THE CASE OF THE MASTER'S PLOT
by Anthony Durrant



When I went into the swanky hotel, I went straight up to the receptionist.

"Excuse me," I asked, "but do you have a Mr. James Stanton registered here?"

"He came in last night and registered a room," the woman told me, "but he
looked as if he were drunk - quelle horreur! He is in room 221 and has not
left in several days, although he continually babbles in English - English, of
all tongues! - and does not move from his bed."

"Good god!" I cried. "Have you sent for a doctor?"

"He didn't seem to want a doctor, Monsieur."

"Put me in the room next door," I told her, "and I'll pay for my own room out
of my own pocket. My name is John Dough, and I'll sign that name into your
registry book."

I wrote the name John Dough in the hotel registry book.

"You will be in room 223, then, Monsieur Dough," she told me, "so enjoy your
stay."

"Thank you!" I told her. "Have a nice day!"

She handed me a room key, and I climbed the stairs to the second floor and
went down the hall to Room 223. Once at the door, I unlocked and opened it and
entered the room. Closing the door behind me, I opened the connecting door on
the right wall and went into Room 221. As soon as I entered the room, I saw
Stanton lying on the bed in his suit; he had collapsed onto the bed shortly
after entering the room and was face up looking at me. Sitting in a chair
beside the bed, I held his hand tightly as he continued to babble. It was
ironic that Stanton spoke only English because he was actually a Francophone
whose natural parents had died not long after he was born, and who was adopted
by a British couple, the Stantons, living in London. His head was flopping
back and forth on his big, fluffy white pillow and there was sweat on his
brow.

"Ha, ha, aren't I the lucky boy, my lady! You may not know who I am, but I
know who you are, and you'll soon be in jail before too long. Do you recognize
this, Sanderson? This item is my hold over you and you'll pay me a tidy sum to
keep quiet about it. It's a pleasure to work with you, Lady X - yes, you're a
very clever and a very skilful criminal."

"It's me!" I told him. "It's Sanderson!"

"Keep this little item safe for me, Lady X, for I dare not carry it on my
person as it is my hold over that young fool Sanderson and I intend to use it
to the fullest to squeeze out every bob the poor young fellow has. I'll bet
you never thought you'd see this little item again, boyo!"

"Stanton . . ." I said.

Stanton had started out as a cashier at a bank that had collapsed after a
scandal; on losing his job, Stanton had become a master criminal known as the
Master. He was a very bright fellow who could assume the role of any person,
forge any Old Master, and imitate any male person (his baritone voice being
something of a handicap in that area). All the while, he kept an item with him
that he was using to blackmail me into not contacting the police about his
activities. While I sat beside him, he gave a great sigh and his head flopped
to one side. Searching the dead man, I found his wallet and opened it. There
were all his money, his various ID, and a card bearing his name and business
address as well as his phone number. One thing that was missing was the item
Stanton was using to blackmail me with. Beside the bed sat Stanton's suitcase
and black disguise kit; when I opened the suitcase I found some clothes, a
tube of glue, and a tattered novel - The Palm Street Murder Case.

"Damn!" I thought. "There's no sign of the note in the suitcase, either."

Then I had a brilliant idea.

"I know!" I thought. "I'll become Stanton and track down this Lady X!"

Searching the body, I found a bulging changepurse which I put in my own pocket
and a set of keys in a battered leather case. Grabbing Stanton's shirt, I
pulled on the cloth so hard the buttons popped off and examined what was
underneath. To my amazement, I found a locket around his neck, held there by a
steel clasp on the gold chain. Opening the clasp, I pulled off the locket and
hung it around my own neck. When I opened the locket I found a picture of
Stanton's mother in one half and his father in the other half. Mr. and Mrs.
Stanton were very young at the time these had been taken, presumably shortly
after their wedding; this locket had been precious to James. Closing the
locket again, I tucked it under my shirt and put my wallet in his pocket after
taking out a small picture of myself which I carried inside the wallet.
Opening Stanton's passport, I carefully removed his own picture - leaving a
damaged spot on the paper - and used the glue to mount the small picture of
myself on the spot where his picture had once been.

"There!" I said. "Now I can use this passport to cross the border as James
Stanton."

Slipping Stanton's wallet into my pocket, I went back through the connecting
door into my own room, changed into my pyjamas, and climbed into the bed where
I fell asleep. I checked out of my hotel the next morning and paid the bill
with cash, taking with me Stanton's suitcase and disguise kit. After boarding
the ferry that would take me across the Thames, I slipped into a closet at the
back of the ship where I opened the kit and disguised myself as an old
gentleman in a tuxedo who walked with a walking stick. Leaving the kit safely
tucked away in the closet, I stepped outside and walked into the passenger
compartment, where I sat down beside an elderly lady passenger who smiled
gently at me, as if she was expecting something. Suddenly I realized I was
looking at Lady X herself! She was wearing a very clever disguise.

