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Additional Persons Who Pose a Risk of Transmitting Coronavirus Disease 2019

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The national emergency caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID–19) outbreak in the United States continues to pose a grave threat to our health and security. As of April 29, 2021, the United States had experienced more than 32 million confirmed COVID–19 cases and more than 570,000 COVID–19 deaths. It is the policy of my Administration to implement science-based public health measures, across all areas of the Federal Government, to act swiftly and aggressively to prevent further spread of the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), within the Department of Health and Human Services, working in close coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, has determined that the Republic of India is experiencing widespread, ongoing person-to-person transmission of SARS–CoV–2, the virus that causes COVID–19. The World Health Organization has reported that the Republic of India has had more than 18,375,000 confirmed cases of COVID–19. The magnitude and scope of the COVID–19 pandemic in the Republic of India is surging; the Republic of India accounts for over one-third of new global cases, and the number of new cases in the Republic of India is accelerating at a rapid rate. There have been more than 300,000 average new daily cases in the Republic of India over the past week. A variant strain of the virus, known as B.1.617, is also circulating in the Republic of India, along with other variant strains, including B.1.1.7, first detected in the United Kingdom, and B.1.351, first detected in the Republic of South Africa. The CDC advises, based on work by public health and scientific experts, that these variants have characteristics of concern, which may make them more easily transmitted and have the potential for reduced protection afforded by some vaccines.

After reviewing the public health situation within the Republic of India, CDC has concluded that proactive measures are required to protect the Nation’s public health from travelers entering the United States from that jurisdiction.

Given the determination of CDC, working in close coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, described above, I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to take action to restrict and suspend the entry into the United States, as nonimmigrants, of noncitizens of the United States (“noncitizens”) who were physically present within the Republic of India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, hereby find that the unrestricted entry into the United States of persons described in section 1 of this proclamation


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24298 would, except as provided for in section 2 of this proclamation, be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and that their entry should be subject to certain restrictions, limitations, and exceptions. I therefore hereby proclaim the following:

Section 1. Suspension and Limitation on Entry. The entry into the United States, as nonimmigrants, of noncitizens who were physically present within the Republic of India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States is hereby suspended and limited subject to section 2 of this proclamation.

Sec. 2. Scope of Suspension and Limitation on Entry.

(a) Section 1 of this proclamation shall not apply to:
 * (i) any lawful permanent resident of the United States;
 * (ii) any noncitizen national of the United States;
 * (iii) any noncitizen who is the spouse of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident;
 * (iv) any noncitizen who is the parent or legal guardian of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, provided that the U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident is unmarried and under the age of 21;
 * (v) any noncitizen who is the sibling of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, provided that both are unmarried and under the age of 21;
 * (vi) any noncitizen who is the child, foster child, or ward of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, or who is a prospective adoptee seeking to enter the United States pursuant to the IR–4 or IH–4 visa classifications;
 * (vii) any noncitizen traveling at the invitation of the United States Government for a purpose related to containment or mitigation of the virus;
 * (viii) any noncitizen traveling as a nonimmigrant pursuant to a C–1, D, or C–1/D nonimmigrant visa as a crewmember or any noncitizen otherwise traveling to the United States as air or sea crew;
 * (ix) any noncitizen
 * (A) seeking entry into or transiting the United States pursuant to one of the following visas: A–1, A–2, C–2, C–3 (as a foreign government official or immediate family member of an official), E–1 (as an employee of TECRO or TECO or the employee’s immediate family members), G–1, G–2, G–3, G–4, NATO–1 through NATO–4, or NATO–6 (or seeking to enter as a nonimmigrant in one of those NATO categories); or
 * (B) whose travel falls within the scope of section 11 of the United Nations Headquarters Agreement;
 * (x) any noncitizen who is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces or who is a spouse or child of a member of the U.S. Armed Forces;
 * (xi) any noncitizen whose entry would further important United States law enforcement objectives, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their respective designees, based on a recommendation of the Attorney General or his designee; or
 * (xii) any noncitizen whose entry would be in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their designees.

(b) Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to affect any individual’s eligibility for asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the regulations issued pursuant to the legislation implementing the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, consistent with the laws and regulations of the United States.


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Rh Sec. 3. Implementation and Enforcement. (a) The Secretary of State shall implement this proclamation as it applies to visas pursuant to such procedures as the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, may establish. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall implement this proclamation as it applies to the entry of noncitizens pursuant to such procedures as the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, may establish.

