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Title: Ask Miss Mott
Author: Oppenheim, Edward Phillips (1866-1946)
Date of first publication: 1937
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: P. F. Collier & Son, undated
Date first posted: 30 August 2013
Date last updated: 30 August 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1106

This ebook was produced by
David T. Jones, Mary Meehan, Al Haines
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                        ASK MISS MOTT

                   By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM




CONTENTS


       I MISS MOTT INTERFERES

      II THE MAGIC POPGUN

     III NOAH'S ARK

      IV BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES

       V THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER

      VI LOST MISS GREENE

     VII MEREDITH WALKS OUT

    VIII MARCONI SAVES MISS MOTT

      IX THE TERRIFIED WIFE

       X INFORMERS STILL PAY




ASK MISS MOTT




I

MISS MOTT INTERFERES


Miss Mott looked up quickly at the sound of the knock at her office
door. She had been engaged in the typical task of writing her advice to
a young woman whose courtship affairs had become involved and she had
rather forgotten the flight of time. Her typist had gone, also her
messenger boy, and the lame, but very pleasant young clerk who assisted
in her various activities. In other words, Miss Mott was alone on the
top floor of a building not far removed from the Adelphi, and the hour
being long past office hours, she was not expecting a caller.

"Come in," she invited curiously.

From that moment onwards, strange things happened. First of all, the
door was opened only about six inches, and a man's hand--a very well
cared for and shapely hand it seemed--crept through the aperture, felt
about for a moment, and, finding the switch which controlled the
electric light, pulled it firmly down, thereby plunging the room into
darkness. The next moment the hand was withdrawn, and the owner had
appeared in person, or rather had stepped through the now wide-opened
door, and closed it carefully behind him. Little of him was to be seen
in the darkness, except the blurred outline of a human being, slim, she
imagined, but with broad shoulders, a trifle over medium height,
perhaps, but with nothing aggressive in his appearance.

"What do you want?" Miss Mott demanded, an undernote of alarm in her
tone.

There was no immediate reply, nor, for some reason or other, did Miss
Mott expect one. Congratulating herself upon her presence of mind, she
pulled the table telephone instrument towards her and lifted the
receiver. There was no answer--a curious deadness, in fact, at the other
end of the line. She peered through the gloom, and, although the
sensation was unusual with her, she began to be afraid. Her visitor,
while his back had been turned towards her, had donned a mask of some
dark colour. He had now locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and
was leaning back in the easy-chair which she kept for the more
distinguished of her clients.

"I shouldn't worry about that, if I were you," he suggested, with a wave
of his hand towards the telephone. "I am not an amateur, you know. I am
a full-fledged professional criminal, with all the tricks of the trade
at my finger tips. I cut the telephone cord outside the room."

"Then you were guilty of a very impertinent action," Miss Mott declared
with spirit. "Who are you and what on earth can you want with me?"

"Keep calm, I beg of you," he enjoined. "Do you suppose that I should be
likely to mount all these stairs and pay you a visit at this
inconvenient hour of the evening without wanting something? If you wait
for a few moments in patience, you will certainly hear what it is."

"Wait for a few more moments," Miss Mott lied courageously, "and my
secretary and clerk will both be back."

He laughed, derisively but not unpleasantly.

"My dear young lady," he pointed out, "since when have your secretary,
and your messenger boy, and your director of intelligence, as I suppose
you call the lame youth, returned at something after eight o'clock, when
you have once dismissed them? They have all three left for the night.
You are here, utterly alone, busily engaged in completing your column
for _Home Talks_. In other words, you are delving into other people's
troubles and answering the long string of queries which you invite every
week under the heading of:

     ASK MISS MOTT."

"You seem to know a great deal about my business," she remarked icily.

"Only," he assured her, "since you began to interfere in mine."

She liked his voice and she was not in the least alarmed now, but she
realised to the full the unusualness of the situation.

"Perhaps you will tell me," she invited, "when I had the misfortune to
interfere in your affairs?"

"I am coming to that," he promised her.

"Couldn't we have the light on?" she begged. "I don't like sitting in
the darkness with a stranger on the seventh floor of a deserted
building."

"Compromising, my dear Miss Mott, I admit," the voice from the shadows
acknowledged, "but necessary. I am a very shy person, as most criminals
are. My mask may disguise my features, but I cannot afford to give you
the opportunity of taking note of other details of my person."

"You are sure that you are a criminal, I suppose?" she ventured. "You
see, I haven't met many, and I need experience badly."

"Absolutely certain," he assured her. "Really, I should be a godsend to
you. Not only am I a criminal, but I am a member of a gang which is very
seriously looked upon by the police. If you were in the fortunate
position of being able to deliver me up to justice, I have no doubt that
you might commence your career auspiciously by touching several rashly
offered rewards."

"Then, if that is really your position, why are you here?" she demanded.
"I have nothing worth stealing and I imagine a nicely brought up
criminal doesn't go about frightening young women, unless there's
something to be gained by it."

"Very well put, Miss Mott," he approved. "I will tell you why I am here.
It is to stop your interference in my legitimate business."

"But how can I have interfered with your business," she argued, "when I
don't know what it is? And, furthermore," she went on, "if you have a
business, how can you be a criminal?"

"My dear young lady," he remonstrated, "my business is crime."

"Then what is your business with me?" she asked him point-blank.

He settled himself down more comfortably in his chair.

"I will explain," he promised. "You have, I understand, for several
years, conducted an extraordinarily successful column in a paper called
_Home Talks_. You give advice, chiefly of course, to members of your own
sex, who are in difficulties with their lovers, husbands, cookery or
wardrobes. Excellent, so long as you stick to that. Lately, however,
encouraged by certain minor successes, you have gone farther afield. You
have placed yourself privately at the disposal of your clients who find
themselves in any sort of difficulty whatsoever. In pursuit of your
vocation, you have engaged a small staff, and you now call yourself, I
think, an 'Intelligence Agent'."

"That seems to me a very reasonable definition of my activities," Miss
Mott admitted coldly.

"I will not quarrel with it," he agreed. "You must permit me to point
out, however, that you fly a little high when you interfere in the
enterprises of any one so well known in the criminal world as your
humble visitor."

"Who are you then?" she enquired.

"I have many aliases," he confided. "The one under which you would know
me best, perhaps,--but, wait a moment."

He rose to his feet and moved towards her. She was conscious of a sudden
shiver, which, if it were not of fear, was certainly of some kindred
excitement. Her pulses were stirred. She felt her heart beating more
quickly. He made no attempt to come round to her side of the desk,
however. He leaned over it, his eyes, through the slits in his mask,
taking swift and appreciative note of her. She caught a gleam of
something white in his hand and was at once aware of a waft of delicate
perfume.

"Violet Joe!" she exclaimed.

He nodded approvingly.

"You are really quite intelligent," he acknowledged. "So far as one can
gather in this light, too, I should say that you are even more
personable than I had imagined. All the same, you must be taught not to
interfere in my affairs."

"You are the man who is blackmailing--"

"Hush," he interrupted. "One of the first lessons of our
profession--yours and mine, I mean--which must be learned and adhered
to, is 'no names.' I have a great many more serious crimes laid to my
charge than the present one, but you may take it that it was from my
agent that your messenger procured that little packet of letters
yesterday afternoon at the Black Boy Inn at Cobham. I must congratulate
you upon the idea. It was indeed a very cleverly thought-out piece of
work, and I can assure you that it goes very much against the grain
with me to insist upon having them back again."

"So that is what you have come for!" she exclaimed.

"That is what I have come for."

Miss Mott was not feeling quite so comfortable. She had an uncle in
Scotland Yard who was fond of telling her stories about the famous
criminals of the day and she had heard some very ugly tales indeed about
the gang with which Violet Joe was connected. There was a murder case in
which they were supposed to be concerned, and a case of manslaughter in
the suburbs which was put down to them. There was also a crop of minor
burglaries attributed to them, and only recently a terrible assault on a
wealthy financier, in which the latter had been half killed and robbed
of a very large amount of money. She dimly remembered that a reward of a
thousand pounds had been placed upon the head of the leader of the gang.

"How do you know that I have not already parted with those letters?" she
asked. "You are quite correct in what you say. My agent brought them in
yesterday afternoon."

"Because," he answered--"shall I be indiscreet, for once, and mention
names?--Mrs. Bland Potterson comes back from Brighton to-night, and she
is almost certain to have asked you to deliver them into her own hand.
That might almost be one reason why you are working late here. In any
case, the letters are in that drawer on your right-hand side and I am
afraid that I must ask you to hand them over to me."

It was a very exciting moment for Miss Mott. She had embarked bravely
enough upon the high seas of adventure, but she had never dreamed of
anything like this happening within a few weeks of her start. How she
prayed for a single gleam of light! How she longed to see behind that
enveloping mask of purple silk! The eyes and the voice had both their
separate thrill, but, more than anything else in the world, she wanted
at that moment to look into the face of Violet Joe.

"Supposing I refuse?" she suggested.

"That seems such a foolish supposition," he argued, a touch of weariness
in his tone. "You are not a large person, Miss Mott. I personally have a
penchant for small, elegant young ladies of your type and build, but you
will admit that they are not in a position to deal with affairs where
physical strength is the deciding factor. You have heard a few things
about Violet Joe, I daresay?"

"I have indeed," she acknowledged.

"Not all to my detriment, I hope?" he enquired anxiously.

"Mostly negative," she confided, sitting upright in her place. "I have
heard that you absolutely decline to carry firearms in any of your
enterprises, that you can break a man's wrist with your hands, that you
are an amateur boxer, a famous wrestler, and all those stupid things.
They are part of the equipment of your profession, I suppose."

"Slightly withering," he commented.

She shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the
gloom now and she could trace the outline of his figure as he lounged
opposite.

"One wonders," she went on, "why a man so well equipped as you to fight
for what he wants should stoop to the lower branches of crime--perhaps I
should say the lowest branch of all--blackmailing."

"Ah, but my dear Miss Mott," he expostulated, "you do not know Mrs.
Bland Potterson. You have probably never met Mr. Bland Potterson. I can
assure you that if you had made their acquaintance, you would understand
the joy--the positive ecstasy--of having them both shivering in their
shoes."

"I don't know either of them," Miss Mott acknowledged, "but I don't see
what that has to do with it. In any case, I have the letters and I am
going to carry out my contract. I am not in the least afraid of you.
Besides--"

"Well?"

"There is just one thing more that I have heard said of Violet Joe. He
has never robbed or laid his hands upon a woman."

"Touched," he admitted. "My problem then will be how to get the letters
without using force--that is, if I am to preserve my reputation."

"What do you want them for?" she asked curiously. "Surely blackmailing
on a small scale like this--just for the possession of a few stupid
letters--ought to be beneath you. I thought Violet Joe only went in for
_crimes de luxe_."

"You do not know Mr. and Mrs. Bland Potterson," he reminded her once
more, with a grimace behind his mask which she was perfectly well able
to divine.

"I don't see what that has to do with it," she repeated.

"Some day you may make their acquaintance. You will understand then the
extreme pleasure it would be likely to give a man with a sense of
humour--for, though you might not think it, I have a sense of humour,
Miss Mott--to keep those two in a state of constant worry and anxiety
upon the little dunghill they call life."

"Well, you're not going to have their letters," she assured him firmly,
"and if you stay here much longer," she added, with a sudden
inspiration, "you will have my uncle to deal with."

"And who may he be?" Violet Joe enquired. "I hate to think that any one,
even an uncle, may be taking you out to supper, but let me know about
him."

"Superintendent Detective Wragge of Scotland Yard," she answered, with a
gleam of triumphant malice in her eyes. "The name may be familiar to
you."

He laughed long and softly.

"Oh, Miss Mott," he expostulated--"Miss Mott, how can you tell
falsehoods to an engaging stranger who is behaving so nicely to you?
Dear Mr. Wragge is a very great friend of mine, but I can assure you
that he won't be here to-night. He would probably give a great deal to
be in your place and to have the pleasure of a little chat with me, but
don't you see, if he was where you are, I wouldn't be where I am. Your
respected uncle, Miss Mott, is at Southampton to-night, the passenger
list of the _Berengaria_ in his hand."

Miss Mott was uncannily surprised, for she happened to know that her
visitor was telling the truth.

"You appear to be very well informed," she remarked.

He leaned back as though to laugh again. Then Miss Mott had the shock of
her young life, for she was young in years as well as in her career.
Like a crouching cat through the darkness he was by her side with one
spring. The drawer towards which her eyes had too frequently wandered
was opened. His fingers had closed upon the letters. She struck out at
him and met only the empty air. She cried aloud, but that she knew was
hopeless, for they were on the seventh storey of an almost empty
building. Violet Joe was back again in his chair on the other side of
the desk, the packet of letters in his pocket. His eyes were smiling at
her through the narrow apertures of his mask. A little breath of the
perfume of violets lingered in the disturbed atmosphere.

"Sorry, my dear young lady," he apologised, rising once more lightly to
his feet, "but, after all, you mustn't complain. Flash bank notes, which
I suppose you got from Scotland Yard, were quite a clever device of
yours, but tricky--very tricky. You might have got my poor messenger
into serious trouble, supposing he had been obliged to change one--say
for his bus fare on the way home. If you stoop to that sort of thing,
you must expect this sort of retribution."

He rose swiftly and unexpectedly to his feet, and she saw his outline in
the gloom, the head thrust forward, listening intently. Then he crossed
the room and felt about as though searching for something. He was by the
window now, a little distance behind her desk, moving noiselessly,--an
almost invisible presence. Suddenly she became conscious of a familiar,
but at that hour unusual, sound. She heard the lift, the terminus of
which was two flights down, as it came rattling into its place. A cold
wave of air swept through the room. Violet Joe had opened the window.

"You are going to have a caller, Miss Mott," he confided. "Do you know
who it might be?"

She listened. They both listened. The roar of the traffic far below came
to them as a dead thing. It was a windless night and there was no other
sound.

"I know of no likely caller," she admitted, rather breathlessly. "That
was not true about my uncle, of course. You were right about his being
at Southampton."

"Dear Miss Mott," he went on, and, though she thought of it afterwards
with fury, at the time it almost thrilled her to hear the caress in his
tone, "I am a little afraid of this mysterious visitor. If you had told
me of any one else whom you were expecting, I should only have smiled,
but a visitor whom neither you nor I know anything about fills me, I
must confess, with apprehension."

Again they listened, and this time there was the faint but distinct
sound of shuffling footsteps mounting the last flight of steps.

"Dear me!" Violet Joe sighed. "And I loathe bloodshed--especially before
a lady. Do you like bloodshed, Miss Mott?"

"Indeed I do not," she answered vigorously. "Whatever are you doing out
there by the window?"

"I have one hand," he confided, "upon the rail of the outside fire
escape, but it's an awful long way to swing myself. Will you pray for
me, Miss Mott?"

"Don't be mad!" she cried. "Come back into the room and take your mask
off. I--I promise--I suppose it's silly of me--but I promise I won't
give you away and I won't remember your face afterwards."

"You're a sporting little lady," he acknowledged, "but you see, there's
your prospective visitor to be taken into consideration. He might not be
so amiable. He may be out after me and this room is too small for a
man's fight. Besides which, I should hate to have you mixed up in
anything of the sort."

She could trace the outline of his figure, poised upon the window sill.

"Come back," she begged. "You can never reach that, and remember--we
are seven storeys up."

He was halfway out of the window now. He looked at her and there was a
quality of laughter in his voice, as he pulled the key of the door from
his pocket and let it drop on to the floor.

"Pray for me, Miss Mott," he begged once more, "and if you hear a very
unpleasant crash--in other words, if I miss my swing--it doesn't matter
what you do, but if I make it, pull the window down, there's a dear."

For a few seconds he seemed to brace himself. Then his body swung away
out of sight. It seemed to Miss Mott that it was the most dramatic
moment of her whole life. Every sense she possessed was concentrated in
a terrible effort of listening. There came no sound, no cry. She crept
towards the window, her knees shaking beneath her. There was a dark form
safely upon the ladder, a sheer silhouette against the sky, something
which might have been a chuckle, and then blackness. Miss Mott closed
the window, and then came back to a consideration of her own affairs,
which were in their way pressing....

First of all, she turned the light on and unlocked the door. The
footsteps were drawing near. They were definitely mounting now to her
modest little suite of offices. She glanced at the telephone with bitter
regret. Her thoughts were feverishly distracted. Curiously enough, her
most imminent fears were not for herself. She found herself thinking
first of the man crawling down those iron steps, storey by storey, the
tops of the elm trees hundreds of feet below, with death the penalty for
a single slip. She shivered violently, then forced her thoughts back to
herself and her own predicament. She listened to the mounting footsteps.
Who would be likely to pay her a visit at such an hour? She asked
herself the question in vain. She had always laughed at nerves but this
was a queer coincidence that, twice in one evening--the first evening of
her life amidst her new surroundings--adventure should come and flaunt
her. She thought of many things in those few seconds. She must have a
revolver and take some shooting lessons. She must have two telephones.
But most of all, she thought of that figure stealing down towards the
street.

       *       *       *       *       *

The knock at the door came at last and Miss Mott's apprehensions were
not lessened by the sight of the visitor who made his furtive entrance.
He could not, by any means, be called prepossessing. He wore the clothes
of the shabby-genteel clerk out of work, but the clothes themselves were
very much more shabby than genteel. His linen was doubtful and it was
obvious that he was wearing his tie inside-out. His coat showed ink
stains, but least pleasing of all was his face--long and narrow, with
close-set eyes, and unpleasant mouth.

"Good evening, miss," he said, as he slipped across the threshold.

"Good evening," Miss Mott answered coldly. "What do you want? I am
busy."

The young man deliberately closed the door behind him. Then he
approached the desk at which Miss Mott was seated. He looked her over
and there was a gleam of ugly admiration in his eyes. She shrank a
little back in her chair.

"First of all, I have a matter of business to discuss with you, miss,"
he began. "You do the answers, don't you, for ladies and girls what gets
into trouble in _Home Talks_?"

"I do," she acknowledged. "Are you one of my readers?"

Her visitor chuckled.

"Not much, miss," he scoffed. "I ain't come here to waste your time,
either, nor mine. You've set up what you call an 'Intelligence Agency',
on your own. You had a job from Mrs. Bland Potterson of Portland Place.
You got some letters back for her. She hasn't had them yet because she's
only returning from Brighton to-night. I'm after those letters."

"Blackmailer Number Two," Miss Mott observed calmly.

"You can call me what you jolly well like," the young man replied. "It
was one of the big five who pinched them first. You settled with his
messenger, who was a pal of mine, at Cobham this afternoon, and you've
got the letters, waiting to give them back to Mrs. Bland Potterson."

"Well?"

"She'll have to pay twice over for them, that's all, because I've cut in
to the game," the intruder announced with a grin. "No use making a fuss,
miss," he added unpleasantly. "Hand over the letters."

"You are unfortunately too late," Miss Mott told him. "A previous
visitor--probably the gentleman to whom you refer as one of the big
five--was here half an hour ago, and, finding me alone and unarmed, has,
in most chivalrous fashion, possessed himself of them."

"Who are you getting at?" the young man sneered. "I'm not taking any of
that stuff, miss. The man I was speaking of isn't that sort of bloke. He
wouldn't interfere himself in a trifle like this. My pal handed them
over to you at Cobham and I know damned well that you haven't been to
the old girl's yet, because you've been watched. As to any one else
having pinched them, that's all me eye. Hand 'em over."

He struck the table with his unwashed fist, and the odour of him as he
leaned across towards her, a threat in every gesture, was not in the
least like the perfume of violets.

"I can assure you that I have not the letters," Miss Mott persisted. "If
you do not go away at once, I shall telephone to the police."

She took the receiver from her disabled telephone and promptly regretted
it. The young man leaped forward, swept the instrument from the table,
and thrust his very disagreeable face within a few inches of her own.