"Good afternoon, my lady!" I said. "You may call me - the Master."

"What is your real name?" she asked.

"James Stanton," I told her, "my real name is James Stanton."

"No, no!" she said. "I want the name given to you by your original parents."

"Hercule Dimanche!" I said with delight.

"That's right," she told me, "and it seems you are indeed the Master. I have
some work for you. At 88 Reigate Square lives a girl who saw something she
should not have seen. I want her brought to this address tonight at midnight
before she tells the police what she's seen."

Lady X wrote a name and a few facts about the girl on a card and handed it to
me.

"Thank you," I said, "for the information. I'll bring you this girl as soon as
we land."

"At midnight, please."

"As you wish, my lady!" I said, kissing her hand.

As soon as the ferry landed at the Sussex harbour, I left the ship with the
other passengers and went immediately to the town library, where I looked up
the name Lady X had given me on the boat in Who's Who. After searching through
several dusty volumes, I found the right one and copied her entry into a
notebook I'd found in James's suitcase. Here it is:

"POST, EMILY GRACE DARLING.

"Only child of Diana and Edward Post of London, England.

Grandfather: Sir James Sotheby, leader of 1920 North Pole

Expedition - missing and presumed dead. Born, London, 1915.

Graduated from Lancaster Academy for Young Ladies, 1930.

Current Occupation: Reporter for SPUNK Radio (call sign:

''We've got SPUNK!''").

After copying this entry into the notebook, I looked up Sir James Sotheby and
found an old portrait of him at the top of the entry - a portrait taken when
he was about fifty. Using this portrait as a guide, I opened the makeup kit
and began preparing my appliances. Making myself up to look like a 70-year-old
Sir James, I stepped into the bathroom and changed into a tweed coat before
leaving the library. On the way to the village hotel, I saw a used car lot
with quite a few used cars parked on the pavement. At one corner, a banner
read:

RELICS

FOR SALE - CHEAP!

When I walked over to the RELICS banner, I saw three cars lined up under the
banner: a small red car whose make I didn't recognize, a green car that didn't
look like it ran properly, and a big white car that looked beautiful. Walking
up to the man at the cash register, I asked:

"How much is the big white car under the banner?"

"Fifty quid, sir," he told me, "because the engine isn't the one meant for
that car."

"Ah, yes!" I said. "Offering the usual high price would be a crime, then!"

"It really would, sir!" the attendant said. "That car's not worth more than
fifty quid."

Counting out fifty pounds, I gave them to the man, who wrote out a bill of
sale and gave it to me along with the keys; I tucked it into the pocket of my
plaid jacket and went to the cars under the banner, where I tested the key in
the red and green cars to make sure it didn't fit them instead. Before
unlocking the white car, I walked around it to make sure the wheels were okay,
then used the key on the door to open it and climbed behind the wheel, then
shut the door. Using the ignition key, I started the big white car and drove
away from the used car lot. Once I arrived at 88 Reigate Square, I went up to
the door hobbling on my cane and rang the doorbell. Stepping back from the
door, I waited for a few seconds; then the door opened and a tall girl came
out of the house. Holding my cane in my left hand, I opened my arms to Miss
Post - for I had no doubt that this was the girl I had read about at the
library before coming to kidnap her.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" I cried. "How wonderful to meet you at last, Emily!"

"Grandfather?" she cried. "I thought you'd been dead all these years!"

"I haven't been dead, my little love," I told her, "I've been travelling. Come
and see my new car - I've parked it in front of the house just so you can see
it!"

Grabbing her arm, I pulled her towards the big white car. When she turned
toward it, I took a pad of chloroform from the disguise kit and clamped it
over her nose and mouth. To my amazement, though, her grip almost broke my
wrist and it took all I had to hold the chloroform over her face. Once she was
out, I opened the passenger's side door and put Miss Post in the car right
beside the driver's side seat; then I climbed in myself and shut and locked
the doors. Pouring some more chloroform on the pad, I used it to wipe off my
disguise; suddenly I felt so sleepy that I had to lean back in my seat and
take a nap. When I woke up, I looked at my wristwatch and realized that it was
now 11:30 PM.; Miss Post was still asleep beside me. Grabbing a wide- brimmed
black hat and a white mask from James's suitcase, I put them on and drove the
girl directly to the location given on the card Lady X had given me. It turned
out to be an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town; the fields were now
full of weeds and the house itself was showing its age. Parking the car by the
front door, I took Miss Post with me up the front steps and rang the doorbell
- the doorbell that had just recently been installed. A huge man opened the
door; he was tough-looking and had blonde hair that he wore in a brush-cut.