(b) The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Transportation, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall endeavor to ensure that any noncitizen subject to this proclamation does not board an aircraft traveling to the United States, to the extent permitted by law.

(c) The Secretary of Homeland Security may establish standards and procedures to ensure the application of this proclamation at and between all United States ports of entry.

(d) Where a noncitizen circumvents the application of this proclamation through fraud, willful misrepresentation of a material fact, or illegal entry, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall consider prioritizing such noncitizen for removal.

Sec. 4. Termination. This proclamation shall remain in effect until terminated by the President. The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall, as circumstances warrant and no more than 30 days after the date of this proclamation and by the final day of each calendar month thereafter, recommend whether the President should continue, modify, or terminate this proclamation.

Sec. 5. Effective Date. This proclamation is effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 4, 2021. This proclamation does not apply to persons aboard a flight scheduled to arrive in the United States that departed prior to 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 4, 2021.

Sec. 6. Severability. It is the policy of the United States to enforce this proclamation to the maximum extent possible to advance the national security, public safety, and foreign policy interests of the United States. Accordingly:

(a) if any provision of this proclamation, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this proclamation and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby; and

(b) if any provision of this proclamation, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid because of the lack of certain procedural requirements, the relevant executive branch officials shall implement those procedural requirements to conform with existing law and with any applicable court orders.

Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
 * (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
 * (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This proclamation shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This proclamation is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.


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24300 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.

[FR Doc. 2021–09711 Filed 5–5–21; 8:45 am] Billing code 3295–F1–P


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 unanswerably, with a fine solid use of the current vernacular, "What Good is all this—Rot about Utopias?"

One inspects the Thing in Being with something of the diffident speculation of primitive man, peering from behind a tree at an angry elephant.

(There is an omen in that image. On how many occasions must that ancestor of ours have had just the Utopist's feeling of ambitious unreality, have decided that on the whole it was wiser to go very quietly home again, and leave the big beast alone? But, in the end, men rode upon the elephant's head, and guided him this way or that The Thing in Being that roars so tremendously about Charing Cross corner seems a bigger antagonist than an elephant, but then we have better weapons than chipped flint blades)

After all, in a very little time everything that impresses me so mightily this September afternoon will have changed or passed away for ever, everything. These omnibuses, these great stalwart, crowded, many-coloured things that jostle one another and make so handsome a clatter-clamour, will all have gone; they and their horses and drivers and organisation; you will come here and you will not find them. Something else will be here, some different sort of vehicle, that is now perhaps the mere germ of an idea in some engineer student's brain. And this road and pavement will have changed, and these impressive great buildings; other buildings will be here, buildings that are as yet more impalpable than this page you read, more formless and flimsy by far than anything that is reasoned here. Little plans sketched


text: A Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Additional Persons Who Pose a Risk of Transmitting Coronavirus Disease 2019


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 on paper, strokes of a pen or of a brush, will be the first materialisations of what will at last obliterate every detail and atom of these re-echoing actualities that overwhelm us now. And the clothing and gestures of these innumerable people, the character of their faces and bearing, these too will be recast in the spirit of what are now obscure and impalpable beginnings.

The new things will be indeed of the substance of the thing that is, but differing just in the measure of the will and imagination that go to make them. They will be strong and fair as the will is sturdy and organised and the imagination comprehensive and bold; they will be ugly and smeared with wretchedness as the will is fluctuating and the imagination timid and mean.

Indeed Will is stronger than Fact, it can mould and overcome Fact. But this world has still to discover its will, it is a world that slumbers inertly, and all this roar and pulsation of life is no more than its heavy breathing My mind runs on to the thought of an awakening.

As my omnibus goes lumbering up Cockspur Street through the clatter-rattle of the cabs and carriages, there comes another fancy in my mind Could one but realise an apocalyptic image and suppose an angel, such as was given to each of the seven churches of Asia, given for a space to the service of the Greater Rule! I see him as a towering figure of flame and colour standing between earth and sky, with a trumpet in his hands, over there above the Haymarket against the October glow; and when he sounds, all


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 the samurai, all who are samurai in Utopia, will know themselves and one another

(Whup! says a motor brougham, and a policeman stays the traffic with his hand.)

All of us who partake of the samurai would know ourselves and one another!