"I ain't no time to waste, miss," he declared. "I'll look for them
myself, and if you try to stop me," he went on, with a savage leer,
"you'll get what's coming to you, and a bit more besides."

He flung open a drawer, in which Miss Mott had forty pounds in cash,
several photographs, which she valued very much, and various other
personal trifles far too sacred to be pulled about by this unwholesome
person. She had the spirit of a lioness and she forgot her physical
deficiencies. She struck out at him with all her power. He only grinned
and imprisoned her wrists with one hand. Holding her in that fashion, he
swept the money and a few oddments from the drawer into his pocket. He
searched the desk in vain. There was no safe in the room and, as Miss
Mott had not yet had time to complete her furnishing, there was
obviously no other hiding place.

"Tell me where those letters are," he snarled.

"I have told you I haven't got them," she reiterated. "I haven't got
them; and if I had, I wouldn't give them to you."

She struggled more violently still. He suddenly changed his tactics. He
held her in a grip of iron and there was a sinister leer in his eyes.

"I'll teach you, you little devil!" he muttered. "That's right! Come
closer to me! Now, it's you or the letters. Make up your mind."

She shrieked madly--shrieked and shrieked again. He only laughed.

"I know all about this place," he warned her. "No one nearer than the
sixth storey down. That's why they have to let these offices so cheap.
Now, my dear! The letters, or--"

There was a sound which, to her dazed ears, seemed like the smashing of
a thousand windowpanes. The carpet all over the farther side of the
office was littered with glass. The man in the purple mask, his hands
upon the sill, leaped into the room. He asked no questions. He came at
Miss Mott's assailant like a wild-cat. Miss Mott, opening her eyes from
the horror which was encompassing her, heard a yell of agony, and saw
her tormentor lying motionless in a far corner of the room. The smell of
violets was in her nostrils, the fire of a pair of burning blue eyes
blazed into hers. Nevertheless, the newcomer's voice, when he spoke, was
remarkably steady.

"Turn out the light," he directed. "I've cut my cheek and my hand, and I
shall have to take my mask off. I do not wish you to see my face."

She moved over to the switch and obeyed. The blood from his cheek was
now dripping on to the desk.

"You had better get out and go home," he told her. "Here are your damned
letters. I only wanted them to punish those beastly people, and they're
not worth all that fuss, anyway. Get your hat."

She was trembling in every limb now, but she never thought of
disobeying. With her coat upon her arm, she went shivering to the door.

"But you must let me bathe your cheek," she begged, stopping short.

"I have already told you," he said sternly, "that I will not allow you
to see my face. I will leave this rubbish upon the stairs. He can tell
his own story to any one he pleases, when he recovers."

"Why," she gasped, "did you come back?"

He hesitated.

"I didn't feel altogether easy about those shuffling footsteps," he
confided. "Besides, some of the rungs of the ladder were very unsafe.
Then I heard you call out."

"I'm not going until I have bandaged your hand, at any rate," she
insisted.

But for once Miss Mott had met her master. He dragged her late assailant
outside and left him groaning upon the stairs. Then he locked the door
for her and gave her the key. The letters he had thrust into her bag.

"Go and finish your job," he enjoined.

"But you!"

"As soon as you're out of sight," he assured her, "I shall become a
perfectly respectable member of society, who has banged against the lift
in the darkness. The only way you can get me into trouble is by hanging
about here. On your honour, remember. You won't look?"

"I swear," she promised.

He thrust the torn and blood-stained mask into her hand and she pushed
it to the bottom of her bag. Then Miss Mott went flying down the stairs,
and Violet Joe, after a contemptuous examination of the groaning figure
sprawling upon the stairs, became an ordinary human being. He dabbed the
cut in his cheek with a handkerchief, lit a cigarette, and descended
towards the lift.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott was very nearly cured that evening of any secret feeling of
fondness she might have had for the women and girls whom she addressed
every week in her column of _Home Talks_ as "My dear friends." The
butler at the great house in Portland Place gazed a little more
haughtily than usual out of his front door at her timid summons. He
rather resented visitors at this unusual hour.

"Mrs. Bland Potterson has just returned from Brighton, miss. If you are
the young lady whom she is expecting, I will take you to her. Otherwise
the mistress is not at home."

Miss Mott gave her name and was conducted through scenes of Tottenham
Court Road magnificence into a glaring drawing-room, brilliantly
illuminated, as Miss Mott suspected, for her especial benefit.

"The young person whom you were expecting, madam," the man announced.

A rubicund lady, dressed in clothes which seemed all too short and too
tight for her, nodded patronizingly and pointed to a seat.

"So you're Miss Mott," she remarked, folding her hands in front of
her,--"the young lady who gives us all the good advice in _Home Talks_.
Parkins, tell your master that Miss Mott is here."

"Very good, madam."

Miss Mott waited until the man had left the room. Then she produced her
little packet.

"I have brought your letters, Mrs. Potterson," she confided.

"How clever of you, my dear!" the lady exclaimed, leaning forward, and
positively grabbing them from Miss Mott's outstretched hands. "Well,
now, I am glad I thought of writing to you. Bothered to death I was
about those letters. You see, my 'usband's by way of being a public
man--may have a knighthood next year--it might run to a baronetcy--and
when you get into circles like that, you see, young woman, there must
never be any scandal. Not a breath of it."

"I quite understand," Miss Mott acquiesced.

Into the room bustled Mr. Bland Potterson and he was very much what one
would have imagined the husband of Mrs. Bland Potterson to be like. He,
too, was short. He was sleek. He was pompous. His tweed clothes were too
load in pattern, his brown shoes were too yellow, and no one appeared to
have pointed out to him the enormity of wearing a diamond pin in his
tie with a soft shirt and collar.

"My 'usband," Mrs. Bland Potterson announced. "This is the young lady
who's got back the letters, 'Erbert. She's brought them with her."

Mr. Bland Potterson smiled as amiably as he knew how. His cunning little
eyes were devouring the packet.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to ask how you got them,
young lady. Very clever of you, I'm sure."

Miss Mott, having risen to her feet, remained standing. She was aching
to get away to her small flat, to think over the events of this amazing
evening. Husband and wife exchanged glances. Mrs. Bland Potterson
coughed.

"I suppose, Miss Mott," she said, "having had the letters in your
possession for a whole day, as it were, that you have read them?"

"Why should you suppose any such thing?" was the indignant rejoinder. "I
have done nothing of the sort."

Mrs. Bland Potterson coughed again. It was perfectly clear that she did
not believe her visitor.

"My 'usband and I have talked it over," she continued, "and we think it
only fair to let you know the truth about them. Sit down for a moment,
please."

"I really don't want to know the truth about them," Miss Mott said
wearily, "and I am anxious to get home."

They appeared not to have heard her. Mr. Bland Potterson, with his hands
in his trousers pockets, came over to his wife's side.

"You see, they are all signed by the wretched girl's Christian name,
which was Ellen," Mrs. Bland Potterson explained. "She was with us when
we lived at Forest Hill, where we 'ad a much smaller establishment.
'Ousemaid, she was, and a very bad one at that. Well, as the letters
show, she got into trouble. The first thing the 'ussy does is to try to
get to see my 'usband alone. He's too clever for that and keeps out of
'er way. The impudent 'ussy then actually came to see me and an
outrageous story she told. Out of the 'ouse I packed her pretty quick.
My 'usband may have his weak moments--gentlemen do, it seems to me now,
since the War--but not with servant girls."

Mr. Bland Potterson fingered his tie impressively.

"I should think not," he declared. "Very awkward position for me, you
can see, Miss Mott, in my station of life. I was coining money at the
time and we were making new and more important friends every day. No
good tinkering with the young woman. I know the game too well. You begin
to give them a little money and they cadge on to you for life. Not for
yours truly. She had the impudence to come down to the office. I just
sent for a policeman and that was that."

"What happened to her?" Miss Mott asked quietly, with a sudden
inexplicable curiosity.

They were both silent for a moment.

"She appeared to have no friends," Mrs. Bland Potterson confided. "I'm
not surprised at it--a hussy like that! She came from the country and
she knew no one. They took her in at some sort of institution, I
believe, to have her baby. Her last letter was written from there."

"And now?"

"She died," was the indifferent and yet somewhat shamefaced reply. "She
was a vicious little cat, even on her deathbed. She got the clergyman to
write that last letter there for her. Spiteful little beast!"

"And the child?"

Mr. Bland Potterson jangled the keys in his pocket.

"Who the devil cares anything about the child?" he demanded. "They put
her into the workhouse, I think. Best place too. Anyway, like a couple
of mugs, we kept her letters--some of them to my wife and some of them
to me--and they were stolen by a servant. Now you know the whole of the
story, Miss Mott, and the letters are going upon the fire within the
next few minutes. We shall have a bottle of champagne to drink to their
ashes. If you care for a glass yourself, young lady--"

"No thank you," Miss Mott, who was very badly in need of refreshment,
replied. "I must be going."

"I suppose you had to pay a trifle for them, my dear," Mr. Bland
Potterson enquired, with narrowing eyes.

"Yes, it cost something, naturally," Miss Mott acquiesced, trying to
bring her mind to business. "I have opened an office, as you know, and
my expenses mount up. I had quite a little trouble to persuade the
people who had got possession of the letters to deal with me at all.
However, I understood from your last communication that you were in a
state of great anxiety, and I think you said that you would give almost
anything in the world to recover the letters."

Mrs. Bland Potterson smiled.

"Well, well," she murmured, her puffy fingers tightening upon the
packet, "one always exaggerates a trifle, I suppose. Anyhow, I am sure
you did very nicely, and we must give you something to remember us by."

She leaned over and opened a bag upon the table by her side. From
amongst a sheaf of money, she selected a five-pound note and showed it
to her husband.

"Yes, yes, my dear," he agreed, with a wave of the hand. "We can afford
it. Certainly."

Mrs. Bland Potterson handed the five-pound note over to Miss Mott and
rang the bell.

"There you are, young lady," she announced, with ponderous
grandiloquence. "Don't say a word, I beg of you. You're very welcome. I
must certainly continue to subscribe to _Home Talks_ and, if any of my
friends get into trouble, I shall tell them to call you."

Miss Mott was feeling a little confused. She looked at the note, she
looked at Mrs. Bland Potterson, she looked at the short, pompous figure
of her husband, she looked at the butler, waiting to see her out, and
gained at last some inspiration. She handed the note into his eager
fingers.

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind getting me a taxi," she begged.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott, as she crossed the pavement towards the waiting taxi, was
very angry indeed. She was angry with herself, she was angry with the
obsequious butler, she was more than ever angry with Mr. and Mrs. Bland
Potterson. It seemed to her, however, that the climax had been reached
when she flung herself back in the corner of the taxicab and became
conscious that it was already occupied!

"Who are you?" she cried, leaning forward. "This is my taxicab."

"Then I cannot congratulate you upon your choice, Miss Mott," a voice
answered. "It is a nasty, smelly vehicle. The fellow's been driving
about all day with the windows up, I should think."

Miss Mott gasped.

"What on earth are you doing in here?" she demanded.

"I followed you," her dimly seen companion confessed. "The butler should
have made sure that he was handing you into an empty cab."

"But what do you want?"

"I wanted to see how you got on with Mr. and Mrs. Bland Potterson."

"Beastly people!" she exclaimed.

He laughed softly.

"I had an idea you would not be pleased," he said. "I have to ask you a
delicate question, Miss Mott. Please do not refuse to answer me."

"Well?"

"How much did they give you?"

"Five pounds," she answered scornfully. "I gave it to the butler."

This time his laugh, although just as soft, was more prolonged.

"I told you what unpleasant people they were. I am going to call on them
myself in a few minutes."

"What do you mean? What do you want with them?"

"That would take too long to tell just now," he answered. "We are, I
gather, on our way back to your rooms."

"We are just there."

"Then, will you be so kind," he begged, "as to slip into an evening
gown--black would suit you very well, I think, with your pretty hair and
your perfect complexion. I should like to dine somewhere where the light
is not too strong or the music too loud--say Ciro's Grill Room--in an
hour."

"Thank you," she replied. "I never dine out."

"My dear young lady," he protested. "Is it or is it not true that you
have embarked upon a career of adventure?"

"I suppose it is more or less true," she admitted.

"You are Miss Mott, the one Miss Mott, who teaches people how to live
their lives. It is your ambition to penetrate into every nook and cranny
of the living world. I have heard all about you, you see. How can you
lead the life adventurous if you refuse to dine with a humble criminal?
There is much that you still have to learn about my profession. I will
be your instructor. Besides, I want to tell you about Mr. and Mrs. Bland
Potterson."

"I think," she said deliberately, "that you are mad!"

"And I think," he rejoined, "that you are terribly attractive. That
little dash of colour--anger, I am afraid--becomes you, and I wish that
I could believe that I were the first to tell you that your eyes are
marvellous. In one hour's time, please, I shall be waiting for you in
the hall. Don't be surprised if at first you fail to recognise me. I
have many aliases. And do not trouble about this taxi, please," he
added, as he stepped out and handed her to the pavement. "I am going to
take it on. In one hour then."

"I shall not be there," she declared positively.

"I shall hope for the best," he replied.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. and Mrs. Bland Potterson were still indulging in their orgy of
complacent self-congratulation.

"And to get them for only five pounds!" Mrs. Bland Potterson chuckled.

"Your cleverness, my dear," her husband declared. "One could plainly see
that the little girl was overpowered by her surroundings."

"She has probably heard, too," Mrs. Bland Potterson remarked, "that you
are soon to be an M.P."

The door was thrown open. The butler once more insinuated his bland
presence.

"The Honorable Mr. Gervase Mallincourt," he announced.

Mr. and Mrs. Bland Potterson were surprised. The young man who was
approaching them was without doubt a person of consequence. Mrs. Bland
Potterson smiled a greeting.

"I must apologise for this intrusion," the newcomer said. "My only
excuse is that I shall merely keep you a matter of two minutes."

"Something to do with the election, perhaps?" Mr. Bland Potterson
suggested. "Take a chair, Mr.--er--Mallincourt."

"Your surmise is correct," the visitor agreed. "Something to do with the
election."

He produced a packet of letters from his pocket, folded together and
secured with a rubber band. Something about those letters from the first
seemed ominous--the mauve notepaper, the faint odour of cheap patchouli!

"A quarter of an hour ago," the young man went on, "you bought and have
doubtless already destroyed a packet of letters written to you both by
the domestic servant whom you, Mr. Bland Potterson, seduced. You
imagined that you were destroying the originals. You were not. You were
destroying copies which had been palmed off upon a cheap blackmailer.
The originals have been kept for a different purpose. Here they are. Ten
thousand pounds would not buy them, Mr. Bland Potterson. Your
resignation from your candidature of the Western Division of St. Pancras
would and will."

Mrs. Bland Potterson collapsed in her chair. Her husband sat with his
mouth open--incapable of speech. This amazing young man stood between
them, turning the letters over so that they could both catch a glimpse
of them. Gradually the horrible truth became perfectly apparent to Mr.
Bland Potterson. These were, without a doubt, the genuine letters. There
had seemed to him something inexplicably unfamiliar about the others.

"Who are you?" he demanded at last.

"I am a patriot," the visitor replied. "I live for the sake of my
country, and I conceive it very much against my country's interests that
you, sir, should become a member of the British Parliament. Mr. Hulings
Johnson is an infinitely better man. All my friends wish Mr. Hulings
Johnson to be elected. As there will be no time to secure a new
candidate, it seems to me that he probably will be. The time is very
short. I should recommend, sir, that you take to your bed to-night, send
for your doctor, announce your illness and communicate with your party
organisation."

There was a babel of angry questions, disjointed threats, unbridled fury
from Mr. and Mrs. Bland Potterson. The young gentleman who had
introduced himself as the Honorable Gervase Mallincourt once more waved
the letters in their faces and turned towards the door.

"If the announcement of your resignation, sir, appears in the evening
press to-morrow, upon my word as a gentleman, the letters will be
destroyed or returned to you--whichever you prefer. If it does not
appear, I shall be on the platform of your meeting at two o'clock in the
afternoon. Do not trouble to ring. I can find my own way out."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I came," Miss Mott said severely, "because I was curious."

"And you will remain," her companion replied, as they descended the
stairs into the Grill Room, "because you are going to have a delightful
dinner."

"What have you done to yourself?" she asked. "You look about twenty
years older and, although you have been frightfully clever about it, I
know that that is not your own hair, and those lines in your face are
not natural."

"We criminals," he assured her, "get into the way of this sort of thing.
We are quite accustomed to being blonds one evening and _bruns_ the
next! You may yet see me as Father Christmas. How thankful I am," he
went on, as they seated themselves in the bar and ordered cocktails,
"that you are on the right side of the fence. You will never need to
disguise yourself. On the whole, I am glad that you did not wear
black--although I'm afraid that that was obstinacy--that particular
shade of grey goes with your eyes. You are very distracting, Miss
Mott--"

"I did not come here to listen to you talking nonsense," she said
severely.

"Of course not. I know that," he acknowledged. "Wait a minute. This has
been a busy day. Let's drain these cocktails; then I will take you to
the little corner table I have engaged. You shall read the menu of the
dinner I have ordered and then, when I am quite sure that nothing would
induce you to get up and leave me until after the dinner has been
served, I shall tell you what you are dying to hear."

She looked at him curiously. After all, he had not exaggerated. They
were very beautiful grey eyes and very beautifully set.

"I could almost believe," she said, "that you are rather masterful."

"I am also disagreeable," he told her, "if I don't get my own way."

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott read the menu and gave a little sigh of content. She had a
weakness for exquisite food.

"Nothing," she assured him, "would induce me to leave until after the
strawberries!"

"Then here is the truth," her companion confessed. "Such matters do not
come within the sphere of our activities as a rule, but I have a young
cousin, brilliantly clever, who is aching to get into Parliament. Mr.
Bland Potterson's withdrawal at the last moment will make the seat a
certainty for him. How we got to know about the letters doesn't matter.
We should never have done anything about them in an ordinary way--not in
our line at all--but in a good cause, against a Bland Potterson,
everything is admissible. The letters you got back were copies. I have
just shown the originals to Mr. Bland Potterson. I think that he would
have given me more than five pounds for them but I told him that there
was only one price. That he will pay. To-morrow night you will see the
announcement of his sudden illness and retirement!"

Miss Mott's lips parted in a faint smile. There was a twinkle in her
eyes as she watched the Amontillado being reverently poured into her
consomm.

"Perhaps," she murmured, "after all, five pounds were as much as my
copies were worth!"




II

THE MAGIC POPGUN


Miss Mott, engaged in her usual Wednesday afternoon task of answering
the inevitable crop of letters demanding her advice in next week's _Home
Talks_, paused in perplexity before one of the last she opened. She read
it slowly, and, as she read, the delicate pink colour mounted almost to
her temples. Her eyes shone--deep-set, grey eyes, Miss Mott possessed,
with silky lashes, the eyes of a beauty, notwithstanding her demure
appearance. Her fingers distinctly shook. Yet the letter in itself
seemed harmless enough. It was written on what appeared to be Club
stationery of expensive quality, but the address at the top had been
carefully cut out:--

     Dear Miss Mott--_it began_--

     Give me your advice, please, in the next issue of your paper. I
     have recently met and been immensely attracted by a young lady
     whose friendship and affection I should much like to gain.
     Unfortunately I have not, up to now, led what is termed a
     respectable life, and I am afraid if she became aware of the nature
     of my profession she would not grant me the privilege of her
     acquaintance. Should I be justified, under the circumstances,
     bearing in mind the fact that my intentions are what are termed
     "strictly honourable," in seeking her friendship under an assumed
     name, and endeavouring to secure her interest in me before I
     divulged my profession?

     Please reply to

     V.J.