"I am the Master," I told the man, "and this is my slave!"

Pulling out the locket, I opened it and showed the pictures inside to the big
man.

"We've been expecting you!" the man said. "Come in, please. The name is
Timmy."

He gestured toward the house, and I dragged Miss Post inside and sat her on an
old chair in front of a dust-covered old table covered with glass-rings in the
kitchen. Noticing some letters on the kitchen counter, I walked over and
picked them up. Sure enough, one of them had been sent by James! Tucking it
into my coat pocket, I walked back to the table where I grabbed a gun that
someone had left on the tabletop and tucked it into my other coat pocket.
Hopefully, if both Miss Post and I were attacked by Lady X and her goons, I
could shoot our way out of here. Idly, I began opening cupboards but found
only a tin of flour, some sugar in a bag, two eggs in the old freezer which
was otherwise empty, and some old oatmeal left behind by the previous
occupants of this farmhouse. After mixing the flour, sugar, and remaining
oatmeal together in one of the big mixing bowls, I filled a smaller bowl with
the contents of the two eggs, which I then folded into the dry ingredients
after which I began to stir the mixture until it turned light brown. Taking a
muffin tray, I poured the mixture into each of the twelve little holes in the
tray and then placed the tray in the gas stove, which I managed to get going
once again. Soon the muffins were nicely baking, at which point Lady X came
into the kitchen.

"You've brought the girl, I see!" she said. "Well done, my friend."

She looked utterly different now. Having taken off her own disguise, she now
appeared as a chic young woman in a white dress with an ermine stole draped
over her shoulders and what looked like a fur coat - was that a mink hood? I
couldn't see properly in the weak light. Her hat was wide-brimmed and had
feathers on top; her hair was platinum blonde and over her face she wore a
white mask that hid the upper part of her face and made her look like a big
doll. She was tall - close to my height, in fact - and slim; I could make out
a green belt around her waist.

"We can end this business very easily," she told me, "and I want to do it
tomorrow. After breakfast, you will pretend to want to escape and will lead
her to the back door of this farmhouse which you will pretend to discover is
open. Once you get the girl into your car and drive off, we shall follow you.
I assume you've found the item you're using to blackmail Sanderson?"

I nodded.

"Good. Go to the deserted manor and park your car in the old garage. Emily
Post has to come with you of her own free will, to make the thing look
believeable. Once you arrive at the old garage, wait for us. We'll come in
about half an hour. Do I make myself clear?"

"Very!" I said.

I was very fortunate that Lady X had asked me to help her do away with Emily,
because I could do none of the other things James was so famous for. In fact,
I was a terrible painter and I knew I could only have deceived her if she'd
asked me to create an artist for her.

"Excellent!" she said. "I shall see you in the morning."

With that she walked out of the kitchen and I sat in one of the old chairs and
fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I saw that Emily was coming to.
She was rubbing her head and moaning. Opening her eyes - her lovely green eyes
- she looked at me.

"Wh-where am I?" she asked. "Who are you?"

"I am the Master," I told her, "and you are my slave."

"How did I get here?" Emily asked.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" I cried. "How wonderful to meet you at last, Emily!"

When she heard this, Emily gasped in shock and put her hands over her mouth.

"You kidnapped me, didn't you?" she cried. "You pretended to be my
grandfather!"

"Under Lady X's orders."

"Lady X!" Emily cried. "Is she here?"

"She was here," I admitted, "but she has since gone away."

"Well, you can't keep me here!" Emily cried.

Jumping out of the chair, she rushed to the door, only to be cut off by Timmy
who struck her in the tummy with a bludgeon, at which point she fell to her
knees. Timmy bent down to get her hands and lift her up, but the collapse had
been a feint; she punched him in the chin and the huge man fell over forward
onto the floor as a Great Dane rushed out of the shadows and pinned Emily to
the floor with his huge paws. Timmy laughed insanely.

"Good boy, Wilbur!" he cried.

"You're tougher than you look!" I said, delighted.