For a moment I have a vision of this resurrection of the living, of a vague, magnificent answer, of countless myriads at attention, of all that is fine in humanity at attention, round the compass of the earth.

Then that philosophy of individual uniqueness resumes its sway over my thoughts, and my dream of a world's awakening fades.

I had forgotten

Things do not happen like that. God is not simple, God is not theatrical, the summons comes to each man in its due time for him, with an infinite subtlety of variety

If that is so, what of my Utopia?

This infinite world must needs be flattened to get it on one retina. The picture of a solid thing, although it is flattened and simplified, is not necessarily a lie. Surely, surely in the end, by degrees and steps, something of this sort, some such understanding as this Utopia must come. First here, then there, single men and then groups of men will fall into line—not indeed with my poor faulty hesitating suggestions, but with a great and comprehensive plan wrought out by many minds and in many tongues. It is just because my plan is faulty, because it mis-states so much and omits so much, that they do not now fall in. It will not be like my dream, the world that is coming. My


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 stamped so as to indicate that it is now Czechoslovak. Further, the country has been drained and robbed of everything that the Austrians and Germans could carry away. There is very little here now to be exported, although in normal times the territory now belonging to the Czechoslovak Republic produced 90% of all Austrian manufactures, and 80% of the total exports. It will take about eight years for the country to get back to the normal basis. The people are working very hard. Everywhere every inch of ground is cultivated. Many industrial plants are working now. The balance will start upon receipt of raw materials. Articles mostly needed to get these industries into full operation are cotton, wool, fats, oils, jute, hemp, chemicals, copper, etc. Food of which the country was cleaned out bare is being supplied mostly by the American Food Administration and American Relief Roard. Food will have to be supplied to Czechoslovakia even in the next crop year, as this year’s harvest will amount to only about eight months’ supplies. American food will always find a good market here, as the people are cultivating a taste for American dishes.

Our banking institutions and manufacturers should study carefully Czechoslovakia, and extend to them every facility to become one of America’s best customers. The other nations have their agents here working to establish connections. They are preparing to extend credit to their business houses here.

Before the war Germany bought raw materials in all parts of the world. She sold them to manufacturers here, took their finished products to Germany, and sold them stamped “Made in Germany”. These goods will now go out stamped “Made in Bohemia”, or “Made in Czechoslovakia”. Czechoslovakia wants to be free economically from its former rulers.

You hear that exporters and importers were not successful recently in making connections with Czechoslovakia. This should not discourage anyone. There are many unavoidable obstructions with a country like Czechoslovakia, before the proper adjustments are made. I have talked to a good many representatives here from foreign countries. Many of them are complaining that they cannot get any results. This, of course, is unfortunate, but cannot be helped under the present conditions. In time this country will prove a very profitable field.

The writer will remain in Prague until conditions are somewhat adjusted. American manufacturers or exporters who are interested may address communications to John A. Sokol, Prague, Czecho-Slovak Republic, c/o American Consulate.

Prague, June 21, 1919.

According to the Austrian census of 1910 there are supposed to be three and a half million Germans in the three Bohemian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Every well-informed man knows this figure to be a gross exaggeration, and now the truth is beginning to come out, While general census cannot be taken in the Czechoslovak Republic, until the boundaries of the state are known, enumeration of the population took place in a number of cities and towns claimed heretofore by the Germans. The resultlsresults [sic] are very interesting: in general the former German majority of two-thirds is now transformed into a minority of one-third. We give a few of the more important localities in which the present number of the population and their nationality has been ascertained; figures of the 1910 Austrian census are given for comparison.


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Harvesting is going on in the Czechoslovak Republic, and the fear of famine is definitively removed. Six months ago it looked, as if scenes from India and China—millions of human beings starving to death—would be repeated in fertile Bohemia, where a famine has not been known since the 18th century. But America with its wealth and with its remarkable organizing ability stepped in and fed millions at a distance of six thousand miles from its wheat fields and nearly a thousand miles from the sea. The Czechoslovak nation gratefully acknowledges the great debt it owes to the United States in extending it credit and overcoming all the physical, political and military difficulties connected with the delivery of food from the heart of America to the heart of Europe.

