Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/87

Rh was sentenced for the term of his natural life for attempted murder. Perhaps you remember the case. It was on the Brighton line. They spotted him at last—he was a little too fond of winning, the Colonel was. He drew a revolver and put a bullet into the man who spotted him. For that he was sent to Portland. He tried to escape, and when they nabbed him he committed suicide in his cell."

"Then there is quite a curious interest connected with this pack of cards?"

"You may say so. There are some very queer tales told about them—very queer. They say they're haunted. I don't know much about that sort of thing myself, but some of our chaps do say that wherever those cards are the Colonel isn't very far away." I smiled. The constable seemed a little huffed. "I only know that I shouldn't care to carry them about with me myself"

As we were going out a gentleman entered. The constable seemed to know him, for he allowed him to pass without challenge. I went to Simpson's to lunch. I was thinking, as I ate, about what I had seen, memorials of hideous murders, a unique collection of burglars' tools, coiners' moulds, forgers' presses, ingenious implements for every sort of swindling—a perfect arsenal of crime! I am free to confess that that pack of cards was present to my mind. What a relic for a man to possess—a haunted pack of swindler's cards! I ought to have looked at them more closely: perhaps some of the victim's blood was on the back of one of them. De gustibus non disputandum. Some men would give a good round sum for such a curio!