With that, I finally served my muffins and they proved to be delicious; even
though there was no butter and the ingredients were all stale, the muffins
were scrumptious. After they were all gone, I went up to Emily and told her:

"This may be our only chance to escape, for the lady and the gang are all
gone, except for Timmy and his pet, and I think we may be able to get out
through the window before Timmy no- tices that we've left and gone. All I have
to do is open it up."

Walking over to the dusty window, I flicked the switch and tried to open the
window only to find that it had rusted shut; taking off my coat and wrapping
it into a ball, I smashed the old window glass, then took Emily's hand and
helped her through the window before climbing out in time to watch Timmy fall
asleep and begin to snore. We hurried to the garage, where a large fellow was
standing guard over the entrance. Emily walked over to the man and hit him
once in the stomach and once in the cheek, at which point he slid down the
wall and fell to the earth, dead to the world. Rushing into the open garage,
we climbed into my car which had been carefully parked by our big friend, and
I started the engine and put it on reverse, then slowly backed out of the
garage before anyone could see us getting away. Turning onto the dirt road, I
shifted to Forward, then drove down the dirt road to the newer road that led
back to town.

"Good work, James!" Lady X called. "Good work! You deserve a bonus for this."

"You followed us!" Emily cried.

"I've been here all along," she told her, "waiting for you to arrive. Now turn
left down the fork in the road and keep driving till you reach a house by the
seashore."

What could I do? She undoubtedly had a gun pointed at my back, so I turned
left down the fork in the dirt road and kept driving. Eventually, we came to
the top of the cliffs, where I saw a large empty house with a large garage.

"Head right for the garage," Lady X said, "and make it snappy."

Turning the car to the garage, I headed toward the huge open doors.

"Stop the car here," Lady X said, "so that I can climb out."

I stopped the car, and Lady X opened the door and climbed out with a rustle of
skirts.

"Now head right for the garage," she said, "and put on the headlights once
you're inside."

Slowly moving into the garage, I put my headlights on and then shouted:

"Emily! Get ready to jump!"

With that I smashed my car window and jumped out, hoping that Emily was doing
the same thing. As soon as we had rushed out of the garage a great crack
appeared in the Earth right in front of the building and it fell into the sea
with a loud groan.

"Are you all right, James?" Emily asked.

"I'm fine!" I said. " 'The wages of sin is death.' "

"Did they really mean for us to -?" Emily asked.

"Yes," I said, "they meant for us to die in the garage - and they must have
known it was going to fall into the sea, which is why the house has been
abandoned. They'll be looking for us on the seashore - we'll make our escape
through the house itself."

Taking Emily's hand, I raced through the open door of the house and through
the rooms until we made our way to the back door, which was right over the
edge of the cliff.

"We've got to go down!" Emily cried. "Come on!"

So we climbed down the edge of the cliff and found ourselves standing on the
seashore at the bottom. In front of us was an old mail steamer that had been
abandoned years ago.

"Pick up all the driftwood you can!" I cried. "We've got to get this boat
running again."

Emily grabbed all the driftwood and crammed it into the oven that powered the
steamer. Just then I heard footsteps coming and opened the disguise kit, which
I had grabbed as I leaped from the car, then began to pull out some of the
items inside. Quickly I had Emily undress and made her put on a disguise; I
made her up to look like Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, the man who had inspired the
creation of the comic strip character Popeye, and had her put on a sailor
suit.

"G'day mate!" she said to the man who came running up; it was Timmy. "The name
is Fiegel - Frank Fiegel. Most folks just call me 'Rocky.'"

"Can I help you with your boat, Mr. Fiegel?"

"Naw, naw!" Emily said. "I'll get her started up, but thank you anyway.
Ukukukukuk!"

She even imitated Fiegel's laugh, which Popeye's creator had incorporated into
his famous character - Ukukukukukuk! - as she adjusted the corncob pipe in her
mouth.

"Why, you -" Timmy cried, leaping onto the boat.

Before he could even hit her, Emily - acting totally in character for Rocky
Fiegel - hit the man once in the jaw, hard, and sent him reeling into the
water; Timmy hastily made his escape just before I came out of hiding in the
oven. We loaded the driftwood back into the oven and fired up the boat's
engine; noticing the rotten rope tying her to the dock, I cut it in two with
my sai and we set sail for my aunt Beverly's home (a sai is a Japanese
dagger). As we approached the house, Emily wiped off her disguise with her
hankie and tucked it back in the pocket of her sailor suit, tossing the pipe
back in the disguise kit. She kept putting driftwood into the oven as I
watched the shore for the dock near my aunt's home, feeding the flames for the
journey. Soon we arrived at this dock, and I weighed anchor just in front of
it, just before we turned off the engine and left the boat. My aunt was
pruning her roses, and when I pulled off my mask and came up to her she was
both amazed and delighted.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried. "It's my nephew!"

