The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper

      FOREWORD

       Table of Content

      THE first time I heard Jim Maitland's name mentioned was in the bar of a P.&O. We were two days out of Colombo, going East, and when I confessed my complete ignorance of the man a sort of stupefied silence settled on the company.

      "You don't know Jim?" murmured an Assam tea-planter. "I thought everyone knew Jim."

      "Anyway, if you stay in these parts long you soon will," put in someone else. "And once known—never forgotten."

      They fell into reminiscences of old times, and I was well content to listen. Ever and anon Maitland's name was mentioned, and gradually my curiosity was aroused. And when one by one they went off to turn in, leaving me alone with the tea-planter, I asked him point-blank for further details.

      He smiled thoughtfully, and took a sip of his whisky-and-soda.

      "Ever been in a brawl, Leyton, with ten men up against you, and only the couch keeping a fellow with a knife in the background from sticking it into your ribs? Well, that's Jim's heaven, though he'd prefer it to be twenty. Ever seen a man shoot the pip out of the ace of diamonds at ten paces? Jim cuts it out by shooting round it at twenty. He's long and thin, and he wears an eyeglass, and rumour has it that once some man laughed at that eyeglass." The tea-planter grinned. "Take my advice and don't—if you meet him. It's not safe. He's got his own peculiar code of morals, and they wouldn't wash with an Anglican bishop. He never forgives and he never forgets—but he'd sell the shirt off his back to help a pal. Who he is and what he is I can't tell you; whether it's his right name even I don't know. And I've never asked; Jim doesn't encourage curiosity."

      "Yes—but what's he do?" I asked as he finished.

      "Do?" echoed the tea-planter. "Why, man, he lives. He lives: he doesn't vegetate like nine out of ten of us have to."

      With a short laugh he rose and finished his drink.

      "Well—I'm turning in. That's what he does, Leyton—he lives."

      The door closed behind him and for a while I sat on thinking. "He lives: he doesn't vegetate." The words were running in my head, the man to whom they had been applied was only a name to me. Nine out of ten! Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have been nearer the mark.

      And since