Miss Mott placed this epistle on one side, and answered all the others
first. Then she turned back to the waiting letter, lifted it for one
moment to her dainty nostrils, and half closed her eyes. Afterwards,
with no further display of sentiment, she thrust a sheet of paper into
her typewriter, and dealt with it:

     V.J. I am surprised that you should ask me such an unintelligent
     question. Under no circumstances would you be justified in
     approaching the young lady until you have entirely changed the
     manner of your life, and are prepared to live according to accepted
     standards.

Miss Mott, whose touch upon her typewriter was usually both light and
delicate, thumped out these few lines with unaccustomed force and
energy. Afterwards she rang the bell for the tall, bespectacled young
girl who acted as her secretary.

"Ring up Scotland Yard for me, Amy," she instructed, "and enquire
whether Superintendent Detective Wragge is in. If so, put me through to
him on the telephone."

"Superintendent Detective Wragge. Yes, Miss Mott."

"My uncle," the latter continued. "And afterwards, Amy, take this
package of manuscript round to the _Home Talks_ office."

The girl accepted a bulky envelope and retreated to her own den.
Presently the telephone bell rang. Miss Mott exchanged a few words with
her uncle and arranged to lunch with him at one-fifteen that day at the
Milan Grill Room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Superintendent Detective Wragge was a big, loosely built man, whose
success in his profession could not have depended in any way upon his
ability to disguise himself from his prospective victims, for he was a
person of unusual appearance. He was over six feet tall and his face was
large, creased and lined. His eyes were shrewd and penetrating, his
mouth sensitive and humorous. He might more easily have been taken for a
Cabinet Minister, or a barrister, than a detective. He was known at the
Yard, and to a certain section of the criminal world, as "Rags", and he
enjoyed a thoroughly well-earned popularity with both. His successes had
mostly been achieved from the armchair behind his desk and were owing in
large measure to his amazing memory of and insight into the ways and
habits of the criminal world. He was commonly reported to be able to
tell you offhand the favourite haunts and habits of any well-known
evil-doer, together with his chosen brand of cigarettes, and any other
personal details. He seldom stirred from his room in Scotland Yard, but,
on the few occasions when he sallied out professionally, either
eastwards or westwards, things usually happened. He was very fond of
his only niece, and it was, to a certain extent, under his auspices,
that she had combined her present venture with her newspaper activities.

"Is it true, Uncle," Miss Mott asked him, during the course of their
lunch, "that you know the names and nicknames of every one of the
principal criminals in London?"

"Perfectly true, my dear," he assented. "Nothing much in that. There
aren't more than twenty or thirty of what we call 'big shots.' The
remainder work under them in gangs."

"Do you know of a criminal I read about in the papers once, whose
nickname is Violet Joe?" she enquired artlessly.

"Why, do you?"

She was a little disconcerted by the swiftness of the rejoinder, but she
adroitly concealed the fact.

"I heard him spoken of the other day, quite by accident," she confided.
"I haven't any information about him, if that's what you were hoping."

"No, I don't suppose you would have," her uncle mused. "Violet Joe
doesn't give himself away like some of the others do. If you were in a
position to do anything about him, it would be the biggest send-off your
show could possibly have."

"He's--bad?"

"I wouldn't say that he's bad, but he's terribly clever," Superintendent
Wragge replied, with an unusual note of seriousness in his tone. "He and
his chief--Boss Meredith--are about the only two of the big five I
couldn't lay my hands on at any time, if there was any object in it.
Violet Joe's too clever for the ordinary police brain. All we can hope
is that some day he makes just one slip. Then, by God, we'll have a look
into his past."

"That doesn't sound very pleasant," Miss Mott shivered.

"Crime isn't pleasant," was her uncle's dry response. "It's all right to
read and write about, but it's a nasty business to live amongst. Don't
let's talk about it. Have an ice before your coffee?"

"I will have a chocolate and vanilla ice mixed," Miss Mott
announced--"and, in the meanwhile, why shouldn't we talk of it? In my
new department, I might be mixed up with criminals at any moment. Crime
fascinates me. I'm tired of giving advice about these courtship and
domestic matters. I should like to be drawn into a really serious
affair."

"Then you're a little fool and I'm sorry I ever encouraged you to start
your intelligence agency," Superintendent Wragge growled. "Crime--real
crime--is an ugly and beastly thing. I don't suppose you'll ever come in
touch with it and I sincerely hope you won't."

Their conversation was broken into in somewhat abrupt fashion. A
good-looking, exceedingly well-turned out young man, who was passing
their table, paused, and, with a courteous bow, held out his hand to the
Superintendent. He was moderately tall, with clean-cut features, a
pleasant mouth, shrewd eyes, and brown hair which had a distinct wave in
it where it was brushed back behind his ears. He wore a blue serge suit,
with a tie of elusive purple, and a bunch of violets in his buttonhole.

"Superintendent Wragge, isn't it?" he remarked, with an ingratiating
smile. "I am afraid you don't remember me."

"Not entirely," the Superintendent admitted, as he shook hands. "To say
that your face is familiar wouldn't be exactly a compliment, as you seem
to know my profession."

"About two months ago," the newcomer reminded him, "you came to Amberley
Square--wedding reception, you know--Lady Hoskinson's. You had a man
there already, watching over the wedding presents, but you thought you
might spot a pet thief you were after."

"I remember the circumstance, but not you," the Superintendent
meditated.

The young man sighed.

"Lady Hoskinson is my aunt," he confided. "Victor Jones is my name. I
asked you to have a drink and you wouldn't."

The Superintendent shook his head.

"It doesn't sound like me," he objected. "All the same, there was
a--what did you say your name was?"

"Victor Jones," the young man repeated. "Might I have the pleasure--"

He glanced towards Miss Mott. Her uncle accepted the hint.

"Mr. Victor Jones--my niece, Miss Mott."

The young man took Miss Mott's somewhat timidly proffered hand in his.
She looked into his eyes and fear came.

"I am delighted," he murmured.

There was a moment's somewhat curious silence. For some reason or other,
Miss Mott, not usually a shy young woman, seemed incapable of speech.

"You hadn't the best of luck that night, had you, Superintendent
Wragge?" Mr. Victor Jones continued easily. "Your man was there. You
knew that. You couldn't spot him and the diamond pendant was stolen.
Never been recovered to this day, my aunt tells me."

"You seem to have the events of that evening at your finger ends,"
Superintendent Wragge remarked, "but, curiously enough, even now I don't
seem to remember you."

He frowned, as though in a further effort of memory, gazing intently at
the young man. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. Mr. Victor Jones was bending
over Miss Mott, and she was trying hard to take no note of the appeal in
his eyes, to be unaware of the scent of violets creeping once more into
her nostrils. Her heart was beating fast. Furthermore, she was somehow
conscious of the sense of drama closing in upon her.

"You, too, they tell me, are, in a small way, a follower in your
uncle's profession," he remarked.

"A very small way indeed," she assented deprecatingly.

She raised her eyes and looked at him, and what he saw in those grey
depths was quite sufficient warning to him. He smiled back a message of
reassurance and left her swiftly. She herself had heard nothing, but she
had seen her uncle's urgent summons to the _matre d'htel_, the
whispered replies, the man's hurried departure and egress through the
door. Then she heard a disappointed exclamation. Mr. Victor Jones had
swung away from the door, crossed the Grill Room, and plunged into the
Restaurant, disappearing almost at once amongst the incoming crowd.
Superintendent Wragge, with an agility little short of marvellous,
followed him, and Miss Mott was left alone with her thoughts....

It was at least a quarter of an hour before Superintendent Wragge
reappeared. He resumed his seat very much as though nothing had
happened, but he pushed on one side the glass of very mild white wine, a
bottle of which he was sharing with his niece, and ordered a double
whisky and soda.

"Sorry to leave you, my dear," he apologised. "I had an idea--merely an
idea--but one can't afford in my profession to neglect even the
semblance of one. That young man now! What the mischief made him come to
this table and tell me a deliberate falsehood?"

"Did he?" Miss Mott asked simply.

"You heard him tell me that his name was Victor Jones, and that he had
met me at his aunt's the afternoon the old lady persuaded me to go in
there and superintend the arrangements for guarding her daughter's
wedding presents. That was a distinct untruth. I never met him there or
any one like him. The only young man who approached me was a fair,
insignificant little chap, with an eyeglass, who was a brother of the
bride's, and even he didn't ask me to have a drink. What this fellow's
object was in telling me that rigmarole, I cannot imagine."

"Perhaps," Miss Mott suggested modestly, "he wanted an introduction to
me. I am afraid--he had been looking at me a good deal and every one
knows who you are, so I daresay he tried a bluff."

Superintendent Detective Wragge stroked his chin and regarded his niece
thoughtfully.

"That never occurred to me," he acknowledged. "You are, I suppose,
personable. It may have been that, after all."

"Tell me about your idea," she begged. "What made you send for the
_matre d'htel_ and afterwards follow the young man?"

Her uncle leaned forward in his place. He satisfied himself that there
was no one else within hearing distance.

"I will tell you," he confided. "We have information that Violet Joe is
in town and that there is something doing almost at once. That young man
had to pass my table. He is notorious for doing impudent things. It
would have been just like him to try to establish a false identity with
me. Then look at his name. Probably invented on the spur of the
moment--Victor Jones--Violet Joe. Look at the clever way he disappeared
too. There was a touch of the habitual criminal there."

"He could have passed our table without your seeing him," she pointed
out. "He needn't have come to such a public place, either, unless he had
chosen."

"Quite so," her uncle agreed, "but we know that Violet Joe will take big
risks to frequent the best places and he always prefers offence to
defence. If I had looked up as he passed, he might have been forced into
the defensive. As it was, he chose the offensive, and, provided there is
anything in my idea, he got away with it."

Miss Mott looked at her vis--vis very earnestly.

"Do you really believe that that was Violet Joe who stopped at this
table and to whom I was introduced?" she asked him point-blank.

"It might have been," was as far as her uncle would commit himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two dreary weeks! February weeks too, of snow and slush, frost and swift
thaw! Outside the weather was filthy. Inside her little office, Miss
Mott was depressed. Her volume of correspondence had been as large as
ever. She had written two articles for her paper, which had been most
favourably received. She had installed a service of electric bells in
her office--one under her foot, which would bring her prompt help in
case of unwanted callers--and she had purchased the smallest revolver
made, which would go into her hand bag and which she had learned to use
with some skill. Not a caller, however, legitimate or otherwise, had
disturbed the serenity of her days. No perplexed husband or anxious wife
had called to solicit her aid. Her connection with the criminal world
seemed to have ended as suddenly as it had begun. Then, about five
o'clock on an impossible afternoon, the crash came. Miss Mott began to
be very busy indeed.

The telephone started the riot. She was told that her uncle wished to
speak to her from his room at Scotland Yard. When they were connected,
however, he seemed to have curiously little to say. He asked a few
family questions, added his own to a million other daily curses upon the
weather, talked vaguely on various matters, and only once broke into
adventurous ground.

"Seen or heard anything more about that young man who disturbed our
luncheon party?" he enquired.

"The young man who might have been Violet Joe? I was just going to ask
you that. Not a thing. Have you?" Miss Mott rejoined innocently.

"Indirectly. I believe he is about, though. We must have another
luncheon one day next week."

"I should love to. I have no engagements."

He still held on. Whilst she was wondering what on earth he had rung her
up about, he coughed uneasily.

"By-the-bye, Lucie," he said, "while I think of it, if ever anything
should happen to me suddenly--foul weather this for elderly people, and
I've got a bit of a cough--my will is at Wyman's the solicitor, 18
Holborn Row. Got that?"

"Why, of course, Uncle, but what's the matter?" she enquired, suddenly
alarmed. "You're not ill, are you?"

"Not I," he assured her, his voice suddenly more natural now that he had
got rid of what he had really rung up to say. "Just occurred to me,
that's all. I am perfectly well, but--there's no reason why you
shouldn't know--"

"Shouldn't know what?"

"I'm going out to-night after Violet Joe's crowd."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was nothing Miss Mott could do. No good ringing up hysterically,
and begging him to go safely home, and get to bed before the snow came
on again. Her uncle was Superintendent Detective Wragge, and if it was
his duty to go out after a famous gang of criminals, he had to go. She
was sensible enough to know that and not to dream of interfering. All
the same, she was sorry that this one particular person was concerned in
the affair.... She told herself that her little romance was a thing
thinner than air, that it was already melting away before the hot fire
of blazing reality. Yet it hurt her very badly to know that before
to-morrow Violet Joe might be arrayed in the manacles of shame, or her
uncle--she was fond of him too--for his sake, she might have to make
that little journey to Holborn Row.

       *       *       *       *       *

Footsteps upon the stairs--just as she was putting on her hat! Soft,
swift footsteps, mounting through the darkness of the two upper flights
of stairs. She felt the quickening of her pulses. She had plenty of time
to get to her newly installed electric bell beneath her chair. She had
plenty of time to get to the telephone. She did neither. She let her
coat slip back from her shoulders, leaving her slim and straight,
flowerlike in her one-piece frock. Then she waited. To others it might
have seemed long--Miss Mott had lost count of time--the footsteps at the
door, the masked face peering through the aperture, the cautious,
furtive entrance, the figure of her former visitor, lithe, alert, the
flashing eyes, pinpricks of fire darting round the room.

"You are alone?" he snapped out.

"Absolutely," she assured him. "Look under my desk, if you like."

He seated himself coolly in her clients' chair as she glided into her
own place. Her alarm bell was under her foot, the telephone instrument
at her elbow. In the drawer at her right hand was her miniature
revolver--and something else she would have hated him to have found--a
torn, purple silk mask, with a few spots of blood upon it, and a
withered bunch of violets.

"Miss Mott," he began, "I don't want to seem sentimental, but I do want
to save your uncle's life. Tell me where he is or how to get in touch
with him."

She tried her best to steady her voice, and, on the whole, she was
fairly successful.

"My uncle has gone after you, if you are Violet Joe," she replied.

"But where?" he demanded. "Where am I supposed to be?"

"I have not the slightest idea."

"Don't be a fool," he enjoined sharply. "Didn't you hear what I said? I
want to save your uncle's life, if I can. If you won't tell me how to
get at him--he's finished."

"Why should you want to save his life?" she persisted. "You are Violet
Joe, aren't you?"

"I suppose so. I am not the only criminal in the world, though. There
are others more anxious to get rid of your uncle than I am, and with
more cause. I think he's a very nice old gentleman and perfectly
harmless if left alone. All the same, I can't save his life without your
help."

"What can I do?" she faltered.

"Do you know any one at Scotland Yard?" he asked. "What I mean is, do
you know any one who knows that you're Wragge's niece?"

"Several people."

"Get in touch with them as quick as you can then," he begged. "My car is
waiting downstairs--a small black coup. Tell the man to drive you to
Scotland Yard. Mr. Grant's orders, say. Not my name. Code word. Go to
one of your friends. Tell him of your business here. You have a client
whose confidence you must respect. You can't mention names, but you've
been given a word of warning about your uncle. You want to know where he
is. I'm the nameless client, mind. Don't mention me, unless you want to
give me away. The telephone's no use. They might answer you, but they
wouldn't tell you the truth, unless they saw you."

"All right," she promised. "I'll go. What about you?"

"I'll wait here till you come back."

He helped her on with her coat. He had drawn off his gloves and she
caught a glimpse of a fine, strong hand--a man's hand, although the
nails were carefully manicured. She caught also more strongly than ever
a wave of the perfume of violets and shrank from their fragrance. He
threw open the door. His eyes flashed down upon her through the slits in
his mask and again there was a gleam in them of something personal and
appealing.

"God, how pretty you are!" he muttered.... "Hurry, hurry!"

Miss Mott fled down the stairs to the lift, tingling from head to foot.
Perhaps she was angry; perhaps she was sorry; perhaps she was glad. Many
a time afterwards she asked herself that question, but at the moment she
certainly did not know.

It was exactly thirty-two minutes later when the man who had been left
behind in Miss Mott's room heard her footsteps upon the stairs and threw
open the door. She was looking distinctly relieved.

"False alarm!" she announced cheerfully. "They didn't hesitate about
telling me for a moment. There are no flying squad orders for to-night
and Uncle had to have his evening clothes sent down to the office. He is
dining with Mr. Anthony Durban, who has something to do with the Stock
Exchange, at 11-B, Manchester Square. Uncle's rather fond of the Stock
Exchange, you know, and he knows heaps of brokers."

Her visitor groaned. Already he was buttoning up his coat. He glanced at
the platinum and gold watch upon his wrist.

"Look here," he said, "this is all you can do now. Ring up Scotland Yard
and ask if they can find any Mr. Anthony Durban living in Manchester
Square, or anywhere else, for that matter. When they've discovered that
there isn't such a person, they'd better order out the flying squad in
case they get a summons."

"Do you mean that Uncle is in danger, that he didn't go to Manchester
Square?" she gasped.

Her visitor looked back from the door. His fingers were already toying
with the fastenings of his mask.

"Little Miss Mott," he explained, "in Chicago, when a man who has been
selling secrets is asked by another whom he may suspect of being a
gangster to take an automobile ride with him, he orders a drink and
knows it's the last he's going to have on earth. It's pretty well the
same thing here."

"What do you mean?" she shrieked.

"I mean that when any one in the criminal world is asked to dine with
Mr. Anthony Durban in Manchester Square, he knows very well that it's
his finish."

She wrung her hands.

"But we must do something."

He reflected for a moment, but he only shook his head.

"Ring up Scotland Yard. It's all you can do."

"But where shall I tell them to go?" she asked breathlessly.

He hesitated for a suspiciously long time.

"I can't tell you that," he sighed. "You see, after all, although I'm
only in with them on certain occasions, I'm nevertheless one of the
gang. I'll do what I can, but I'm afraid it won't be worth a snap of the
fingers. It's heaven or hell, according to his past life, for your
lamented uncle."

The door swung to and closed. The footsteps of Miss Mott's departing
visitor, swift and muffled, were still audible upon the stairs. Miss
Mott was not listening. She was studying intently the oblong purple
card, fallen apparently from his clothing as he had left the room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Superintendent Detective Wragge, a little earlier in the evening,
descended from his taxicab in front of a handsome mansion in Belgrave
Square and presented his hat and coat to a pompous-looking butler. Any
slight misgiving he might have felt at the somewhat unusual conditions
of his visit should certainly have been allayed by a brief study of his
surroundings. The family portraits upon the walls were without a doubt
valuable and authentic. The butler might have served in ducal households
from the moment of his first escape from the pantry. The furniture was
heavy and ponderously Victorian, the carpets soft to the feet.
Everywhere was an atmosphere of complete and unassailable
respectability.

"Has Mr. Thornton arrived?" Superintendent Wragge asked. "He was taking
me to Manchester Square to dine with Mr. Durban, but telephoned me at
the last moment to come here instead."

"That is quite all right, sir," the butler replied. "Mr. Thornton will
be here in a few minutes and Mr. Durban is expecting you. Mr. Durban
being a bachelor, sir," he confided, "the drawing-room is seldom used.
We receive in the lounge."

He threw open the door of a spacious library in which five men were
seated in various attitudes of ease.

"Mr. Wragge, sir," he announced.

A tall, thin man of apparently early middle age slipped from the edge of
a heavy mahogany table, dropped his eyeglass and threw down the evening
paper which he had been reading.

"Good evening, Mr. Wragge," he said, holding out his hand. "Glad you
were able to join us. Not sure whether you know everybody.
Hartigan--Dick Hartigan--you must have met, I think. Ponsford, Bill
Cheyne, and Bolton. There they are! Terrible lot of fellows, but they'll
tell you all you want to know about the Stock Exchange and they are just
as anxious to meet you as I am. Meredith, my name is, by-the-bye, not
Durban."

"Mr. Thornton, I presume," the Superintendent remarked, after a brief
but hectic silence, "will not be coming."

"Mr. Thornton is not dining to-night," Meredith acknowledged. "As a
matter of fact, he never dines with us and we're only slightly
acquainted. He told one of us of your weakness for the Stock Exchange
and we paid him five thousand pounds to bring you here. You see how
highly we value you--or your absence--whichever way you care to put it."