But if the nation as a whole has been saved, death still stalks boldly in the new republic and gathers in by the thousands those who have not yet learned to know what life is, namely the little children. The greatest tragedy of these after-the-war days is the awful slaughter of children which has not been stopped by the armistice. It is a slaughter not by arms or violence, but by disease brought on by insufficient feeding, lack of milk and medicines, exhaustion of mothers and general want.

Think of the tragedy, both individual and national, contained in the following comparison: In 1910 there were 3,440,000 children under the age of 14 in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia; in 1918 there were only 2,848,000. Over 550,000 young lives flickered out before the eyes of their mothers who knew that they could have been saved, if only one had milk and medicines. During the last year of the war death rate of babies under the age of one increased in Prague from 14% to 19%, in some of the suburbs reaching as high as 23%. Compare that with the normal mortality of Zurich babies which is only 7%.

There are skilled physicians and good hospitals in Bohemia, but without drugs and without nourishing food they can accomplish little. Thus in the Children’s Hospital of Prague the death rate in 1913 was only 3%, but in 1917 it was 55%; in the Foundling Home the death rate increased from 6% in 1914 to 21% in 1918. All the skill of the doctors was useless without milk, and milk was not to be had during the war. Very little improvement in this respect has been effected since the armistice. Thus the General Hospital of Prague, which formerly used to get 500 liters of milk a day for its patients, now gets from 50 to 60 liters; in the Maternity Hospital milk can be given only to very sick children; the ration is two liters per day to five children.

The lack of milk is the most serious factor in raising the mortality of the babies, but there is a lack of almost everything else. New-born babies have to be wrapped in paper, as there is no clothing or linen. Medicines are woefully lacking, especially cod liver oil, and so famished for fats are the little bodies that children actually like this remedy. Hospitals are overcrowded. Consumption which formerly took small toll of the children now kills them by thousands. It is said that 82% of babies in Prague are rachitic, anemic or tubercular. Hospitals have no bed linen, no underwear, no soap even. There are not enough beds, and sick children are placed in the still warm beds of those that just died; many are refused admission every day for lack of room. Beds in the wards are placed side by side, in the corridors, in the bathrooms.

Conditions are so terrible and the chances of a baby to live and grow into a sound and healthy man or woman are so small, that one is almost glad of the low birth rate. The decrease is startling. In the city of Prague there were 5510 births in 1914, and only 2675 in 1918. In the large industrial suburb of Žižkov there were 1884 births in 1910, 594 in 1917 and only 350 in 1918, less than a fifth of the normal.

Milk, food, medicines, baby clothing, fresh air will save tens of thousands of young lives. The American Children’s Relief has already accomplished much; it has branch offices all over the Czechoslovak Republic; it has a grant from the Czechoslovak government funds and gets the full co-operation of the Czechoslovak Red Cross. But money and supplies are needed, and Dr. Alice Masaryk looks to the Czechoslovak people in America and to all the friends of the new nation to help the starving and sick children. She asks for milk, plain condensed milk and malted milk, chocolate, cod liver oil, soap in carloads,


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 dream is just my own poor dream, the thing sufficient for me. We fail in comprehension, we fail so variously and abundantly. We see as much as it is serviceable for us to see, and we see no farther. But the fresh undaunted generations come to take on our work beyond our utmost effort, beyond the range of our ideas. They will learn with certainty things that to us are guesses and riddles

There will be many Utopias. Each generation will have its new version of Utopia, a little more certain and complete and real, with its problems lying closer and closer to the problems of the Thing in Being. Until at last from dreams Utopias will have come to be working drawings, and the whole world will be shaping the final World State, the fair and great and fruitful World State, that will only not be a Utopia because it will be this world. So surely it must be

The policeman drops his hand. "Come up," says the 'bus driver, and the horses strain; "Clitter, clatter, cluck, clak," the line of hurrying hansoms overtakes the omnibus going west. A dexterous lad on a bicycle with a bale of newspapers on his back dodges nimbly across the head of the column and vanishes up a side street.

The omnibus sways forward. Rapt and prophetic, his plump hands clasped round the handle of his umbrella, his billycock hat a trifle askew, this irascible little man of the Voice, this impatient dreamer, this scolding Optimist, who has argued so rudely and dogmatically about economics and philosophy and decoration, and indeed about everything under the sun, who has been so hard on the botanist and fashionable women, and so re-


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VII.

Bejewell’d were their saddles, their saddle-bows were small;

So rode they in their glory, before Brunhilda’s hall.

