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Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source:
        http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-90469872
        (National Library of Australia)






THE RED-HEADED MAN






BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

CLAUDE DUVAL OF '95
_A ROMANCE OF THE ROAD_

Some Press Opinions

Athenæm.--"The book is cleverly written and will interest the reader
who can forget its impossibilities."

Academy.--"The book is a story of modern highway robbery by a lady
instead of a gentleman of the road."

Scotsman.--"A capital story of mystery, and unravelled with an
entertaining thought."

Pall Mall Gazette.--"Mr. Fergus Hume has shown his wonted skill in
steering his reader plausibly through the pitfalls of a tangled plot
in his 'Claude Duval of Ninety-Five.' The conception of a mounted and
masked highwayman in our own day is daring and original and is worked
out with great ingenuity."

Daily Graphic.--"Mr. Fergus Hume starts with a good idea in his tale
of a modern highwayman and he has crowded a variety of incidents into
the pages of his book. The story opens dramatically and with some
novelty."

Whitehall Review.--"A rattling romance of the road, well written, well
conceived and capitally told. The present book is one of absorbing
interest and it is impossible to put it aside until the last line is
reached."

Black and White.--"There is abundant action and a well-sustained
mystery in Mr. Fergus Hume's 'Claude Duval of '95."

Morning Post.--"Less characteristic than the majority of Mr. Hume's
stories this 'Romance of the Road' is one of the most entertaining
among them."

Gentlewoman.--"Mr. Hume's latest contribution to fiction 'Claude Duval
of Ninety-Five' is a good honest tale of adventure which you cannot
easily put by when you take it up."

Westminster Gazette.--"'Claude Duval of '95' is an excellent story."

Manchester Guardian.--"A female highwayman is a somewhat daring
variety in fiction of which crime and audacity is the chief merit of
Mr. Fergus Hume's latest work. Mr. Hume is a clever writer in a very
fertile vein."

Literary World.--"In 'Claude Duval of Ninety-Five' we have a
recendesence of highway robbery very skilfully contrived."

Weekly Sun.--"The plot is very cleverly worked out. The book is to be
heartily commended as one of its author's masterpieces."

Literature.--"The story is novel, and is worked out into a present day
environment with real dexterity."

Yorkshire Post.--"An entertaining romance which should agree with the
prevailing mood of the libraries."

Observer.--"Mr. Hume's story will rank among the best of its type."

DIGBY, LONG & CO., PUBLISHERS, LONDON.






THE RED-HEADED MAN


BY
FERGUS HUME

AUTHOR OF
"_The Mystery of a Hansom Cab_," "_Claude Duval of '95_,"
"_A Masquerade Mystery_," "_The Rainbow Feather_," _etc._




London
DIGBY, LONG & CO.
18 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
1899






CONTENTS

CHAP.
I.      AN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME
II.     THE BLONDE LADY
III.    MR. TORRY'S THEORY
IV.     THE DEAD MAN'S NAME
V.      "DE MORTIUS NIL NISI BONUM"
VI.     THE SECRETARY
VII.    EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST
VIII.   THE ROBBERY
IX.     CAPTAIN MANUEL
X.      DONNA MARIA
XI.     UNEXPECTED EVIDENCE
XII.    A CHANCE MEETING
XIII.   A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
XIV.    THE SECRET SOCIETY
XV.     A WOMAN SCORNED
XVI.    THE TURQUOISE RING
XVII.   MORE MYSTERIES
XVIII.  A STRANGE OCCURRENCE
XIX.    ANOTHER PUZZLE
XX.     THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
XXI.    DONNA MARIA EXPLAINS
XXII.   THE LOCKET
XXIII.  A CONFESSION
XXIV.   A QUEER MESSAGE
XXV.    THE MEETING IN HYDE PARK
XXVI.   CONCLUSION






THE RED-HEADED MAN




CHAPTER I
AN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME


Frank Darrel was a young man of twenty-five, with a sufficiency of
good looks, and a comfortable income of five hundred a year. Also by
way of employing his spare time, he was a realistic novelist of a
particularly new school, founded on the axiom that fact invariably
poaches on the domain of fiction. He neither conceived nor adopted,
but set down actual details of the life around him, with so rigid an
adherence to the truth that his published works read like police
reports re-written in decent English. In a word, he held the mirror up
to nature, and presented the reflection, beautiful or ugly, to the
criticism of the British public.

To preach thoroughly his gospel of art, as he conceived it, Darrel
lived in London, that microcosm of life in all its phases, good, bad,
and indifferent. Usually he worked in the morning, slept in the
afternoon, amused himself in the evening, and devoted the night from
twelve to five to exploring the deeps of the metropolitan ocean. In a
disguise of decent poverty more threadbare than ragged, this
enthusiast would exploit the dark corners of the Strand, penetrate
into Whitechapel slums, and explore the least-known recesses of the
City. On occasion he would view the West End and its civilised vices
by gaslight, make expeditions into suburbs of known respectability,
and, when weary of observing middle class virtue, would haunt less
reputable districts in search of character and adventure. All his
gleanings were then transmuted into vigorous prose, and figured, under
picturesque titles, as novels of fact improved into fiction. This
method of shifting the commonplace into romance was adopted by one
Honoré de Balzac, with a result known to all the intellectual world.
Darrel, with less genius than persevering observation, was a disciple
of that great man.

One evening late in the summer of last year, Darrel, disguised as a
respectable mechanic, found himself observing humanity within the
narrow limits of Drury-lane. The hour of midnight had just boomed in
twelve strokes from the towers of near churches, and the ragged,
hoarse-voiced crowd was beginning to thin into scattered groups.
Vendors of various wares had extinguished their flaring lights, and
had wheeled home their barrows. Playgoers, chattering about their
evening's pleasure, were disappearing into side streets; shops were
being closed; hotel-keepers were driving forth late customers more or
less intoxicated; and the whole machinery of the quarter's
civilisation was running down rapidly, to stop altogether somewhere
about the small hours of the morning. Frank, with a short pipe in his
mouth, and a keen eye in his head, stood observingly at a corner, and
took note of this slackening. It was at this moment that his attention
was attracted to a red-headed man.

This individual was tall and stout. He was dressed in a seedy suit of
greasy broadcloth; and his hair and beard were a violent red. He
seemed restless and ill at ease, passed and re-passed young Darrel,
looked into the window of a still open shop, glanced at a near
policeman with obvious nervousness, and conducted himself so
uncomfortably that the novelist began to watch him.

"That fellow wants to do something," he thought, "and can't make up
his mind to take the first step. I'll bet a criminal matter occupies
his thoughts. I'll keep my eye on him."

Shortly the red-headed man walked past Frank with a resolute air, and
dis