Superintendent Wragge shook hands with everybody, and, although he knew
now that he was face to face with death, he addressed a pleasantly
indifferent word to each one of the men whom he had been hunting so
assiduously. Syd Bolton! How they had combed the East End, and even
parts of the West End, for the famous international jewel robber. They
had never thought of looking for him, though, in Belgrave Square! One
little link, one slip in his statement, and the Haxelly murderer was
found. Meredith, his gracious host, smiling so imperturbably, would
surely take that one-minute walk at eight o'clock if only the handcuffs
could be fastened upon his wrists....

A footman handed cocktails around.

"Success to crime!" Meredith remarked, raising his glass.

"Rather a discourteous toast under present conditions," Cheyne drawled.

"Make it crime and all connected with crime," Meredith amended.

"The idea merits a second cocktail," Bolton declared, helping himself.

"And a response from me," Superintendent Detective Wragge added boldly.
"I represent the law. You are under arrest, Meredith. You are all under
arrest."

There was a roar of laughter, yet Wragge had his moment. He sprang
backwards towards the door, and out came his two automatics, one in each
hand. It was in this fashion that he had captured Bob Perrigon and the
Perrigon gang, and earned his first stripe. But to-night he had cleverer
people to deal with. The men in front of him cowered back, or seemed to
cower, and threw up their hands readily enough. Then from behind came a
terrible exhibition of force--just that pompous-looking butler, who had
once been within an ace of winning the middle-weight championship, and
one footman--footsteps, as though on wool, a grip of steel, and back
went those automatics. Away they went clattering on to the carpet and
Superintendent Wragge was unarmed. The tension was over. There was a
fresh outburst of laughter. Every one took another cocktail,--and this
time with Wragge.

"Success to the prevention of crime," they toasted, knowing that they
had escaped death by inches.

"I am with you, gentlemen," Wragge declared, accepting his second glass.
"An excellent toast! To the prevention of crime! I think that if I had
been of a more bloodthirsty temperament in the few seconds at my
disposal, I would have done something towards it just now."

"Etiquette, my dear fellow!" Meredith murmured. "One must follow the
rules."

They all drank. They were inclined to like Wragge, but they closed in
upon him, and he knew that death was not far off. Then there came an
unexpected, an almost ludicrous interruption. The butler threw wide open
the connecting doors, showing beyond the vista of a round dinner table,
flower adorned, with servants standing behind the chairs.

"Dinner is served, sir," he announced.

There was a queer hesitation while they all glanced towards their guest.
He set down his empty cocktail glass.

"Excellent!" he acclaimed. "I am hungry and Thornton assured me that you
had a first-rate chef."

There was admiration in their eyes as they looked at him--cold eyes,
avaricious eyes, lascivious eyes, murderous eyes. All the world, though,
loves a brave man.

"Lead on, Meredith," Bolton called out. "We are a quarter of an hour
late already."

"And it's up to us," Cheyne put in, "to see that our guest dines well."

Superintendent Detective Wragge did dine exceedingly well. He ate
caviare and, looking over his shoulder to be sure that it was being
offered, waited for the vodka. He was even a little peevish at the late
arrival of the lemon. His turtle soup he tasted first before he
permitted the wineglassful of Amontillado. Of the turbot he thoroughly
approved, but asked twice for sauce--he had missed the lobster at first.
Conversation swung round to the doings of the Stock Exchange, with which
institution it seemed they were all in some way connected, and Wragge
himself contributed one or two pertinent observations. Once, even, he
ventured to ask for advice upon a certain matter of taking up a new
issue--a gesture which brought a smile to the lips of every one of them.
They all appreciated his _sang-froid_, for they themselves were brave
men, but they had looked forward to this occasion for a long time and
planned it most carefully, and they never for one moment intended him to
study the quotations in the next morning's papers. With dessert, came
port in heavy cut-glass decanters, and a single bottle of Chteau Yquem.
It was then that silence fell upon the little company and Meredith
leaned forward.

"Wragge," he said, "I suppose you realise the position?"

"I imagine," the Superintendent replied, "that as you have allowed me to
see you all face to face, you mean to kill me."

Meredith nodded.

"As a man of common sense," he pointed out, "you must see that we have
no other alternative. For years, you have been the only man in Scotland
Yard whom we have feared, and latterly you have shown signs of vision
which, to be frank, have alarmed us. We are engaged in a species of
warfare, but we can't take prisoners. We have come unmasked to meet you
to-night. To our guest that means death."

"I understand the position perfectly," Wragge admitted. "If I lived,
there isn't one of you I shouldn't be after in the morning, working
backwards from this, I must confess, unsuspected rendezvous."

"Precisely," Meredith murmured. "Now, to prove that we are in earnest,
let me run through a few names. Inspector Lowden. Now, you recollect
Lowden?"

"Died from a stroke in Hyde Park Square," Wragge reflected.

"He dined with us," Meredith confided. "Detective Simpson."

"He was found dead in the Metropolitan Hotel--no evidence," Wragge
observed.

"Precisely. He dined with us. Inspector Holmes."

"Found dead in Kensington Gardens, no signs of violence," Wragge
remembered.

"Exactly. He too dined with us. There have been others. There will be
you."

"You are not helping me towards the enjoyment of my dinner,"
Superintendent Wragge grumbled.

"The time for that sort of pleasantry has passed," Meredith pronounced,
with a note of almost tragic irritability in his tone. "My butler is
now serving the port. With it, he offers a bottle of Chteau Yquem,
1870--a really priceless wine. No one else, Mr. Wragge, will take the
Chteau Yquem. It will save time and trouble if you do."

The Superintendent made a grimace.

"Why not study my tastes," he complained. "I hate sweet wine, and I love
port. From the colour, I am sure that is vintage wine. Jubilee, perhaps,
or even better--'90."

They looked at him steadfastly--that little vicious circle, each one
prepared with a readier means of death. Then, into the silence, there
broke a strange voice--the voice of the one other man who had the
_entre_. They all stared at him in amazement. He passed through the
folding doors, which were immediately closed behind him. Meredith stood
up. The two faced one another--the newcomer in the purple mask,
and--Meredith.

"Sorry I'm late," the former observed. "Don't bother about dinner. I've
already dined. Why are you having a meeting to which I haven't been
invited?"

Meredith regarded him with cold disapproval.

"This isn't your show," he declared. "You're not with us when it comes
to this sort of thing and we don't want you around."

"What kind of a show is it then?" the other insisted. "And what does it
mean?"

"Take the truth, if you will have it, and be done with it," Meredith
replied. "We've got Wragge here and we're going to kill him. Damned
well time, too! He'd have had us by next week."

"You're going to kill him, are you?" the man in the purple mask repeated
blandly. "Well, I'm here to see that you don't."

"What the hell have you to do with it?" Meredith expostulated. "You're
not in the inner circle. You've no right here. Since you are here,
though, look around. Can't you see--it's an unmasked dinner. What's to
happen to us if Wragge lives?"

"A problem, I admit," the latest arrival acknowledged, subsiding on to
the arm of an easy-chair. "Let us devote a few minutes to thinking it
out. Have you any suggestions to make, Superintendent?"

"Can't think of any, except that I damned well won't drink that sweet
wine," Wragge rejoined. "I'd sooner die some other way. I came here to
take Meredith. I never expected to run into the whole gang, or I should
have had the G.F.S. around the corner. I might have suspected Thornton,
though," he concluded, after a moment's pause. "I knew that he was in a
devilish tight corner for money."

"One has to take a risk sometimes, in your profession as well as in
ours," Meredith remarked soothingly. "This time you happen to have lost.
It might have been worse. I do wish you'd drink a glass of that wine,
Wragge. It would save us so much trouble, and I hate an absolutely
fruitless discussion."

"Don't touch the stuff, Wragge," the man in the purple mask advised.
"You'd be dead in two minutes and carted off to Kensington Gardens or
somewhere in five."

Meredith scowled--a lean, melancholy-looking man, he was, with a scar on
one side of his cheek and deep lines in his face. He addressed the man
in the purple mask.

"Look here," he said, "we don't want to quarrel with you. You don't
belong here any longer and you've no right to interfere in anything we
choose to do. If Wragge doesn't drink a glass of that wine, in thirty
seconds he's going out another way."

"Better hear my proposition first," the other suggested. "You came here,
Superintendent, after Meredith. You didn't expect to meet these other
gentlemen."

"I certainly did not," Wragge admitted. "I have a fair amount of
self-confidence, but I should scarcely have ventured to tackle five such
illustrious gunmen single-handed."

"Very well then," his questioner continued, "what about Violet Joe?"

"I want him too."

"Well, here's a sporting offer for you. These men mean business and you
cannot possibly handle the crowd. I am Violet Joe. Will you blot this
little party out of your mind and forget every one else you have seen in
this room, if I give myself up?"

There was a moment's stupefied silence; then, from around the table, a
chorus of disapproval. Meredith shook his head.

"You're mad, Joe," he admonished. "How the devil could he make such a
promise, or, if he made it, keep it?... Tie him up," he ordered curtly.
"That's right," he added, as Cheyne and Bolton flung themselves upon the
Superintendent from behind. "He's going out. Fill a glass of the wine,
Hartigan. If he won't drink, I'll shoot him my--what the hell's this?"

"This," was Miss Mott, very savage and very determined, after all she
had overheard through the chink between the folding doors. She stood in
the open space between the two doors which he had just thrown back and
she proceeded forthwith to action. She seldom read detective stories and
was completely ignorant of the etiquette of a hold-up. She issued no
invitation nor gave any warning to her prospective victims. She simply
stood where she was and plugged the small bullets from her miniature
revolver into every one. Cheyne, who was engaged in tying up Wragge's
wrists, dropped the cord with a yell of pain. Bolton rolled over, with a
bullet in his shoulder blade. Hartigan, on the further side of the
table, collapsed momentarily, with a shriek of pain. Meredith she
missed, and, as she saw him leap towards her, she kept her last two
bullets to save her own life. She felt a grip upon her shoulder. Some
one--the man in the purple mask, who had announced himself as Violet
Joe--swung her behind the sheltering door, just as a bullet whistled
between them. Then--a new pandemonium seemed to break out. From down
below came the beating of a gong, electric bells were ringing
throughout the house. Every one who could stand on his feet seemed to
be rushing towards a distant corner of the dining room, while, to
complete the confusion, all the lights in the place went out. There was
the roar of an automatic fired at close quarters, a shout of anger, and
the slamming of a trapdoor. Miss Mott, left to herself, was very much
afraid, until from the middle of that pool of darkness she heard her
uncle's voice.

"Are you all right, Lucie?"

"Quite," she answered. "Are you?"

"That devil Meredith missed me from half a dozen yards," he grunted.
"Try to find a switch. I've got one of the fellows you shot to look
after. The G.F.S. are breaking in."

Miss Mott found the switch, and when the police made sudden and violent
appearance, streaming in from every door, they discovered Cheyne, who
was badly wounded, handcuffed upon the floor, Miss Mott staunching with
a white napkin the blood from a gash upon her uncle's forehead, a bolted
trapdoor underneath the dining table and not another soul.

"Do you know which way they have gone?" Superintendent Wragge snapped.

"I think so, sir," the Inspector, who had brought in the men, replied.
"There's a passage comes out of the area next door. We've got it
surrounded, anyway. I'll take another gun and be off," he added,
snatching one up from the table.

Superintendent Wragge rose unsteadily to his feet and poured himself out
a glass of champagne. To the Inspector's amazement, his superior was
shaking with suppressed laughter.

"What's the joke, sir?" he asked in astonishment.

Her uncle held out Miss Mott's weapon. In his huge hand it looked like a
child's first popgun.

"She's broken up the toughest gang in London with this," he guffawed.

The Inspector grinned, as he hurried out.... Superintendent Wragge,
although he stood on guard with a real gun in his hand, was still
shaking with uncontrollable laughter. Miss Mott's terrified eyes were
searching everywhere for Violet Joe.

But Violet Joe, by that time, was a long way off.




III

NOAH'S ARK


Miss Mott of _Home Talks_ and "Mott's Enquiry Agency" finished going
through her letters with a little sigh of relief and rang the bell to
indicate that she was ready to receive a waiting visitor. A few minutes
later a young woman was ushered in who seemed entirely typical of the
class whose domestic and love affairs Miss Mott so often supervised.

"This is Miss Moore?" Miss Mott asked, glancing at the card on the table
by her side.

"That is my name," the visitor admitted. "Miss Helen Moore."

Miss Mott looked her over calmly. The young woman was pretty in her way,
neatly dressed, with a pull-over hat, underneath the brim of which one
caught a glimpse of dark, very expressive eyes. She was obviously
nervous.

"Tell me all about it," Miss Mott begged, "in as few words as you can.
And tell me, too, why you didn't consult me by letter--which I very much
prefer."

"I expect I was silly," the girl replied. "I am always nervous where
Henry's concerned, thinking I might get him into trouble. Henry's my
young man, you see. We are sort of engaged to be married."

"What do you mean by 'sort of?"

"I mean that we were properly engaged," the young woman explained,
"until I found out things about the way he earned his living. Then I
called it off. Now he's getting troublesome again, though, and I don't
know what to do."

"Are you fond of him?" Miss Mott asked.

The girl considered the matter.

"I'm fonder of him than I am of any of the others around," she
acknowledged. "A girl must have a chap to go about with. I'd like to get
married too."

"What is there wrong about the way he earns his living?"

"He's a hairdresser by trade," the girl confided.

"Well, what is there wrong with that?" Miss Mott queried.

"Nothing, of course," the girl replied, "but I found out not long ago
that he's got what he calls a side line. He was always clever at making
people up for the stage--wigs and suchlike--and he's a perfect marvel at
disguising people. It's that what's got him into trouble."

"Go on," Miss Mott invited. "Tell me all about it."

"He's been working lately for a gang of criminals," the girl confessed.
"He can change any man's appearance in a quarter of an hour so that
you'd never know him. He's making good money at it, but they take him
out with them sometimes, and I'm afraid."

Miss Mott looked properly shocked.

"I should think so, indeed," she declared. "You mustn't have another
thing to do with him."

The girl's lips quivered.

"But I'm fond of him. He swears that if I'll marry him, he'll give it up
and get a regular job out in the country somewhere, so as to be away
from them all."

"Do you believe him?"

"I do--honest," the girl said earnestly. "What I wondered is, whether
you'd have just five minutes talk with him one day--let him come and see
you. You'd be able to make up your mind, then, what you think of him and
I'll do what you say."

"Very well," Miss Mott sighed. "When does he leave work?"

"Six o'clock," the young woman replied. "He's in a hairdressing
establishment in Hammersmith just now."

"He can come at half-past six to-morrow night," Miss Mott assented.
"I'll tell you what I think and give you my advice in next week's paper.
I prefer that to having you visit me here. Tell me your name again."

"Helen Moore."

"There will be a reply to you in my column. I will make use of your
initials--H.M."

The young woman rose to her feet.

"I'm very much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure," she said. "You won't
mind having Henry here a bit. I can promise you that. He's quite the
gentleman always, and when he's dressed up for the evening, you wouldn't
know him from any of these West End swells."

"It won't matter to me how he looks," Miss Mott assured her, a little
impatiently. "I shall make up my mind about him from the way he answers
my questions."

       *       *       *       *       *

Henry Leneveu was certainly a young man of a most displeasing type, Miss
Mott decided, as he was shown into her room on the following evening.
She disliked the shape of his head, the smallness of his eyes, his
smoothly brushed hair and his generally sleek appearance. He had good
looks of a certain sort and he was neatly enough dressed. Miss Mott,
however, distrusted him at first sight and Miss Mott was becoming quite
a physiognomist. She motioned him to a chair and went point-blank to the
matter.

"You want to marry Helen Moore, I understand," she said.

"That's what I mean to do," he acknowledged, a shade of truculence in
his tone. "She's got it into her head that because I've been off the
track once or twice, I sha'n't make her a good husband. That's all
old-fashioned stuff, of course, and not worth thinking about nowadays.
To please her, though, I've promised to run straight in the future. I've
saved a little money, I'm ready to settle down, and what I say is--the
sooner we're married the better."

"From your point of view, I daresay," Miss Mott agreed coldly. "The
question is, are you absolutely serious when you say that you've made up
your mind to run straight?"

"I've said so, haven't I?" was the impudent rejoinder. "I have an
outside line which pays far better than any ordinary work, but it's a
bit risky, perhaps. And, anyway, I've promised to give it up."

"Have you ever been in trouble?" Miss Mott asked.

"I was in prison for three weeks the month before last," he admitted,
with obvious reluctance.

"On a serious charge?"

"A charge of 'loitering with felonious intent'," Henry Leneveu confided
bitterly. "I was only strolling about, as any fellow might. They framed
that on me while they tried to get evidence of something else. They
couldn't do it. That's the only time I've been in prison."

She looked him straight in the eyes.

"They had something else against you, I suppose?"

"In a way they had," he confessed. "In the course of my profession, I've
waited on a good many of the criminal classes, and there was a great
deal of information they would have been glad to have from me. They
didn't get it--and that's the end of the matter."

"And you've honestly and truthfully made up your mind to go straight if
the girl marries you?"

"Of course I have," was the irritable reply.

"Has the young woman any money?" Miss Mott enquired, after a moment's
reflection.

"Yes, she's got a bit," Leneveu acknowledged grudgingly. "And a small
house left her by her aunt."

"I see," Miss Mott murmured. "Well, I don't think I need keep you any
longer, Mr. Leneveu. I shall think it over and you can tell Miss Moore
that she will receive my advice in next week's issue of the paper."

"What's that advice going to be?" he asked, picking up his hat.

Miss Mott glanced at him out of those eyes which could be so beautiful,
but which, at that moment, were cold and almost steely.

"That is my affair," she replied coolly.

The young man took ungracious leave, and Miss Mott, after a brief
conversation upon the telephone, proceeded to Scotland Yard and received
some terse but significant information from an inspector to whom her
uncle introduced her....

In next week's _Home Talks_, amongst the answers to correspondents, was
one which was very much to the point:

     To H.M.

     Have nothing whatever to do with the young man on any account.

That brief sentence made for Miss Mott a very cunning and unscrupulous
enemy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Boss Meredith suddenly paused in his task and laid upon the table the
gun which he had been cleaning. From some unseen place in the large,
stone-flagged kitchen of the old-fashioned Essex farmhouse, an electric
bell was tinkling. He leaned towards the window, listening, a glint of
feverish anxiety in his sunken eyes. His appearance had entirely changed
during the last few weeks. He had grown a short, straggling beard, and,
in his thick shooting boots and gaiters, flannel shirt and leather coat,
he represented well enough the typical keen sportsman back from an
hour's tramp after flighting duck. There was nothing whatever left of
the dandy in his unkempt appearance, and it is doubtful whether even
Superintendent Detective Wragge, if he had seen him at that moment,
would have recognised him as the debonair host of that murderous dinner
party in Belgrave Square.

The electric bell continued to ring. There were footsteps from all parts
of the house; Bolton and Hartigan--similarly attired in the garments of
sport--came stealthily in. They were equally unrecognisable, and as they
grouped themselves around the long oak table, they all three exchanged
glances of silent apprehension. Hartigan had already pulled out his
automatic, Bolton followed suit. Meredith, in greater danger than either
of them, had already laid his on the table in front of him. Gordon, the
pompous butler, reduced by some miracle to half his former size, made
swift and noiseless entrance.

"There's a motorcyclist coming down the dyke path," he announced. "The
lights are all out. Shall I put the bar on the door?"

Meredith reflected.

"He must have seen from the lane that we were lit up," he muttered.
"Better find out what he wants, Gordon. No nonsense, mind. We can't have
inquisitive people around here, at any price. If you have the slightest
suspicion--"

Gordon grinned.

"That's all right, sir," he interrupted. "There are several patches in
the near marsh would suck in the whole of Scotland Yard."