The bells upon their harness were wrought of bright red gold,

They came unto that country as bound on venture bold.

With spear-heads newly sharpened, with swords well-wrought and keen,

Which hung down to the rowels of these two goodly men;

Such weapons bore the bold ones, with broad and sharp-edged blade.

’Twas all marked by Brunhilda, the great and noble maid.

With them came also Dankwart, and Hagen of Tronjé.

These warriors were apparell’d, as ancient legends say,

Alike, in costly raiment and raven-black of hue;

Fair were their shields and mighty, and strong and broad thereto.

The jewels that adorned them from India’s land were brought,

And glittered on their garments, as these the sunshine caught.

Their little vessel left they unguarded, on the flood;

So rode they to the castle, these heroes brave and good.

Full six-and-eighty turrets they saw within the wall,

Three palaces far-stretching, and one fair, well-built hall,

Compact of precious marble, as meadow-grass all green;

And here, amid her court-folk, awaited them the queen.

The castle gate unlock’d was, the doors were open thrown,

Brunhilda’s liegemen hasted to meet these guests unknown,

To welcome these newcomers unto their lady’s land;

They bade men take their horses and bucklers from their hand.


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 luctant in the matter of beer, is carried onward, dreaming dreams, dreams that with all the inevitable ironies of difference may be realities when you and I are dreams.

He passes, and for a little space we are left with his egoisms and idiosyncrasies more or less in suspense.

But why was he intruded? you ask. Why could not a modern Utopia be discussed without this impersonation—impersonally? It has confused the book, you say, made the argument hard to follow, and thrown a quality of insincerity over the whole. Are we but mocking at Utopias, you demand, using all these noble and generalised hopes as the backcloth against which two bickering personalities jar and squabble? Do I mean we are never to view the promised land again except through a foreground of fellow travellers? There is a common notion that the reading of a Utopia should end with a swelling heart and clear resolves, with lists of names, formation of committees, and even the commencement of subscriptions. But this Utopia began upon a philosophy of fragmentation, and ends, confusedly, amidst a gross tumult of immediate realities, in dust and doubt, with at the best one individual's aspiration. Utopias were once in good faith projects for a fresh creation of the world and of a most unworldly completeness; this so-called Modern Utopia is a mere story of personal adventures among Utopian philosophies.

Indeed, that came about without the writer's intention. So it was the summoned vision came. For I see about me a great multitude of little souls and groups of souls as darkened, as derivative as my own; with the passage of years I understand more and more clearly the quality of the motives that urge me and urge them to do what-


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 babies’ garments, underwear and clothing for boys and girls, hospital linen, bed linen, bandages, X ray apparatus, tents for tubercular children, films to be shown to children, and money.

The New York office of the Alice Masaryk Fund is located at 1342 Second Ave. Mrs. Libuše Motak, head of the Relief Department of the American Czechoslovak Board, is in charge of the campaign and acts as the representative of the Czechoslovak Red Cross in America. The Bank of Europe of New York and the Bosak State Bank of Scranton, Pa., consented to act as treasurers of the Fund. Help to save the children of men who fought bravely for the Allies in France, Italy and Siberia.

1em

''Under this title Mr. Čapek, president of the Bank of Europe of New York, has written a book which is now in print. It is a study of national, cultural, political, social, economic and religious life of Čechs in America. Mr. Čapek has kindly consented that the Czechoslovak Review print in advance of the publication of his book a few excerpts from it.''

From the Introductory:

The subject of Germanic immigration has been treated in all its aspects, in German and in English alike. Literature relating to the settling of the Scandinavians, notably Swedes, is considerable. The achievements of the Irish, the English and the Dutch have been recorded in detail by numerous writers. That the story of Spanish colonization is adequately described goes without saying, for the Spaniards like the Dutch, the English and in a lesser degree the French, were history makers on a large scale. The large influx of Jews to the United States within the last three decades has stimulated scholars of the Hebrew race to study more intensively than ever before their past here.

What has been written on the theme of Čech immigration? In English very little. Emily Greene Balch’s volume, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens discusses not Čechs alone but all the Slavs; besides, Miss Balch devotes the greater portion of her book to the consideration of her favorite subject, economy. My volume aims to throw light not only on the economic condition of the Čech immigrant, but on his national, historic, religious, cultural and social state as well.