"So you were only pretending to be James Stanton when you kidnapped me," Emily
said. "You were really Sanderson all along!"

"Yes, Emily," I said, "and now I have the item James was blackmailing me
with."

Pulling the envelope out of my vest, I slit it open with a letter opener and
pulled out a bill of exchange, which I handed to my cousin, Sir Francis
Cromarty.

"Dear me!" Cromarty said. "No wonder you came after Mr. Stanton with a
vengeance."

"Years ago," I said, "my guardian duped me into ratifying that bill of
exchange by signing it on the top above the black border on the back. Somehow
Stanton got ahold of the bill on the day his bank went under, and used it to
blackmail me into keeping quiet; at the time of his death, he was a legal
holder in due course of the bill and could have sued me for a lot of money,
but he chose not to, preferring to use it as an instrument of blackmail. I
went after it, I found it, but in the process I found something much more
important."

"What?" Emily asked.

"You!" I said. "You mean much more to me than a mere piece of paper."

"From what he told me," Sir Francis said, "you're an incredible young lady,
Miss Post. How did you manage to knock out a 300-pound gangster three times
your size?"

"A few months ago," Emily finally admitted, "my employer at SPUNK Radio
assigned me to interview a scientist who had developed a wonder vitamin. When
I came into his house he hit me over the head from behind, then when I woke
up, he injected me with the wonder vitamin. A few minutes later, my boyfriend
Lieutenant Tnarrud shot Dr. Becher dead. With Becher dead, it seems his
formula died with him, as did any chance of counteracting its effects."

She rolled up the sleeve of her sailor suit and I saw that her forearms were
several times larger than those of a normal woman of her apparent size.

"My God!" I said. "I thought you were just athletic!"

Indeed, under her sailor suit I could make out the enlarged muscles that had
enabled Em- ily to knock out men many times her apparent size - enlarged, that
is, by the wonder vitamin that Dr. Becher had invented and that had been lost
when he had died at Tnarrud's hand.

"Emily?" I asked.

"Yes?" she said.

"Would you marry me?" I stuttered.

"What would Edward say?" she asked.

"Edward Tnarrud?"

"Yes."

"He can't say anything," I told Emily finally, "for it was he, alias John
Netpeake, alias Tim Toldrum, alias Vernon O'Valeron, real name James Stanton,
whom I found dying in the bed at the inn in France. Edward Tnarrud was one of
James's many aliases!"

With that, I handed the disguise kit to Sir Francis, who opened it and smiled.

"There's a list of his aliases on a piece of paper glued to the top of this
kit!" he said.

"What of this Lady X?" my aunt asked.

"We missed her - again!" Sir Francis said. "But we'll get her - we'll get her
in the end."

For some reason, I was studying my aunt; she was tall and slim with a slender
waist - just like Lady X. Something was bothering me; reaching into my aunt's
dress pocket, I pulled out the very pistol that Lady X had aimed at me, which
I had seen in the rear view mirror.

"You might want to look at this!" I whispered to Sir Francis as I handed him
the gun.

"So we've got you at last, haven't we, Lady X!" he cried, showing her the gun.

"I don't understand!" Aunt Beverly said.

"Oh, yes, you do!" I cried, pulling off her wig and wiping off her makeup with
my other hand. "You must have thought you were pretty clever, Aunt Beverly,
but you've been outwitted this time. What the deuce made you turn to crime in
the first place?"

Now my aunt's true face was revealed: she was a dark-haired woman about forty
years old, with high cheekbones and eerie dark eyes. Lady X had been unmasked
at last.

"What always makes people turn to crime, Nephew," she said as she let Cromarty
hand- cuff her behind her back. "Money, of course!"

"She really was the widow of your uncle," Sir Francis told me after my aunt
had been taken away, "but she was his second wife, not his first. He married
her after his first wife died two or three years before his own death, then
when he died unexpectedly on the operating table she was left without any
money because your uncle had spent every dime he'd ever earned."

"I thought so," I admitted, "but I thought she was someone I could be proud
of."

"You can be proud of Emily, young man!" Sir Francis said. "She's a brave
little girl."

"Brave?" I asked. "She certainly is - but she's far from little."

"Now everything is fine and everyone is happy," Emily said, "Except, of
course, for Lady X! She'll be spending a lot of time in prison from now on."

Emily and I came together and embraced; our lips flowed together into a
passionate kiss.

1 In Emily Post, Reporter - a story I never finished.