There was a ring at the bell--a hoarse, clattering summons of the
old-fashioned type. Meredith stooped down, picked up a couple of
mallards which he had brought in a few minutes before and threw them
upon the table, concealing under the feathers of the nearest one a very
deadly-looking automatic. Then he recommenced his task of cleaning his
gun....

Gordon was gone longer than they expected. There was nothing of alarm in
his face, however, when he returned.

"It's Henry Leneveu, our hairdresser," he announced. "The only man who
could make up your scar properly," he added, addressing Meredith. "He
was copped in the Hazel Street show, but they could only get him for
felonious loitering. We haven't seen anything of him since, but he kept
his mouth shut, all right."

Meredith frowned.

"Does he know we're here?" he asked.

"He appears to," the man replied. "He wants to see you."

"Bring him in," Meredith enjoined briefly.

Henry Leneveu, in the somewhat forbidding costume of a serious
motorcyclist, made due appearance. He was carrying his goggles in his
hand but his face was still half masked. He was splattered from head to
foot with mud, for there was no more desolate corner in Essex than this,
and the lanes to Ilsom Grange, as the place was called, were nothing but
frequently flooded cart tracks. Meredith eyed him coldly.

"What do you want here, Leneveu?" he asked. "You ought to know that
we're not inviting visitors."

The young man smiled deprecatingly.

"I know that, sir," he admitted. "I shouldn't have come if I'd dared
write, but I wasn't sure whether the 'busies' hadn't tampered with the
post office here. Thought I'd better run down. I've a couple of boxes of
cartridges tied on behind there, and if I had met any one I should have
said that I was from the gun-makers'--that you had telephoned for some
extra special Number Fours."

Meredith nodded. At least his visitor showed intelligence.

"All right," he said. "You're here. Now, what about it?"

"Could you give me a drop of something?" the young man begged. "It's
been a cruel ride."

Gordon, who had remained in the room, at a gesture from his master,
produced whisky and soda. Leneveu drank thirstily.

"It's that young woman, sir," he confided--"the one who plugged the baby
shot into Cheyne and Mr. Hartigan here."

"What about her?" Meredith asked swiftly.

"I saw her last week with Wragge," the young man went on. "You may say
it's not my business now, as you're not working, but I'm hoping the time
will come when you're back again and finding us lads useful. I've learnt
a few new tricks with the pencil, mind, and remember we're always ready
for a scrap or a job of any sort--especially now."

Meredith nodded.

"We'll see," he promised. "Go on."

"She's a vicious young dame, that," Leneveu continued, with an ugly
twist of the lips. "And it's my belief that bureau of hers is nothing
but a fake. She's there to pass on what she can pick up to the Yard. She
was working with Wragge all right, that night. Anyway, I sent a question
to her column in the paper and got permission to call and see her. We
talked a lot of tommyrot about a young woman I was supposed to be
engaged to, but I noticed a few things."

"Well?"

"She was studying an A.B.C. when I got there. She laid it face downwards
upon the desk when I came in, but I saw the page. I bought an A.B.C.
when I left her. Page fifty-seven it was. On page fifty-seven there are
the trains to Driseworth. That's the station for here, ain't it?"

Meredith frowned. A curse broke from Hartigan's lips.

"Yes, that's the station for here," the former admitted thoughtfully.
"No one in their senses would think of coming by train, though. The
roads are almost impossible now, but between here and the station there
are four miles under water when the tide's up."

"Well, anyway," Leneveu reiterated, "she was looking up Driseworth in
the A.B.C., and I wondered why."

"How did you know where we were?" Meredith asked curiously.

"I'm captain of Number Two gang," was the somewhat bumptious reply. "We
arranged the transport down here."

"That's right," Hartigan put in. "Number Two are a good lot of boys.
They've done their work well, up till now."

"Go on then, Leneveu," Meredith enjoined.

"There isn't much else," the young man admitted, "but while I was there
the telephone rang, and she spoke. I'm pretty well sure it was to her
uncle at Scotland Yard. She wanted to see him to-day, but he had to go
to Southampton. They made a rendezvous for to-morrow night. I was
wondering whether, if the young lady was interested in Driseworth,
something hadn't better be done to stop that meeting."

Meredith looked gloomily out of the casement window. Filled though his
brain was with sinister thoughts, the memory of that piquant little face
was also there, mocking him.

"When will the _Lavinia_ be down the river, Bolton?" he enquired.

"Not until Saturday at four o'clock," was the regretful reply. "Johnson
couldn't get her there before, however hard he tried. He's got to change
her colour, or the whole wharf will be talking."

Meredith nodded.

"You've still got something on your mind, Leneveu?" he asked, turning to
his visitor.

"The young woman's office," the latter confided slowly, "is in a damned
silly place for any one who meddles with things she ought to leave
alone. She's only got a young girl and an errand boy working for her
there, and they always leave before her. The hall porter's O.K., and
there's only the lift boy besides."

"Well?"

Henry Leneveu swung his goggles backwards and forwards.

"There's only one safe way," he remarked, "but I'm not out for that sort
of thing."

"Chickens, you lads are becoming, nowadays," Meredith sneered.

The young man shook his head.

"I'll back my lot in a scrap against any one," he boasted. "We don't
care what we take on. I'm not pretending we're squeamish, either, but
there's not one of us is going to risk that three minutes with the
chaplain and the eight o'clock bell. I wouldn't mind taking my chance of
going out to the sting of a bullet, but I wouldn't face the other
thing."

"So far as the young lady in question is concerned," Meredith observed,
"I'd see that you didn't. She is much too attractive to be hurried out
of the world like that. You have still something you want to say,
haven't you? Let's hear it."

Henry Leneveu had evidently thought the affair out.

"She is to meet her uncle to-morrow night at the Trocadero at eight
o'clock," he confided. "She's staying on at the office and going direct
from there. It's no good half doing the job, because she'd squeal from
hospital. What I'll undertake to do--it will cost me money, mind, but
I'll do it--is to deliver the young woman here to-morrow night, between
ten and eleven. You can make your own plans afterwards."

Meredith reflected for a moment.

"What do you fellows say?" he asked, addressing his companions.

"How the devil," Hartigan demanded, "did she get to know anything about
Driseworth?"

"Speculations of that sort won't help us," Meredith reminded him.

"Is there any one else in your gang who is not quite so squeamish as
you?" Bolton asked their visitor.

Leneveu shook his head.

"No one I'd trust. They're young yet, and even if they did the job, I
wouldn't trust them afterwards."

"There could be no better place in the world, if we're driven to
extremes, than this," Meredith meditated. "Even the farm labourers
disappear."

"It's a murderous piece of country," Bolton shivered. "There's scarcely
a farmer around here hasn't had some one sucked down into the earth."

"What will it cost you, this little enterprise?" Meredith enquired.

"It should be worth five hundred quid," Leneveu replied promptly. "For
that I'll undertake to deliver the young woman here to-morrow night."

Meredith nodded.

"You'd better have another drink and get back again then," he enjoined.

       *       *       *       *       *

At half-past seven on the following evening, Miss Mott tidied her desk,
locked up her valuables, made some slight changes in her toilette, and
descended to the lift. It came rattling up in answer to her summons, and
a strange young man, though wearing the uniform of the hall porter,
threw open the gate for her to enter.

"Where's Dick?" she enquired, as he slammed the door behind her.

"Dick's gone out on an errand," he announced. "The hall porter's got the
evening off and I'm taking his place."

There seemed something vaguely and unpleasantly familiar about the young
man, but Miss Mott thought no more about it until the lift came to an
unexpected standstill between the fourth and fifth floors. The last
thing of which she was conscious was a grip upon her shoulder and a
handkerchief placed over her mouth.

"That'll teach you to come between a young man and his girl," she heard
a savage voice mutter. "No good struggling, my dear. You're 'for it'
this time."

Miss Mott certainly was "for it." The next thing she remembered was
opening her eyes and finding herself being driven in a somewhat shabby
automobile along a very rough country lane. They were passing an inn
with a swinging sign, but there was no other habitation in sight.

"Where am I?" she gasped.

"You go back where you belong, young woman," was the unfriendly reply,
and up went the handkerchief again....

Miss Mott's second awakening was perhaps equally alarming, but not so
unpleasant. She was lying upon a huge, mahogany four-poster bed, with
chintz hangings and curtains. There was a fire burning in the grate,
several comfortable articles of furniture in the room, and an elderly
woman seated in an easy-chair by the fire, knitting. Miss Mott blinked
once or twice rapidly; then she opened her mouth cautiously and closed
it again. No gag! She stretched out her arms very gingerly at first and
swung them from the elbows--free! She moved her legs and discovered that
they were unbound. Then she slid gently off the bed. The old woman
turned her head unconcernedly and went on with her knitting.

"Where am I?" Miss Mott demanded.

"Look out of the window and see," was the curt reply.

Miss Mott crossed the floor in her stockinged feet, for her shoes, she
found, had been removed. She opened the casement window, looked
out--and gasped. So far as she could see, on each side and in front of
her, was water, softly swaying, waveless water. It was lapping against
the lower windows and what appeared to be the front door of the house.
It seemed illimitable. A steely, menacing plain, beneath which gardens,
and fields, and even villages might lie buried. Half-immersed trees and
barns studded the wilderness. Carcasses of animals were floating about.
A confusion of birds twittered and called between the misty clouds and
the grey water. In the far distance, Miss Mott could trace the masts of
moving ships. Nearer was one tiny speck, which might have been a boat.
Otherwise, here was desolation--supreme--complete.

"What a flood!" she gasped.

"Us as lives in these parts are used to such," the hard-faced woman with
the steel-rimmed spectacles said. "I've known worse. I've seen people
clinging on to the roof of this very house: maybe we'll be there
ourselves before nightfall, when the tide fulls."

Miss Mott watched the speck that she had first noticed, approaching. It
might well be a boat.

"To whom does this house belong and why have I been brought here?" she
demanded.

The woman glanced at her without change of expression.

"What a fool you must be to think that I am here to answer questions,"
she rejoined contemptuously.

Miss Mott moved towards the door and opened it. She peered down into the
silent hall.

"Go round the house, if you want to," the woman invited. "You'll see
that it isn't man that's made a prisoner of you. It's the Lord God--if
there is such a person. And don't you open a door unless you're looking
for sudden death. If the water once gets in, we'll drown like rats."

She resumed her knitting, and Miss Mott, taking advantage of her
liberty, descended the stairs gingerly, taking full note of her very
gruesome surroundings. The house seemed to be a sort of small manor,
with panelled oak walls in poor condition, raftered ceilings, and stone
floors. The door of a large lounge sitting room was wide open. She
peered in nervously. The whole of one side was occupied by a long gun
rack in which were ranged weapons of every description. There were piles
of cartridge boxes upon the floor, a quantity of ancient and mouldering
furniture, book-shelves, the calf-bound volumes of which were reeking
with damp. First and foremost, however, in her mind, deadening all her
other apprehensions, was the amazing fact that water--already more than
a foot deep--covered the floor of the hall and of the room into which
she looked, lapped over the bottom stairs and was even oozing in bulbous
drops through the thick walls. She stood and shivered. There was
something absolutely terrifying in the slow but inevitable absorption of
everything by the one overwhelming element. A panic seized her and she
called out.

"Is any one here?"

To her surprise a civilised voice at once answered her.

"Coming, madam."

There was the sound of paddling footsteps flopping through the water. A
green baize-covered door leading to the back regions was pushed open and
a strange figure presented himself, a figure of a large man attired in
the correct morning costume of a butler to his hips, but with his lower
limbs encased in an enormous pair of waders. His little bow seemed to
Miss Mott ludicrous.

"Will you have breakfast, madam, or will you wait for the master?" he
enquired.

"Wait for whom?" Miss Mott demanded.

"The master."

"Who is your master?"

The man coughed apologetically.

"We don't care about mentioning names to any great extent, madam," he
replied. "Shall I say your husband? The gentleman to whom you were
married last evening on your way down here."

Miss Mott's beautiful eyes grew larger and rounder with amazement.

"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed. "I have never been married
to any one."

The faint gleam of a wintry smile disturbed the placidity of the man's
expression. Almost in that instant Miss Mott recognized him and clutched
at the banisters with a little moan.

"The master's instructions were that he was bringing his wife home last
night. Soon after your arrival, he was obliged to leave with the other
gentlemen on urgent business, but we expect him back at any moment now."

Miss Mott wasted no breath. The situation, horrible though it was, was
becoming clear to her.

"I should like some coffee upstairs," she told the man, and, turning
around, retraced her steps....

Viewed from her bedroom window, the speck was no longer a speck. It was
clearly in sight now--a punt, with a grey-headed seaman handling the
pole, and an unrecognisable person in oilskins and sou'wester smoking in
the stern. She leaned forward eagerly--she hoped--she feared--she was
terrified--she was tremulously excited. She saw the punt ride over what
must have been the flower garden. She watched a man who climbed a rope
ladder which had been thrown down from one of the windows. Then she
fainted.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was late in the afternoon before she was fully recovered, to find
herself stretched in an easy-chair before a blazing fire in an
unfamiliar room. She looked wildly around. The curtains were drawn and
the lamps lit. There was a trickle of water under the door, a few blobs
of moisture on the outside wall, but the carpet itself was dry. There
was tea and toast by her side. She found herself ravenous and began to
eat. Then she caught sight of a long, lean figure lounging in the chair
opposite and her heart almost stopped beating. Nevertheless, she
preserved her self-control.

"Why have I been brought here?" she asked.

The man was obviously a good actor. The slight elevation of his eyebrows
was inimitable.

"My dear young lady," he remonstrated, "there was never any question of
our going anywhere else after the ceremony. Of course, I'm sorry about
the conditions--"

"What conditions?" she interrupted bluntly.

He waved the question away. She leaned towards him.

"What ceremony?" she demanded uncompromisingly.

"Our marriage," he explained, with reproachful emphasis. "One realises,
of course, that you were in a hysterical state, but such an important
event should not have escaped your memory altogether."

"Our marriage!" she scoffed. "And pray, when and where did this take
place?"

"Westminster Registry Office, after hours, by Special Licence," he
replied. "Cost me a great deal of money, but I do not grudge it," he
added, with a gleam in his eyes and a little bow. "Ever since one night
in Belgrave Square, no other woman has meant anything to me. Superb, you
looked, potting away at us all with that little pistol. By-the-bye, I
hope you haven't got it with you now?"

"If I had," Miss Mott rejoined, "I should certainly use it."

The man rose to his feet. Fully revealed in the circle of lamplight, his
long, narrow face seemed more sinister than ever.

"I have to present you my apologies," he said, with an undernote of
mockery in his tone, "for my regrettable absence last night. I was
compelled to see some friends off on a long voyage. Nothing but stern
necessity would have kept me from your side. To-night, however--"

He came a step nearer. Miss Mott held out her hand. An awful sense of
helplessness swept over her. That waste of waters outside--a gruesome,
impassable barrier! The old woman knitting! The butler with his fat,
wicked face! The life adventurous was failing, at that moment, to appeal
to Miss Mott.

"Please don't talk nonsense any longer," she begged. "It--frightens me."

His eyebrows went up.

"Nonsense?" he queried. "Do you doubt that we are man and wife?"

"Of course I do," she scoffed. "It isn't possible. No one can be married
without knowing anything about it."

He produced from his pocket an oblong strip of paper and held it
out to her. It was the usual printed form, carefully filled in
and purporting to be a record of a marriage between Malcolm St. John
Meredith--bachelor--forty-four years old, and Lucie Mott of Branksome
Mansions, aged twenty-two. She pushed it away.

"You know that it is a forgery," she cried.

He shook his head.

"It's genuine enough," he assured her smoothly. "There was a little
trouble with the registrar, owing to your condition, but he happened,
fortunately, to be a friend of mine. So were the witnesses.... Poor
place for a honeymoon, I'm afraid," he added, looking around him
deprecatingly. "A short one too, alas. I can only spare four days. Can
you learn to love me in four days, do you think, Lucie?"

"You beast!" she sobbed.

"My dear!" he expostulated, the menace in his eyes reflected in his
tone. "How unreasonable you are! You break up a famous gang of
lawbreakers, you take away our very prosperous occupation and send us
flying to all parts of the world, you separate two loving hearts--my
Figaro and the girl to whom he was engaged--and see how I treat you! I
could have had your company here for four days, my sweet little
spitfire, without going through this tiresome ceremony. I respected your
possible scruples. I gave you my name--in the first place that you might
not be able to give evidence against me, and secondly, that you might
give me in return--"

Miss Mott struck out at him fiercely, but he only laughed. He held both
her wrists with one hand, while the other encircled her waist. He drew
her to him, regardless of her desperate struggles; his face was bent
over hers, and the scar on his cheek was like a line of fire. His lips
touched her eyelids, then moved downwards, notwithstanding her frantic
screams.... He raised his head for a moment to listen to the gurgling
splosh of waders in the back hall. The butler made his appearance at the
door. Miss Mott, from her imprisonment, turned eagerly towards him.

"Let me go!" she cried. "Take me away from this place. You shall have
everything I possess in the world."

The man changed not a muscle of his face. Meredith patted her head
soothingly.

"A little overwrought," he murmured.

"Just so, sir," the man acquiesced. "I came to enquire about dinner."

"In here at eight o'clock," Meredith directed. "The 1911 champagne. Two
bottles."

The butler departed, closing the door firmly behind him. Miss Mott, who
was saving her strength, lay almost passively in her captor's arms. He
was not deceived, however.

"So you will need taming, my little love bird?" he mocked. "That will
amuse me. Too good sport to hurry over. I'll get out of these clothes.
After dinner, I'll read to you from the prayer-book."

He laughed and laid her lightly in an easy-chair. As he straightened
himself, he suddenly stiffened. He turned his head towards the window
and remained transfixed in an attitude of listening. Very cautiously,
tea, Miss Mott also raised herself in her chair. A faint streak of
colour stole into her cheeks, a shiver stirred her heart as she, too,
listened. Sound of any sort was hope, and against the dull background of
that monotonous swell and gurgle of water came the thud of the beating
of an engine from some distant place--its dull roar echoing through the
great void....

"A lost soul," Meredith jeered, "or perhaps one of these new motor
steamers, trying to get up the river before nightfall."

He rang the bell.

"Gordon," he told the butler, "put out every light in the house at
once."

There was a swift, questioning glance. Meredith nodded reassurance.

"It might be a plane overhead," he confided. "It isn't likely they're
looking for the Manor, but anyhow, we can't entertain any more guests."

Miss Mott had drawn aside the curtain and was gazing out into the
gathering twilight, when Meredith returned from a whispered conference
with Gordon. He hurried to her side and together they watched the dimly
visible plane riding through the mists. Meredith studied it long and
silently. Then he went to a gun rack built into a recess by the
fireplace, took the automatic which it held, charged it and slipped it
into his pocket. He was not taking quite so much notice of Miss Mott.

"The plane is coming down," he muttered. "Some madman who has lost his
way, I should imagine."

He threw open the window and leaned out. Without a doubt, the plane was
circling around and was already much lower.

"Can it land here?" she asked eagerly.

He nodded.

"Can't you see that it's a seaplane?" he pointed out. "It might get down
safely if the light holds, but--" he added, turning towards her, with a
smile of derision, "do not be deceived, my fair visitor. Whoever this
may be--it is for us his visit is intended and not for you. Your clever
uncle would never dream of so romantic a way of seeking for you."

"I don't care who it is," she declared, "so long as it's some one who's
going to stay--so long as I'm not here alone with you."

He passed his arm around her waist and drew her shrinking form towards
him.

"You'll soon get used to that," he assured her.

She wrenched herself away as he turned once more to the window. The
plane was skimming the surface of the water now, slackening speed with
every yard, and the figure of a man was clearly visible--one hand upon
the stick, the other holding a small anchor.

"She's down," Meredith muttered. "A damned clever piece of work,
anyhow."