Considerable has of course been written, here and abroad, on the various phases of what the Čechs loosely call their “national life” in America, although a full, connected story of the transatlantic branch of the race is still unwritten even in Bohemian.

I do not describe Čech America as a tourist who passes hurriedly through a foreign country and records the impressions of the moment; I write as a close relative, a member of the family, who, for thirty-nine years has lived uninterruptedly in Čech America or very close to its border. I know it in its holiday attire and in its working clothes. I know its faults which are many and its virtues which, I like to think, outweigh them. A residence of seven years in Omaha, spent partly in a newspaper office, partly in law office, gave me a rare opportunity to observe at close range the evolution of the hardy setllersettler [sic] of the Middlewest, while life in large cities (in New York since 1894.) has brought me in direct and daily contact with the men and women who live in those queer but cozy corners of America called somewhat patronizingly “foreign” quarters”.

From the chapter, All born in America belong to America.

The process of Americanization of children begins in the primary grades of the public schools and is made complete in practical life. Often one hears foreign born parents complaining of the rapid denationalization of their offspring. It is by no means uncommon for foreign born parents, in order to give children a working foundation in their vernacular, to make it a practice to converse with them at home in that tongue, to the exclusion of English. School teachers are often incredulous that this or that child has been born in America, so elementary is the knowledge of English it brings to the schoolroom. The author has in mind the case of a boy, who, though


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 ever we do Yet that is not all I see, and I am not altogether bounded by my littleness. Ever and again, contrasting with this immediate vision, come glimpses of a comprehensive scheme in which these personalities float, the scheme of a synthetic wider being, the great State, mankind, in which we all move and go like blood corpuscles, like nerve cells, it may be at times like brain cells, in the body of a man. But the two visions are not seen consistently together, at least by me; and I do not surely know that they exist consistently together. The motives needed for those wider issues come not into the interplay of my vanities and wishes. That greater scheme lies about the men and women I know, as I have tried to make the vistas and spaces, the mountains, cities, laws, and order of Utopia lie about my talking couple, too great for their sustained comprehension. When one focuses upon these two, that wide landscape becomes indistinct and distant; and when one regards that, then the real persons one knows grow vague and unreal. Nevertheless, I cannot separate these two aspects of human life, each commenting on the other. In that incongruity between the whole and the individual inheres the incompatibility I could not resolve, and which, therefore, I have had to present in this conflicting form. At times that scheme does seem to me to enter certain men's lives as a passion, as a real and living motive; there are those who know it almost as if it was a thing of desire; even for me, upon occasion, the little lures of the immediate life are seen small and vain, and the soul goes out to that mighty Being, to apprehend it and serve it and possess. But this is an illumination that passes as it comes, a rare transitory lucidity, leaving the soul's desire sud-


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 denly turned to presumption and hypocrisy upon the lips. One grasps at the Universe and attains—Bathos. The hungers, the jealousies, the prejudices and habits have us again, and we are forced back to think that it is so and not otherwise that we are meant to serve the mysteries; that in these blinkers it is we are driven to an end we cannot understand. And then, for measured moments in the night-watches or as one walks alone or while one sits in thought and speech with a friend, the wider aspirations glow again with a sincere emotion, with the colours of attainable desire

That is my all about Utopia, and about the desire and need for Utopia, and how that planet lies to this planet that bears the daily lives of men.


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70

A chamberlain said to them: “Yield now your swords to us,

And eke your shining hauberks.” “Nay, it shall not be thus!”

Cried Hagen, lord of Tronjé, “These we ourselves wilt bear!”

Then Siegfried had to teach him what were the customs there.

“The fashion in this castle, as you must understand,

Is that no guest shall carry a weapon in his hand.

So let them hence be taken: in sooth, ’tis fairly meant.”

Then Hagen, Gunther’s liegeman, did grudgingly consent.

Wine for the guests was order’d, and lodgings good prepared.

And to and from the palace  swift-footed warriors fared,—

Ail clad in princely raiment they ever came and went;

And on the stranger-heroes were wond’ring glances bent.

Then unto Queen Brunhilda some one the news declared

That certain unknown warriors had suddenly appear’d,

In glorious apparel, by ship across the flood.

Whereon began to question the maiden fair and good.

“I would that someone told me,” so spake the maiden queen,

Who are these stranger-warriors, that ne’er afore were seen,

And now stand in my castle, with such a noble grace?