The plane was riding at last upon the strange heap of waters. It
narrowly escaped the top of a sunken tree, swerved and shivered as it
was nearly enmeshed by the unseen branches, then the anchor caught and
she came to rest.

"Damn fine landing," Meredith repeated approvingly. "I was right, I
see. Our visitor is a friend of the house."

"I don't care who he is," Miss Mott reiterated, with a strange throbbing
of the heart. "If he's a man at all, he couldn't be brute enough to
leave me here alone with you."

A look flashed across Meredith's face which brought back all the fear
into her shivering consciousness. He was a dour and menacing figure in
this cold and gloomy half-light. Withal, he spoke and had the air of a
man in supreme control of the situation, utterly confident of himself
and his powers. He watched the slow approach of the man, who had
launched a small rubber punt, with mingled curiosity and indifference.
As the latter drew nearer, he tapped a cigarette upon the window sill
and lit it.

"I shouldn't wonder if that was Violet Joe," he speculated. "Looks like
his crouch."

She tried hard to conceal her sense of passionate relief. If only it
were! Presently, she began to believe it. There was something familiar
in the movements of the tense figure. They watched him, with the aid of
his long slim pole, make his way skilfully towards them. He was dressed
in a leather flying suit and wore a great vizor over his head, but Miss
Mott recognised him and her heart beat with joy. Yet all the time there
was terror mingled with her relief. She thought of the automatic in
Meredith's pocket and she remembered that Violet Joe went unarmed.

The punt struck at last the edge of the bank in front of the Manor.
Meredith, who had stepped from the window, held out his hand, and the
visitor scrambled up, dragging the punt after him.

"Any trouble?" Meredith asked quickly.

"None at all," Violet Joe declared, shaking himself. "It was you fellows
I was wanting news of. No telephone--no telegraph--no trains. Did you
get to the river?"

Meredith nodded gloomily.

"Bolton and Hartigan are both of them safe on the _Lavinia_ and well in
the Channel by now," he reported. "I lost the draw, of course. I offered
the purser another thousand to slip me on board, but he wouldn't. You'll
find I've discovered a compensation for another four days in this
infernal hole, though," he added, with a glance back into the sitting
room.

The two men stepped through the open window, Meredith leading the way,
his hand firmly in his jacket pocket. His companion, following, suddenly
recognised Miss Mott standing in the middle of the room, her eyes like
stars, torn between passionate hope and deadly fear. In the twilight she
saw nothing of Violet Joe's face. She heard only his words and they
sounded cruelly cold and indifferent.

"Why, it's little Miss Mott!" he exclaimed. "What on earth is she doing
here?"

"Mrs. Meredith, if you please," Meredith corrected. "Congratulate me,
Joe, and wish the young lady every happiness."

"Rubbish!" the newcomer exclaimed tonelessly.

"Special Licence yesterday evening," Meredith announced. "Returning good
for evil, eh? Miss Mott has done more than Scotland Yard ever could. She
has broken up my noble army of gangsters and yet I've married her....
She's attractive enough to have married for her own sake," he went on
reflectively, "but of course I couldn't help remembering that she's the
only person who could swear to my identity, and a wife can't give
evidence against her husband."

Violet Joe laughed.

"Clever fellow! Well, it's not my business, anyway. Give me a drink,
Walter. Had a hell of a ride for nothing, it seems."

Meredith smiled and remained warily in his place. He pointed to the
sideboard. Miss Mott found her voice.

"It is not true that I am married," she cried passionately. "I was
chloroformed and brought here by force. If ever I was in a Registry
Office, I was unconscious."

Meredith chuckled.

"What does it matter, dear, so long as you are here? Joe, if you really
came thinking that Bolton, Hartigan and I were stranded, it was sporting
of you, and I am much obliged. If you came for any other reason, you can
see that you are not wanted--not wanted, Joe."

Her heart sank as she looked in vain at the man whom she had hoped might
be her deliverer. Violet Joe was apparently resigned to his dismissal.
He avoided her eyes. Was it possible that he believed Meredith's story?
He mixed himself deliberately a whisky and soda at the sideboard. A
tumult of words was quivering on Miss Mott's lips, but some instinct
kept her silent--an instinct which seemed to come straight from heaven
into her brain. Violet Joe was weaponless. He was fencing for time. Even
she knew the meaning of Meredith's right hand, toying with something in
his jacket pocket. She pointed out of the window and gave a little cry.

"What's that? Listen."

Violet Joe leaped towards the window, by the side of which stood the gun
rack just out of sight of the spot where Meredith lounged. He seized the
gun, a twelve-bore, and a handful of Number Four cartridges.

"A flight of teal, Meredith," he shouted. "Look sharp."

"I've shot teal till I'm sick of them," Meredith growled, as he
sauntered around the corner to look into two long and deadly barrels.

"Perhaps you're right," Violet Joe replied. "I've Number Fours in here,
Walter, and they make a hell of a mess of a man. Up with them and bring
your right hand out of that pocket empty! Quicker!"

Meredith obeyed without hesitation, but his expression was satanic.

"You came for the girl," he snarled.

"Of course I did," was the cool retort.

"You're one of my men," Meredith reminded him. "You know what you'll
get, if you interfere with my concerns."

"I'm one of your gangsters," Violet Joe acknowledged, "but when you
forget our creed, I forget that you're my superior officer. Take off
your coat and throw it into that corner. I've a steady finger on the
trigger, remember, and if your hand goes near your pocket--you'll die in
agony. You may get me, but I'll get you first."

Meredith obeyed with a curse. He knew his man better than to attempt to
snatch at his gun.

"Get your coat, Miss Mott," Violet Joe enjoined. "If it isn't a thick
one, bring a blanket. Come straight out to the punt as soon as you can.
First of all, though, take the automatic out of that pocket and throw it
into the flood."

"I'm afraid of that man--the butler," she confessed, as she hastened to
do his bidding.

"Keep the automatic, then, and shoot any one who attempts to interfere
with you," Violet Joe snapped out. "You needn't be afraid of Gordon,
however. I saw him sneaking off in the dinghy as I landed."

Ten minutes later Miss Mott, wrapped in an enormous blanket, with the
stars and pale moon shining down on her through a lacey mist, with the
wilderness of water below and a northwest wind whistling around her, was
flying happily to London.




IV

BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES


Superintendent Detective Wragge bowed formally to Miss Mott upon his
entrance into her private office, laid his hat upon the floor and seated
himself in the clients' chair.

"Don't be silly, Uncle," the young lady laughed, holding out both her
hands. "Come and give me your avuncular salute at once."

He shook his head deliberately.

"This," he warned her, "is a professional visit. I have not come here to
consult Miss Mott about any courtship troubles, nor have I an
interesting case to lay before her, but it is, nevertheless, a strictly
professional visit."

Miss Mott raised her eyebrows.

"Have I done anything wrong?" she asked anxiously.

Her uncle smiled in his own somewhat peculiar fashion. The smile rippled
away over the lines of his creased face and seemed to leave him
afterwards looking sterner than ever.

"Not consciously, my dear," he assured her,--"not consciously, of
course. I can't think why the devil these people won't leave you alone."

A light flashed into her very beautiful eyes. Miss Mott was quite
interested in "these people."

"Do explain," she begged.

Superintendent Wragge, with an apologetic glance at his niece, produced
a packet of Gold Flakes and lit a cigarette. He drew his chair a little
nearer to the table.

"I think I remember telling you the last time we dined together," he
began, "of a very interesting secret pamphlet circulating in the Yard,
dealing with the manner in which watched and suspected criminals, when
they are hard pressed, communicate with one another. The Agony Column of
the _Times_ for many years was freely used."

"I have often wondered," Miss Mott murmured, "whether those amazing
messages one reads ever mean anything."

"They probably mean something," her uncle observed drily, "but the sense
lies underneath the words. Our code experts have often intercepted
messages of great importance concealed in the most harmless sentences.
No one suspects the owners of the newspapers of complicity. You
understand that, of course? It would be absolutely impossible for any
editor to discriminate between the real thing and the faked."

"Naturally," she agreed.

Superintendent Wragge dived into his pocket, produced two copies of
_Home Talks_ and spread one of them out in front of him. A little cry of
delight escaped his niece's lips.

"Don't tell me that they've been making use of my paper!" she
exclaimed.

"That's just what they have been doing. Here is apparently a perfectly
harmless nom-de-plume and your reply to the question, whatever it was.
Let me read it to you.

     JENKS IN LONDON. I think the young lady of whom you write must be
     very unreasonable. I should tell her plainly that you do not think
     it fair of her to keep you in such suspense and would insist upon a
     definite decision."

"Whatever can there be in that?" Miss Mott asked curiously. "They can't
build up a code on my reply, because they don't see it until it
appears."

"The whole of the message," her uncle confided, "is contained in the
pseudonym--'Jenks in London.' It means--never mind what it means. That
is a different story. We shall come to the reply presently. Now, tell
me, do you keep the letters of your correspondents?"

"For one month," she told him.

"Then you have 'Jenks in London's' letter?"

"Of course."

"Can I see it?"

Miss Mott became very professional.

"These letters are all supposed to be entirely confidential," she warned
her uncle.

For the first time in his life Superintendent Wragge was almost angry
with his niece. There were no visible signs of it, but she knew.

"Must I remind you," he asked drily, "that it is not your uncle, but
Superintendent Detective Wragge of Scotland Yard who asks this favour?"

Miss Mott rang the bell under her foot without further protest. At her
request, the lanky, bespectacled young secretary brought in a file from
which her employer drew out a letter. She handed it across to her uncle.
He studied it with some care and laid it down by his side.

"The usual sort of piffle," he remarked. "But the handwriting must go to
our expert. Now, if you will turn to this second number of your
magazine, which I have here, you will notice on the first column of
'Answers to Correspondents' a pseudonym, 'Buttercups and Daisies.'"

Miss Mott did not trouble to look at the magazine.

"I remember it perfectly," she declared. "I remember thinking what an
odd choice."

"You may be interested to know," her uncle confided, "that 'Buttercups
and Daisies' is the reply to 'Jenks in London', and a very interesting
reply too. I see you advised the young lady to forgive her erring lover.
Very nice and human of you, my dear. Now I shall have to trouble you for
the letter from Buttercups and Daisies'."

The file was reopened. Miss Mott found the letter and passed it silently
across. After a brief examination, her uncle placed it with the other in
his pocket.

"A very clever stunt this," he meditated. "Much better than any Agony
Column. The young man in our Code Department who tumbled to it deserves
a medal."

"May I know what 'Jenks in London' said and 'Buttercups and Daisies'
replied?" she begged.

Superintendent Wragge stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"I can't say that the message is as clear as daylight to us, even now,"
he admitted, "but it contains an address we were very interested to get
hold of. And furthermore," he added, with a covert glance across the
table, "we are practically certain that the communication is between one
branch of a certain company of gangsters and another."

Miss Mott's was almost a painful silence. A flood of reminiscences
brought the colour streaming into her cheeks. Superintendent Wragge
looked tactfully away. He tapped another cigarette on the arm of his
chair and lit it.

"You've heard nothing more, I suppose, of our friends who were flooded
out?" he enquired.

"Nothing."

"No more mysterious visits from Violet Joe?"

She shook her head.

"That long devil with the scar hasn't tried to get at you again?"

"I haven't seen or heard a word from any of them," she declared.

"Meredith--that's the arch blackguard's name; I'm sure of that,"
Superintendent Wragge continued thoughtfully. "Two of the gang got away
by the river but I have an idea that Meredith's still in London."

"You haven't anything against 'Violet Joe', have you?" she asked
timidly.

"If I had, I should forget it," her uncle assured her. "Meredith's the
man I want. He's dangerous. So long as he's at large, you should be
extra careful, Lucie. Watch your step all the time. Don't accept any
invitations unless you know the people well."

She shook her head.

"I never go out anywhere," she confided. "I keep William here till I
leave myself at night and he sees me into a taxi."

Her uncle nodded approvingly.

"Good girl. What about a little dinner with me to-night, then? I'll
fetch you and take you home. Are you doing anything?"

"Nothing at all. Except--" she went on, holding up an envelope--"these
came along this morning. I haven't made up my mind what to do about it."

Superintendent Wragge drew out the cardboard slips and studied them. He
turned over the envelope and noticed the address in clerkly handwriting.

"Two stalls for 'The Humming Bird'?" he remarked. "Some one's being kind
to you. I saw in the paper yesterday that every seat was booked for
months."

Miss Mott nodded.

"I believe it's awfully good," she confided. "How would you like to go
there first with me and have a little supper afterwards, instead of
dining?"

"By all means," Superintendent Wragge accepted enthusiastically. "An
excellent idea. I haven't been to a theatre for months."

He glanced at the tickets again before he passed them back.

"You say you don't know who sent them to you?"

She shook her head.

"I haven't an idea," she admitted. "The Box Office, I suppose."

Superintendent Wragge picked up his hat and smoothed it. Those keen,
narrow eyes of his had almost disappeared under their heavy lids and
among the puckered-up creases of his fleshy face--a sign that he was
thinking deeply.

"What's troubling you, Uncle?" Miss Mott enquired.

"It seems to me queer," he meditated, "for the theatre to be sending you
complimentary seats when it's so heavily booked up, and especially for
Friday night. They aren't marked 'Complimentary', either. You're quite
sure you can't think of any one who might have sent them?"

"I can't think of a soul," she admitted. "My editor gets complimentary
seats now and then, but if he offers them to me, he always wants to come
with me. Still, as long as they're here, there's no reason why we
shouldn't use them, is there?"

Superintendent Wragge selected one of the tickets and returned the other
to his niece.

"Not the slightest reason in the world," he agreed. "If you don't
mind," he added, "I think it would be better if you went on first and
I'll join you later. We're sometimes rather busy at the Yard on Friday
night, and I should hate to have you miss any of the show. I'll come as
soon as I can get away."

"Just as you like," Miss Mott assented. "I shall be there when the
curtain goes up on the first act; I can promise you that! Don't miss
more of it than you can help."

Superintendent Detective Wragge, looking slightly distrait, took
affectionate leave of his niece and departed for Scotland Yard. His
conscience was troubling him badly, as it had done once or twice before.
Nothing in the world could have prevented his occupying one of those
stalls at the Universal Theatre that night. He knew very well, however,
that if he did his duty as a blood relation, he ought to take particular
care to see that the adjoining one was vacant.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott found her seats excellently placed and thoroughly enjoyed the
first act of "The Humming Bird." She was just looking around the crowded
house at the fall of the curtain when a girl, seated immediately in
front, turned around and smiled at her.

"Do you mind if I speak to you for a moment, Miss Mott?" she asked.

"Why, of course not," was the courteous reply. "Do I--ought I to know
you?"

"We are complete strangers," the young woman admitted. "But I feel that
I know you very well because I read all your articles in _Home Talks_. I
hope you won't think it a great liberty, but I sent you the tickets for
to-night. It was the only way I could imagine of getting to meet you."

Miss Mott laughed pleasantly.

"A very delightful way for me. I've been longing to see this show.
You're not, by any chance, one of my correspondents, are you?"

In the subdued light, the girl seemed to flush.

"I'm afraid I have been guilty of bothering you with my poor little
affairs," she confessed. "You answered me in this week's number. I
called myself 'Buttercups and Daisies'."

Miss Mott was well trained for her profession and she heard the
announcement with only the faintest flicker of polite interest in her
face. For once, then, her uncle must have made a mistake.

"I remember thinking your pseudonym a trifle unusual," she remarked. "I
hope what I said was of service to you."

"I should think so," was the enthusiastic reply. "You have so much
common sense and yet you look scarcely any older than I," the girl
added, with a sigh.

Miss Mott smiled tolerantly.

"Everybody looks the same age in this light. Some of you girls--"

"May I introduce my fianc?" the girl begged. "Major Lingard--Miss
Mott."

A dark, clean-shaven young man, turned out with punctilious care and
wearing a rimless eyeglass, rose in his place and bowed.

"Glad to meet so distinguished a young lady," he said pleasantly. "I
know what Miss Carruthers wants me to ask you before the curtain goes
up. We should be so glad if you would come on to a new Supper Club with
us after the show--you and your escort, if you have one coming," he
added, looking at the vacant place. "Otherwise, we will look after you."

"Do please come," the girl urged. "My real name is Betty Carruthers. I
should like to talk to you so much and I am sure you would meet some
interesting people."

Miss Mott hesitated. The invitation sounded attractive enough to her,
but some one had suddenly turned on the lights in an adjacent box and
Miss Betty Carruthers' appearance seemed no longer that of the somewhat
silly young ingnue. There were one or two lines in her face and little
ones--almost crows'-feet--about her eyes. Her hair, too, was obviously
tinted and her eyes themselves were strange, not at all the eyes of a
young girl. Miss Mott's instincts of caution were awakened.

"You are very kind," she said doubtfully. "I am expecting my uncle every
moment."

"But you must bring him along," the girl insisted. "It's the quaintest
place, only been opened for a week or two. It's run by one of
Dick's--that's Major Lingard's--ex-brother officers, and there are
always lots of nice young men there."

"I'm sure it would be very delightful," Miss Mott conceded. "May I just
see what my uncle says when he arrives?"

"Why, of course," the girl assented. "We shall be going, anyway. We
dance there every night. It would be so nice to have a good long talk
with you...."

The curtain rose and Miss Mott gave herself up to the enjoyment of the
show. Immediately on its descent, Superintendent Wragge made his
appearance and edged his way to the vacant seat.

"Oh, I'm so sorry you've missed two acts of this," his niece lamented.
"It's been perfectly wonderful. The best show I've seen for ages. I want
to tell you something," she went on, in a slightly lower tone.

The girl in front, with her escort, had strolled over to one of the
boxes to talk with some friends. Miss Mott directed her uncle's
attention to them.

"Are they friends of yours?" she asked.

"Never seen either of them before in my life, to my knowledge," he
replied.

"Well," she confided, "the girl's name--she isn't nearly so young as she
looks--is Miss Betty Carruthers, and I'm afraid your Code Department
were wrong for once, for it was she who wrote to me under the pseudonym
of 'Buttercups and Daisies'."

There was a moment's silence. Superintendent Wragge had made no remark,
but Miss Mott knew that he was interested from the swift intake of his
breath and from the way he leaned forward, with his hands upon his
knees, looking at the girl and her escort.

"She has just introduced herself to me," Miss Mott continued. "It was
she who sent me the tickets. She thought it would be a good way to get
to know me. That is her fianc she is with,--Major Lingard. They want us
both to go on to a little Dance Club to-night, which has just been
started by some friends of theirs. They asked me to bring my escort,
whoever he was."

"Did they know my name and who I was?" Superintendent Wragge asked
quickly.

There was an expression of gentle deprecation in Miss Mott's upraised
eyebrows.

"Do I run an Intelligence Office for nothing? I simply said that you
were my uncle. The girl smiled at me in a most peculiar way. She may be
everything that she ought to be, but I don't fancy that in her world
girls go about with their real uncles. Here they are, coming back."

Superintendent Wragge picked up his programme. It was hard to see that
his lips were moving.

"Harness is my name," he whispered. "Mr. Charles Harness--solicitor."

The two glanced expectantly at Miss Mott as they took their places. She
introduced her uncle, who beamed upon them with unusual affability.

"I hear you have been kind enough to ask my niece and me to a new Supper
Club to-night," he said. "We shall be delighted to come, of course."

"Capital!" Major Lingard exclaimed. "I hope you'll like the place. Miss
Carruthers and I are rather keen on it: run by an old friend of mine.
The food and drink's all right, anyway, and the music isn't bad."

"If you'll give me the exact address," Superintendent Wragge suggested,
"we'll follow you on, directly the show is over."

"Oh, please let us take you," the girl intervened. "Father's lent us the
family coach--as I call our old limousine--for the evening, and there's
room for everybody."

Superintendent Wragge accepted without hesitation.

"At my time of life," he confessed, "I hate struggling about, looking
for taxis. Besides, it's a wet night."

"We'll all get out together, as soon as the curtain's down," Miss
Carruthers declared. "Dick's ordered a table, but it's always just as
well to be on time. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to a
talk with your clever niece."

The curtain rose and Mr. Wragge gave himself up to a whole-hearted
enjoyment of the performance. At the end of the act, tears of laughter
stood in his eyes.

"Best thing I've seen this season," he announced with enthusiasm. "No,
I'm not going out to get a whisky and soda. I've been working hard at
the office to-night and I had to scamp my dinner, so I'm determined not
to spoil my supper. I'll just talk to Harry Philpott for a moment."

Superintendent Wragge, the laughter still lingering at the corners of
his lips, moved a few places down the row and talked to an elderly
gentleman who had also been a late arrival. Miss Carruthers and her
fianc whispered softly together for a few moments. Then the former
turned around in her place.

"I can't help feeling that I've met your uncle before," she remarked.
"What did you say his name was?"

"Harness," Miss Mott repeated. "Mr. Charles Harness. He is a solicitor
in Bucklersbury."

"Very striking face," Major Lingard observed. "He might be a statesman
or a great physician or something of that sort. Does he dance at all?"

"Loves it," Miss Mott assured him.

Superintendent Wragge made his way back to his seat as the curtain went
up and apparently enjoyed the last act as much as the preceding one.
Afterwards, in high good humour, all four made their way out together
and stood under the rain-dripping portico while their car was being
called.

"I hope this little place will amuse you," Major Lingard said, as they
took their places in the limousine, after the briefest of delays. "Not a
great many people go there yet, but that's only because it isn't
sufficiently known, and Captain Allen--that's the proprietor--doesn't
want to spoil it by letting every one in."

"It really is the quaintest place," Miss Carruthers declared....

It certainly was quaint. The approach up the narrow mews was quaint. The
blue lamp hanging over the entrance was quaint. The two front doors,
both of unusual thickness, were surprising, and the descent of four or
five narrow steps from the entrance was unexpected. A young man in
resplendent livery relieved them of their coats and hats. A
tired-looking young clerk held open a book, while Major Lingard wrote
down their names. Then, with a flourish, the second door was opened.

"Come this way," the latter invited, taking Miss Mott by the arm.

They stepped forward and passed into what seemed to be nothing more or
less than a civilised and over-decorated cellar. The colour-washed walls
were hung with sepia drawings of mad design and flaming colours. The
furniture was of almost Saxon simplicity and looked as if it had been
knocked together by some village carpenter. On the other hand, the few
tables that were laid were glittering with plate and glass and almost
overladen with flowers. The floor was of glass, illuminated from below,
and a small coloured orchestra at the farther end of the room was making
strange sounds of musical import. There were several waiters standing
about, of a more robust type than is usual in a night restaurant, and
the only other guests were a party of four, two young men of the gigolo
variety, with flamboyantly attired companions. Major Lingard led the way
to a round table set in a corner of the room. It was profusely adorned
with masses of yellow roses and two jugs of amber-looking liquid stood
in ice pails by its side.

"Would you mind sitting down and looking through the menu for a minute
while we go off and speak with our friend who runs the place," he
begged. "You'll find that champagne cup excellent, or you may like to
dance. We sha'n't be five minutes."

Superintendent Wragge checked his niece, who was on the point of sitting
down in the chair which his host had indicated.

"Major Lingard," he said, "I am going to ask you two favours, which I
hope you will not take amiss: one is to let me be the giver of the party
to-night--I am the eldest present and I think it is my privilege; the
other is to allow us to have a table at the other side of the room. That
is a stupid fad of mine, I know, but I will explain the origin of it
later on."

There was a vague look of anxiety on the young man's face. He seemed ill
at ease and his forehead was wrinkled in deprecating fashion.

"But, my dear sir," he protested, "Miss Carruthers is so anxious to
entertain Miss Mott. You see, we have ordered special flowers in the
hope of your coming and specially prepared champagne cup, and the table
is surely the best in the room."

"I am an ill-mannered pig," the other acknowledged, "but I am an elderly
man and I have my whims. There is nothing in wine or food possible here
which it will not be my pleasure to offer you."

Major Lingard gave brief directions to a waiter but he found it
difficult to conceal his annoyance. His manner, too, had become nervous,
almost uneasy. He was obviously reluctant to leave his guests. The girl,
however, remained unmoved. She turned towards Miss Mott.

"Would you like to come with us to meet Captain Allen?" she asked.
"Perhaps you could persuade him to join us and dance. He is a wonderful
partner, but he's not keen on dancing unless he finds some one really
attractive."

"I'll stay with my uncle, if you don't mind," Miss Mott decided, wholly
unconscious of the magnitude of her decision. "He is rather an important
person in my young life."

The girl did not press her invitation but the smile lingered a little
sourly upon her lips. As soon as she and her companion had left the
room, which they did by a door at the farther end, they exchanged a
swift glance of apprehension. Miss Betty Carruthers was no longer in the
least like an ingnue and there was a very unpleasant expression on the
young man's smooth face.

"What do you make of it?" she asked anxiously.

"It looks rotten," he admitted.

"And yet," the girl pointed out, "how could they guess anything? They've
never seen either of us before and they couldn't have known of this
place, because we never even said where we were going. You weren't at
Amberley Square, were you?"

"Not I," he assured her. "I was doing business in Amsterdam."

"Then how could they have even the slightest suspicion about us?" she
demanded. "There isn't a loose end anywhere."

"I can't see one," Major Lingard admitted. "But will you tell me why the
mischief he shied at the table? There aren't half a dozen people in the
world who know the secret of that. And why on earth did he want to be
host, if it wasn't to get out of drinking the champagne cup?"

"All the same, just remember this," the girl reflected. "The old man
couldn't possibly have known that we were going to be at the theatre or
that we were going to ask him here. He hasn't been out of our sight
since he took his place in the theatre, so he couldn't have communicated
with any one. It can't be anything but his manner."

They passed down the little passage and entered a small room,
luxuriously furnished, something between an office and a masculine
sitting room. A tall, lean man, with a thin scar on one side of his
face, was lounging in an easy-chair with his hands in his pockets. He
looked swiftly across at them as they entered.

"Well?" he demanded.

"They're here," Lingard announced.

"I know they're here," was the irritated reply. "What did you leave them
for?"

"Dick's all fussed up," the girl declared. "Old man Wragge's calling
himself Mr. Charles Harness, by-the-bye. Wouldn't sit at the guests'
table and he won't have anything to do with the champagne cup."

"Did you make a clean get-away from the theatre?"

"Absolutely. Tom was there, wearing a uniform exactly like the
commissionaire's. We didn't see one of the real men on duty and the
plates of the car have been altered again."

The man in the chair meditated for a moment.

"Your invitation for supper was given inside the theatre?"

"Yes, and we didn't even mention where the place was we were taking them
to."

"Did either of them get away by themselves afterwards?"

"Not out of our sight for a single second," the girl declared.

"Then go back again to your job and don't be silly," the tall man
enjoined brusquely. "The others'll be coming in directly. I don't want
the show-down before one o'clock."

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile, Miss Mott and her uncle danced away gaily to some really
excellent music. The place, except for its two heavy front doors, seemed
to differ very little from other Night Clubs of its order. One or two
guests had come in and taken their places at different tables. No one,
however, seemed to want to sit at the corner table with the yellow
roses....

The ventilation was none of the best and in due course Superintendent
Wragge felt the need of a rest and some refreshment. They sat down and
he ordered a bottle of whisky to be opened at the table and some
champagne. The latter arrived in an ice pail and the cork of the whisky
was drawn by the _matre d'htel_. The Superintendent was having his
first drink when Major Lingard and his fiance returned, with profuse
apologies for their brief absence. Any passing cloud which may have been
on their faces had vanished. The champagne was opened and poured out for
every one, without reference to the cup. Some caviare and other choice
sandwiches were ordered. Major Lingard danced with Miss Mott and
Superintendent Wragge danced with and paid many compliments to Miss
Carruthers. The somewhat forbidding atmosphere of the room was
forgotten. Every one seemed to be having a good time and the band played
whatever they wanted. Half an hour passed--an hour. At last Miss Mott,
at a glance from her uncle, who was paying the bill, rose to her feet.

"It's been so delightful," she murmured. "We've enjoyed it ever so much.
Haven't we, Uncle?"

Producing a fine cambric handkerchief, Superintendent Wragge wiped the
perspiration from his forehead with one hand, while he handed out
liberal tips with the other.

"Delightful," he echoed. "I like your orchestra too, Major. My niece and
I will join with pleasure, if you care to put us up."

Major Lingard was watching the second of the front doors which led into
the room, as it slowly swung shut, and they heard the little click of
the spring. The change in their host and hostess which ensued seemed to
Superintendent Wragge and Miss Mott amazing. The woman who had posed in
the uncertain light as a good-tempered, good-humoured ingnue, suddenly
revealed herself as a vicious and evil-looking woman. Major Lingard,
with a twist of the mouth, the departure of his eyeglass and a
relaxation of all the muscles of his face, was no longer in the least
like an English officer. They threw disguise to the winds. Lingard
leaned back in his chair, with his hands in his pockets. Through the
door near the orchestra, the tall, thin man with the scar on his cheek
had issued, and was making leisurely progress down the room.

"We don't, as a rule, welcome gentlemen of your profession as members,
Superintendent Wragge," Lingard said, with a sneer in his tone, "but we
are going to make you a life member and keep you here for the rest of
your life too. That may not be a very long time, though," he added
meaningly. "It will be only a few seconds if you can't keep that right
hand of yours still."

"You needn't be afraid," Superintendent Wragge assured him calmly. "I
don't carry firearms when I am out for a pleasant evening."

The tall man with the scar on his face had come to a standstill before
their table. He bowed low to Miss Mott, who looked at him in horror. The
illumination of the place was faulty and his gaunt face seemed more
saturnine than ever. He turned to Superintendent Wragge.

"I know that it is your custom to go unarmed, Superintendent," he
remarked, "but I thought that perhaps the memory of a certain night in
Amberley Square might have changed your ideas on that subject. Has Miss
Mott brought her popgun?"

Miss Mott was incapable of any reply. She was looking despairingly at
the little circle of male guests who had left their women companions and
were closing in around the table. She had always had the most unbounded
confidence in her uncle, but she reflected with sinking heart that he
had come to the theatre without the slightest idea of this invitation
and that since receiving it he had not left her side except for a
moment. It was impossible for him to have communicated with anybody.
They were cut off from the world completely and utterly. In that
windowless cellar, even the roar of the distant traffic was inaudible.
Yet the smile upon Superintendent Wragge's lips seemed natural enough,
and even at that moment he lit a cigarette.

"You're Meredith, aren't you?" he asked the tall man abruptly.

"That is my name," the other acknowledged.

"I thought I couldn't have forgotten you," Superintendent Wragge
meditated. "Quite an honour, I'm sure, this. Are you shooting any better
these days? You missed me from a dozen paces last time we met."

Meredith grinned. The detective's attitude appealed to his dramatic
instincts.

"You must remember, Superintendent," he apologised, "that I was in a
hurry. I have you now here all to myself, with plenty of friends around,
and the Club all nicely closed up for the night. I shall do better this
time."

"I don't seem to remember my host of the evening," Superintendent Wragge
went on. "A junior member of the gang promoted, I presume, owing to
recent misfortune. He makes up quite well. I almost mistook him for the
real thing."

"Don't, Uncle!" Miss Mott interrupted, with a sudden touch of hysteria.

He patted her hand. Meredith laughed outright.

"I like to hear your uncle talk," he said. "And for once we have plenty
of time. Major Lingard is one of my chief lieutenants at the present
moment. He has taken the place of that impossible young man whom we have
had to discard altogether. Yes," Meredith went on, scrutinising the end
of the cigarette which he had just lit, "we had to get rid of Violet
Joe. It was painful, but he was too sentimental."

Miss Mott swayed in her chair. Her uncle passed his arm around her.

"Don't you worry, dear," he begged. "From the little I've seen of Violet
Joe, I'd back him against our friend here, any day. My niece is feeling
the strain, Meredith, so let's get down to business. What are you going
to do with me? I'm after the remainder of your gang, you know, and I
shall get you all some day."

Meredith stared at the speaker incredulously.

"Aren't you inclined to be something of an optimist?" he asked. "For
instance, may I enquire how you expect to get out of here alive?"

"Well, I may not," Superintendent Wragge admitted, drawing the whisky
bottle closer to him. "I've paid the bill but I'm going to cadge some
more whisky, if I may," he added, helping himself. "I may not get out of
here alive, as you suggest, Meredith, but there's one thing very
certain--"

"I like to hear about certainties," the latter interrupted, with an ugly
smile.

"One thing very certain," Superintendent Wragge repeated impressively,
"and that is, that if you kill me, before six weeks have passed you'll
be taking that fifty-yard walk at a few minutes before eight in the
morning, with a chaplain reading the prayers, a warder to hold you up, a
bell tolling in your ears, and that bare, ugly room yawning before you.
Murderers don't escape nowadays, you know, Meredith, and there are
special reasons why you won't."

There was something terrifying in his prisoner's deliberate speech and
absolute composure, and Meredith shivered for a moment, half in fear,
half in anger. He looked around at the others, who were waiting for his
orders, and he waved his hand towards the corner table. Four of the men
stole around to the back of Superintendent Wragge. Meredith turned
towards him.

"Wragge," he said, "you're a rotten detective, but with the help of this
very intelligent young lady, your niece, you've come pretty close to us
once or twice. After to-night, you aren't going to trouble me any more.
As for your niece, you needn't worry about her: she and I have a little
bargain to carry out, and this time there isn't going to be any mistake
about it!"

He leaned towards Miss Mott with that queer, satanic smile at the
corners of his lips, and Miss Mott, although she held herself bravely,
felt her eyes dilate with horror. Her uncle held his head a little on
one side--listening--and as he listened, he smiled.

"The trouble with you, Meredith," he deplored, "is that you always
refuse to give your enemies credit for even the rudiments of common
sense. You bait your trap cleverly enough, but you expect us to walk
into it a trifle too ingenuously. For instance, you imagined that a
harmless paper like _Home Talks_ would escape the notice of the Scotland
Yard Code Department. Not at all! 'Jenks in London' told us its message.
'Buttercups and Daisies' confirmed our suspicions."

Both Meredith and Lingard were speechless. They appeared to be
stiffening in preparation for some form of action, but they still
listened breathlessly.

"And another detail," Superintendent Wragge went on--"details are so
important, you know, Meredith. When you send theatre tickets from a
popular theatre for the use of a young lady, and you would like her to
believe that they had come from the Box Office, go to the expense of
having a rubber stamp made. 'Complimentary'--in purple ink across the
face of the slip of white paper--would be so much more convincing....
That's one o'clock striking, I think. You'd better scuttle off to your
hole, wherever it is. Do you hear--"

The Superintendent broke off abruptly in his speech. Every one for a
moment seemed to be holding his breath. There was a violent banging at
the outside door, a confusion of voices, some raised to the pitch of
shouting.

"Open the door there!"

"You can't close a night club before one o'clock!"

"We're members!"

"Open the door and look sharp about it!"

"The Prince of Wales is here and Lord God Beelzebub!"

Doggerel followed, every one singing, or rather yelling, in a different
key--

    "We won't go home till morning,
    We won't go home till morning,
    We won't go home till morning,
    Till daylight doth appear!"

"Hip, hip, hip, hurrah! Open the door, you fellows!"

Then silence. The sudden wave of apprehension which had drained the
colour from Lingard's cheeks and brought a flash of dismay into even
Meredith's eyes passed. The latter even smiled.

"Drunken roysterers!" he muttered. "Sit tight, every one. They'll be off
directly."

"I wonder," Superintendent Wragge speculated.

There was a storm of blows upon the door. Then silence again. A couple
of the pseudo-guests stood over Wragge, evidently waiting for Meredith's
orders. A waiter crossed the floor on tiptoe. A woman who wanted a drink
held up an empty bottle. The place became a study in still life.

"They'll be gone directly," Meredith repeated in a whisper.

A further brief period of silence. Then, with appalling suddenness, a
cataclysmic roar which set the whole place shaking, and beneath the
thunder of which were lost all such trivial sounds as the shrieks of
terrified women, the tumult of flying feet, the falling of crumbling
masonry. The stout entrance door and part of the wall fell crashing into
the room and there followed, for a brief and indeterminate span of time,
a flying panorama, utterly grotesque and unreal. A single file of
black-uniformed police streamed through the room, like gnomes in some
fantastic, futurist drama. They were running at the double, their
strangely shaped peaked caps bent towards the ground, flashing by the
amazed group of satyr-faced men and terrified women. Unearthly puppets
they seemed against the strange background of the weirdly emblazoned
walls, hastening towards that farther entrance, through which Lingard
and Meredith had already disappeared. The three members of the coloured
orchestra filled the air with a hideous clamour, yelling like human
beasts gone crazy. There was a single shot fired by one of the
pseudo-guests at a distant table,--a shot which buried itself harmlessly
in the wall and brought a stream of crumbling plaster on to the table
before which Superintendent Wragge was still seated. The rearmost of
those black, stooping forms, without faltering in his stride, threw out
his arm--there was a stab of flame--and the man sank in a huddled heap
upon the floor. Superintendent Wragge passed his arm around Miss Mott's
waist and led her toward the open space where the door had been, and
through which the night wind was now sweeping.

"They won't have me in the fighting squadron," he remarked. "We'll leave
them to it. I ordered the car for one o'clock."




V

THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER


Miss Mott sat before her desk, worshipping a large bunch of violets.
They were very beautiful and they filled her small office with
fragrance. Her eyes shone as she looked at them. She buried her small,
dainty nose and her flushed cheeks in their cool sweetness. But when she
sat back in her swivelled chair and tried to look and feel as a young
woman of business should, she came to the firm determination that
something must be done about them. She felt that their daily arrival and
constant presence upon her table were creating a false impression. Her
juvenile secretary sighed sentimentally as she looked at them. Her
errand boy grinned. Her male protector--Sergeant Harrop--a lusty
commissionaire whose chest was covered with medals--an appendage
insisted upon and paid for by her uncle, regarded them evidently as a
sign of weakness, and her uncle himself, when for the third visit in
succession he had found a similar bowl of loosened violets perfuming the
musty air, suddenly realised their significance and indulged in more or
less mild badinage. Miss Mott decided then that it was time something
was done about it, and accordingly, next time an offering was due--they
came with singular regularity every third day--she arrived at the office
half an hour earlier and detained the messenger boy. With the
information which she secured from him, she presented herself later on
in the day at one of the two famous flower shops of Bond Street. She
interviewed the manager with confidence and retreated in humiliation.
She discovered that silence was the etiquette of his vocation; the words
of his dismissal were final.

"If our clients wish their names divulged, madam," he said, "they send a
card. When they do not, we assume that they wish their offerings to be
anonymous and we respect their wishes."

Outside in the street, Miss Mott, who was very angry, met her uncle,
Superintendent Wragge of Scotland Yard. He shook his head at her
sorrowfully.

"Sending flowers to yourself," he accused her. "I thought only actresses
did that."

She indulged in a little grimace.

"I went to find out where my violets came from," she confided, "and the
man wouldn't tell me."

"Quite right too," was the only sympathy she received. "A most improper
curiosity on your part, I call it. If your mysterious admirer had meant
you to know who he was, he'd have sent a card. I can guess why he
didn't, though," the Superintendent concluded with a chuckle.

Miss Mott felt her cheeks burn.

"I'm sorry I met you," she said spitefully.

"You won't be, when I tell you the news," he replied. "The Liverpool
Express was held up in Derbyshire yesterday and five chests of bullion
for a Liverpool Bank were stolen--sixty thousand pounds, at least."

Miss Mott's eyes were round with excitement. She glanced at the passing
crowd.