And for whose sake these heroes have voyaged to this place?”

Then spake one of her people: “Lady, I must avow

Not one of these same warriors I e’er beheld till now;

But there is one among them much like unto Siegfried;

You must give him good welcome, that is in sooth my rede.


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Author:George Glover

Illustrations

 * engraving of Johan Amos Comenius, frontispiece of The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896)

title: Author:George Glover


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 of the dour Wessex atmosphere, on the second day of June, in the year 1840.

Upper Bockhampton, although within walking distance of the County Capital, stood lonely, in an utter isolation that is perhaps difficult to realize adequately today. It was a small cluster of tiny cottages, set off only by the inevitable tavern. It boasted neither church, school, nor post office. No main road ran through it; there was only what remained of an ancient Roman highway—and this seldom saw much travel. Dorchester itself, not yet tapped by railway lines, was self-contained enough, although it attracted country life a-plenty at fair and festival times. But Upper Bockhampton was virgin, untouched by the steel of industrial culture, primitive, natural—in the literal sense of the word.

The low houses, most of them thrice-ancient in years and structure, seemed a harmonious part of the landscape. Likewise the people: slow-moving, clothed in weather-worn garments whose cut, like the cut of their pronouns, had scarcely changed in generations, they melted imperceptibly into the stern and darkling countryside. The roaring life of the towns was far away, apprehended here only in vague seismographic quiverings.

The Hardy house, much roomier than the surrounding structures, was still of a piece with the lonely terrain. Emerging from it, one immediately found himself in the presence of the inscrutable, timeless personality of the Heath—a part of it, in fact, and a sharer in its moods. This inevitably remained the dominating factor in Hardy's childhood. Nothing could shield him from it completely, or for long.


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 Against this effect of nature, stark naked in all its repulsiveness and beauty, worked the "cultural" influence of the mother, and not entirely in vain. The prospect of a sheltered, gentle childhood greeted the baby Hardy, sunned daily in a pretty flower-garden. Pleasant, amusing folktales, artificially shorn of all traces of brutality or grotesquerie, were related to him as soon as he could understand a tale. From the servants in the house, at the same time, the growing infant probably heard or overheard the same tales in their older and coarser form, and told in the inimitable dialect which suited them so well—delicious dialect also, its employment being proscribed.

Of religion, the child likewise learned from his mother the sweet New Testament parables and the more moral of the Mosaic episodes. The latter attracted him more, being more in harmony with the sad, stern music of the Heath, which he soon learned to love more than the regimented beauty of nature under botanical cultivation. Occasionally the household journeyed in a body to Dorchester of a Sunday, to sniff the cosmopolitan air of the town and to attend divine service at St. Peter's. Here the boy encountered companions, of his own age and also somewhat older, who instilled in him the seeds of that queer pragmatic view of Scriptural authority which was peculiar to the Wessex mind. And, inasmuch as few of the Bockhampton Hardys were exactly notorious for their religious orthodoxy, these seeds were permitted to grow their heretical fruit without opposition. Still, the Christian religion, as established by the Church of England, was there; it was to be accepted, with whatever


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 mental reservations one's experiences and moods might dictate.

The building-business of the father was prospering during these days. His stables were full of horses; his assignments for construction work and repair work kept him and his considerable corps of workmen busy. The elder Hardy was a man of some consequence in his own little community, assuredly. In the rambling, comfortable Hardy house, the village "quire" assembled every week to rehearse their dance tunes, rounds and carols; in this house also, the neighborly folk gathered to celebrate the recurring rural festivals; here, before the blazing hearth, they presented their traditional lyric-dramatic-choreographic bits, like the delightful O Jan! O Jan! O Jan!, the memory of which was to endure for at least fourscore years. The four-year-old child must have clapped his hands and stamped his feet with serious ecstasy at the infectious thumping strains of Nancy's Fancy. From the workmen and farm laborers and servants Hardy thus obtained impressions that no civilizing influence could ever efface—impressions that became strengthened and intensified by his daily walks along the Roman Road and by his wanderings through the unenclosed wilds.

For his mind was preternaturally active and retentive throughout his childhood years. It was like a dry sponge, which absorbed the warm, dripping color of the rustic life to which it was exposed. Nothing natural or spontaneous could escape its thirst, and nothing could fill it to the point of saturation.

With this eager, absorbent mental activity and reten-


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