"Do you believe--"

"The same lot, beyond a doubt. Not that your friend's in it: the belief
of the Yard is that he's broken with them. It's that long Mephistopheles
who's escaped us twice who's worked this."

"Are you on the business now?" she asked eagerly.

"I might be," he admitted.

She passed her arm through his and looked up at him appealingly. The
male portion of the passers-by sighed. When Miss Mott looked like that
she was very pretty indeed.

"I've nothing to do just at present," she murmured.

"Then go back to your office and write an article for _Home Talks_,"
Superintendent Wragge advised her sternly. "We've had this out before.
I've been through hell for the close shaves you've had with me and I'm
leaving you out in future, my dear."

"You don't mean it," she pleaded.

"Never again," he assured her, "am I going to pander to your love of
excitement or be wheedled into letting you go where you don't belong.
Bring me any information you get in your office and you shall be paid
for it, but hunting criminals is no girl's job. You'll excuse me, my
dear."

There had been a quick flash in Superintendent Wragge's eyes and his
niece knew that he had good reasons for his departure. She made no
attempt to detain him, but she stood and watched him cross the road and
enter the establishment of a famous gentlemen's outfitter where she was
perfectly certain he never bought his own atrocious neckties. She waited
a few minutes without any further sign of him. Then, very reluctantly,
she made her way back to her office. All day long she was occupied in
writing sympathetic little messages to her various correspondents. She
wound up with one on her own account and her fingers trembled on the
typewriter as she struck it out:

     To Violet J.

     Thank you so much, but please, no more.

Miss Mott, somewhat to her surprise, found herself, in obedience to a
message from Scotland Yard, taking a cocktail with her uncle that
evening, at a very cosmopolitan caf in the neighbourhood of Regent
Street. She had had rather a dull day and she found the atmosphere
refreshing.

"Why do you never come near me now?" she asked.

"Because we are better apart," he replied. "I've arrived at the
conclusion that that long devil we're after is about the most dangerous
fellow who ever declared war against us, and from several small things
which have come to my notice," he went on, looking intently into his
cocktail, "I think that, although that marriage certificate business was
all bunkum, of course, he would run almost any risk to get hold of you
again."

Miss Mott shivered. Nevertheless it sounded very exciting.

"Half the criminals we have run to earth in this world," he went on,
"we've caught because they've taken a risk about a woman. I believe this
fellow's in the same frame of mind. I'm telling you this, Lucie, in
order that you may be warned. In my opinion, as I have said, there isn't
anything he wouldn't do or almost any risk he wouldn't run to get hold
of you, and if he did, I think he'd finish--he'd get right away, if he
could. We've evidence that he's planning something of the sort."

She laid her fingers upon his large, hairy hand.

"Why don't you make use of me, then?" she begged. "I'm not afraid. We've
been foolish before, but we needn't be again. Supposing I went about in
the evening with a harmless person--like my editor--and you put two or
three of your best men on--"

"No more of that, Lucie," her uncle interrupted more sharply, perhaps,
than he had ever spoken before to his niece. "I've had my lesson and
I've finished. Why I sent for you this evening to have this little chat
was just to warn you once more, and more than warn you. No theatre
tickets, mind, no free automobile trials, no acceptance of invitations,
even from well-known people, and no strange taxis. Walk to your flat or
take a bus, or if you don't want to do that, have my car. I can get one
from the Yard at any time."

She laughed.

"I'll take care," she promised, "and I wouldn't think of having your
car. Don't imagine, though, that I don't notice. You've got a man from
the Yard in as commissionaire at the flats, besides my friend Harrop.
I'm not sure about the lift boy. And there's a second man about the
place who doesn't seem to have much to do."

"I've taken some precautions," Superintendent Wragge admitted, "for our
sake as well as yours. Meredith's hiding places have, so far, beaten us.
Where he got to after the Club raid the other night, for instance, is a
mystery, but I am convinced of this--if anything'll bring him up to the
surface, it will be you."

Miss Mott laughed softly. Youth has the gift of forgetfulness, and some
hours of horror that lay not so far back in the past troubled her now
very little.

"I suppose I should be flattered," she murmured. "I don't know whether I
am or not: I can never think of the man without a shiver.... Now, I want
to ask you something, Uncle. Do you see a man opposite, rather
thick-set, not very tall, wearing glasses and reading a French
newspaper? He was angry with the waiter because he didn't give him
enough absinthe."

"Yes, I see him," Superintendent Wragge admitted.

"Is he my watchdog?" she enquired.

Her uncle was a little annoyed.

"Yes," he acknowledged, "but you just let him alone, Lucie. You're not
to speak to him, look at him or address him at any time. You understand
that?"

"Perfectly."

Wragge paid for the cocktails and rose. He drove his niece back to the
building in which her residential club was situated, and wished her an
affectionate good night.

"You're making life rather dull for me," she complained.

"It isn't easy for any of us, just at present," he assured her. "We made
four important captures the last raid and this particular company of
gangsters aren't what they used to be. All the same, the Chief resents
Meredith. He's like a great many other semi-civilians--he doesn't
realise that, given an equal show-down, the odds are on the criminal
every time. We've wiped the Bill Sykeses off the face of the earth, but
there's more poison in one Meredith than in all the criminals of twenty
years ago put together."

Miss Mott laughed to herself as she passed across the cheerful hall of
her club and rang for the lift. The man who had been in the caf was
making some inconsequent enquiry of the concierge. It was, after all,
rather exciting to be guarded by detectives. Here, too, she was so safe.
A benign and virtuous committee had excluded, by their rules, the
presence of men, except in the dining and smoking rooms. Miss Mott dined
at her favourite table, with a book propped up in front of her, smoked a
cigarette afterwards in the lounge, played a fifty up at billiards with
Mrs. Hart-Williams--the lady manageress of the club--and at the latter's
insistence, indulged in the unusual luxury of a lemon squash. At ten
o'clock she ascended to her small but comfortable bedroom on the
second-floor back, especially chosen by her--when her uncle had
insisted upon her leaving her flat--because there were trees waving in
the wind outside, a strip of waste land which might have passed as a
garden, and no disturbing traffic. She undressed slowly, folding, or
hanging up with great care, her tastefully chosen and somewhat expensive
clothes, said her prayers a little vaguely--for Miss Mott was religious
by instinct, although agnostic by mentality--and in full peace and
security went to bed and to sleep. When she awoke, she found herself in
a perfectly strange room and by the side of her bed a gaunt, familiar
figure with a thin scar running down one side of his face.

       *       *       *       *       *

Superintendent Wragge, mounting the stairs to his office the following
morning, a cigar between his teeth, and his hat, as usual, a little on
the back of his head, was met with tragic news. In less than a quarter
of an hour he was seated by the side of one of the cots in the casualty
ward at St. George's Hospital, listening to the choked words of a dying
man. The drawn, white face was scarcely recognisable, but to
Superintendent Wragge it was familiar enough, and he only cursed himself
that he had not given the job of looking after Miss Mott to a younger
man. The doctor who had been Superintendent Wragge's escort whispered in
his ear.

"Better get his story. He can't live an hour."

The detective shivered, for he was a man of kindly temperament.
Nevertheless he steeled himself to listen.

"Tell me anything you can remember, Burrows," he enjoined.

The dying man plucked feverishly at the bedclothes.

"I was supposed to have finished for the day when Miss Mott reached the
Hostel," he began. "Those were your own instructions. I didn't like the
look of the back of the place at all, though. It seemed made for a
ramp--a few sheltering trees, a bit of rough land and then the huge
hotel they're building--room for a hundred people to hide there on a
dark night--and a half-made road leading up to within a dozen yards of
the back of the Hostel. I sent my card in to the manageress--Scotland
Yard on it, remember--and asked to have Miss Mott's room pointed out to
me. She refused. I'd get a--a line on her, sir. She'd got a diamond ring
on I'd swear was new, that must have cost a small fortune. I tried the
concierge. He'd been spoken to by the manageress and he wouldn't say a
word. Something odd about this, I thought. Oh, God!"

The man's face was convulsed with pain. A nurse came and stood on the
other side of the bed. She smoothed his forehead and held a glass to his
lips. In a moment or two he went on--but his voice was perceptibly
weaker.

"I didn't bother them--any more--I thought you'd deal with them--in the
morning, sir. Refusing information to the police! I made up my mind for
a night out. No good before one, I thought, so I had a bit of a rest and
then I came on duty again. I brought a shooting stick and sat in a dark
corner behind some mortar tubs. I didn't know for certain that Miss
Mott's was a back room, but I decided to act as though it was. It must
have been about four when something happened. It wasn't light, but there
was a greyish streak where the clouds hung over the houses. At first I
thought I was dreaming. Then, through those two weedy trees, I saw a
man, carrying what seemed to be a bundle, and dragging a ladder after
him. He threw the ladder down on the grass and came on towards me, and
just then I heard a motor not far behind--kind of sobbing--high-powered
engine running slow. I pulled my gun and came out when he was twenty
paces away.

"'What have you got there?' I cried, all ready to shoot. Then, with my
finger on the trigger, I had to stop, for I could see that what he was
carrying was a woman, seemingly drugged or unconscious, and I was afraid
of hitting her. I tried to run him instead, but he got me. Scarcely a
sound, just a spit of fire and a stab in my chest--one of these
new-fashioned ones.... I wasn't done, though. I fell, but I got up
again, and I staggered after him. The car had come into sight and he
pushed the woman in. Then he looked back and I let go at him. Just as I
pulled the trigger, I got my second one a little lower down. I don't
know whether I hit him or not, but he'd have been in the next world all
right, if he'd been one second later."

"You can't remember what he looked like--or anything about the car?"
Superintendent Wragge asked, with almost pathetic wistfulness.

"I couldn't see his face," the sinking man groaned. "He had a black hat
pulled over his eyes and he was dressed so that he seemed a part of the
darkness, but the chauffeur--oh, my God!--"

Twice the lips opened and closed without speech. The sweat was standing
on the man's forehead. His agony was manifest. The doctor glanced
significantly at Superintendent Wragge and shook his head, but Wragge in
those moments was a man without a heart.

"There is something you can tell me," he murmured, bending lower still.
"The chauffeur? It may save a girl's life."

"The chauffeur--Miss Mott--motorcycle--flood," the man gasped--and died.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the billiard room of a large public house, somewhere between Aldgate
and Shoreditch, a young man of Jewish appearance, flashily dressed, his
coat removed for the purposes of the game, was busily chalking his cue.
He felt a light touch upon his shoulder. The cue fell with a clatter to
the ground; the chalk rolled away under the table. The young man cowered
back.

"Where were you last night, Henry Leneveu?" a stern voice asked.

The youth was incapable of speech. Neither Sergeant Betts nor his
companion were in uniform, but there wasn't a man in the room who didn't
recognise them as detectives.

"Quick! Out with it!" Sergeant Betts insisted. "We know, but I want to
hear it from your own lips. Where were you? And where were you driving
that car to?"

Henry Leneveu picked up his cue. It was the old trick, he thought, with
a little spasm of resentment, trying to rush you before you knew where
you were. He made a weak effort to pull himself together, and faced his
questioner.

"In 'ere playing billiards, s'elp me God, Sergeant," he avowed. "You ask
any on 'em. They'll tell ye. In 'ere I was from seven o'clock till
closing time," he went on, raising his voice and looking appealingly
around.

There was a confirmatory murmur of voices. Sergeant Betts regarded them
all scornfully.

"An alibi from this place wouldn't be much help to you, young fellow,"
he declared. "However, that's neither here nor there. Put on your coat
and come along with me."

"What for?" was the sullen demand. "You've nothing against me."

"Nothing whatever," the Sergeant assured him. "Yours may be the purest
life of any young man of your profession in the city of London. All the
same, Superintendent Wragge wants a few words with you at the Yard. Come
on, we've a car outside."

"You're not pinching me, or anything of that sort?"

"Not we! Just a friendly little chat with the Superintendent, that's
all."

Mr. Leneveu handed his cue to the marker.

"Anything to oblige Mr. Wragge," he said, with a slight swagger. "I'll
finish the game when I get back, Charlie."

"Righto, Hennie," was the amiable response from his late opponent.

Sergeant Betts having failed in his first frontal attack, neither asked
nor answered any questions on the way to the Embankment, a journey which
was completed in almost unbroken silence. Arrived at the Yard,
Superintendent Wragge, who had been awaiting his visitor eagerly,
pointed to a chair close to his desk. No one else was present in the
room, but an anmic-looking young man bending over a notebook. The
Superintendent seemed to have forgotten his haste. He filled his pipe
slowly and lit it. Most of the time he was looking at his victim.

"Henry Leneveu," he said at last, "you're for it!"

"You've got nothing against me," the young man blustered.

"Don't be a fool," was the contemptuous reply. "What do you suppose
we're here for? We've got enough against you, if we cared to use it, to
put you away for five years. You're more useful to us out, because
you're easy to watch. Now, no nonsense about it! Where did you drive
that car to last night from the back of Dorset Street?"

The young man's expression was one of almost exaggerated surprise.

"I, driving a car last night, Superintendent!" he exclaimed. "You've got
hold of the wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. I was playing billiards
till closing time."

"Well, we'll call it this morning, if you like," the Superintendent
suggested. "Throw in your hand, Leneveu. You're finished. We've known
all about you for months. We know the date you were appointed to lead
the Number Two gang. We know the first time you were chosen to work for
the Number One lot. You were working for them last night."

"Take my solemn oath," the young man began--

"Chuck it," Superintendent Wragge interrupted wearily. "Look here, I'll
tell you what I didn't mean to. We have the dying depositions of the man
whom one of you shot last night. He identified you. He saw you on the
driving seat of the car, which had been hidden in that new hotel they're
building at the back of Dorset Street."

"S'elp me, God--"

"Shut up!" Superintendent Wragge admonished sharply. "Now, if you'll be
reasonable, I'm going to talk to you like a man. We don't want you--just
yet--but, if you're obstinate, down you go to the cells at the nearest
Police Station, and we can keep you locked up for a bit without
committing perjury, either. We want the girl. Where did you drive her
to?"

Henry Leneveu looked helplessly into his questioner's face. He was a
terrible man, this Superintendent. No one could ever tell how much he
knew. He was a man of his word too. Blast that cop who had recognised
him! He got his all right, but depositions counted.

"Supposing," he faltered--

"Mum's the word, so far as we're concerned," the Superintendent assured
him. "We don't want your evidence. We're just as anxious to keep our
sources of information secret as you are."

Henry Leneveu picked up a piece of paper from the desk and made a little
plan upon it. He pushed it across to Superintendent Wragge who glanced
at it and nodded. He rang the bell.

"You can go back and finish your game of billiards, Henry," he said
pleasantly.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Let us," Meredith begged, as he looked into Miss Mott's wild face,
"abjure melodrama as far as possible. These continual abductions must be
getting on your nerves. This time I propose that we settle down
peacefully."

Miss Mott looked around the room, which was pleasant enough but
unfamiliar.

"Where am I?" she demanded.

"The one question you were bound to ask, of course," he replied
patiently, "and the one question, too, which you knew could not be
answered. After all, what does it matter whether you are in Essex,
Sussex or Northumberland? Especially, as you're not likely to leave this
room for several days."

"I demand to know where you have brought me and why?" Miss Mott
insisted.

"I will answer your last question," Meredith conceded. "I brought you
here because you are the woman I want for a companion; because I
consider you are my wife; because, if you prefer a more legal ceremony,
it could doubtless be arranged from here. I am willing to run risks, you
see, to satisfy your scruples. I'm not a woman's man, which is perhaps
why I am so successful a gangster. But you are going to be my woman for
the rest of your life and mine, married or not, just as you please--"

Miss Mott sat up in bed. Somehow or other his coolness was becoming
communicated to her.

"Do I join the gang?" she asked.

"You do not," he answered. "I have finished with crime. I have made the
most elaborate plans for getting away from this country. You will
accompany me."

"I can't see myself doing anything of the sort," she remarked coolly.

She looked around her. The room was nicely, even luxuriously, furnished,
and there was a fire in the grate. She bit her lip when she saw the
clothes which she had taken off the night before put out for her, and
realised that she was wearing a crpe-de-Chine nightgown of Bond Street
possibilities.

"There is really no reason why you shouldn't know where you are,"
Meredith observed, lounging against the chimney piece. "You are in a
very large and old-fashioned house in Greenwich. This side are the
gardens--rather neglected, I fear. On the other side--just across the
road--is the river."

"You seem to be fond of water," she remarked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"The flood was not my fault," he pointed out. "Here, I admit, the river
is useful. It provides means of escape in a dozen different directions
and I--or rather, we--own the swiftest motor launch in this country. You
will perhaps discover an element of humour in the fact," he went on,
with a queer little smile, "that I competed in the recent speed trials
and won two prizes."

"You are a wonderful man," she said thoughtfully. "How did you contrive
to drug me this time?"

"The manageress of your Hostel," he explained. "The Cartier's ring was a
little more than she could resist. No headache, I hope?"

"Nothing to speak of, thanks," Miss Mott replied.

"I will send your maid," he said, moving towards the door.

With his hand upon the knob, he paused. He turned around, and for a
moment he was the old Meredith--dark, saturnine, villainous.

"I have tried to introduce different elements into our conversation," he
continued, "but, remember, this remains a truth--I shall kill you before
I allow any one to take you away. I do not think that it is within the
bounds of possibility that you should be discovered here, but if you
are, I shall kill you and myself. For the rest--you know. If it can be
managed, I shall risk a special licence to satisfy your scruples. If it
cannot--you'll be mine within three days, just the same. Make up your
mind to it, please. I am richer than you ever dreamed of and I am going
to take you to a country where we shall never be found. Some day you
will agree with me that one man who loves you is very like another."

He opened and closed the door. Miss Mott listened to his retreating
footsteps and fear came into her heart. Before, she had always been
conscious of a surrounding atmosphere of melodrama, which had invested
even the most terrifying moments through which she had passed with a
sense of unreality. To-day Meredith had spoken in a tone of deadly but
commonplace earnestness. He was so sure of himself and his success that
he had not even made any mystery as to her whereabouts. The three days
he had spoken of were actually and indeed the measure of her respite.
Somehow or other the optimism which had kept up her courage during those
terrible hours at Ilsom Grange seemed to be slipping away from her. She
had a sense this time of being utterly and completely trapped.

The sound of running water attracted her. She sprang out of bed and
turned the handle of a door at the farther end of the room. A woman,
with her back turned towards her, was manipulating the taps of a large
bath. Miss Mott recognised at once her duenna from Ilsom Grange. The
latter turned and looked at her.

"So you're back again," she remarked tonelessly.

"Is that bath for me?" Miss Mott asked.

The woman rose to her feet.

"The water's there and the towels," she pointed out. "Bath salts and
perfumes I don't understand. There's a great box there from some place
in Bond Street. Help yourself."

She passed out by a door at the other end of the room, which closed
after her with a spring lock. Miss Mott, determined to make the best of
present joys, used twice as much of the choice bath salts as she had
ever ventured upon before in her life, and, perfumed and refreshed,
completed her toilet in the other room. Just as she was finishing, a key
turned in the lock outside and a breakfast tray was brought in. There
were newspapers, flowers, fragrant coffee, two silver dishes and a note
addressed to her in bold handwriting. She tore it open.

     My dear little Visitor,

     I fear that you will see little of me during our three days'
     engagement, for as I am leaving this country for ever at the end of
     that time, I find a great deal to do. Your maid will bring you a
     box of books when she comes for your breakfast tray, but I must ask
     you to be content with your room until to-morrow evening, when I
     hope to be able to ask you to dine with me.

     My homage and devotion,

     Walter Meredith.

Miss Mott tore the letter into small pieces. She ate her breakfast,
however, with a good appetite and read the papers with a curious sense
of detachment from the world of actual events. Afterwards she made a
careful inspection of the room and decided that any form of escape was
impossible. The windows opened one foot only from top or bottom, and
the garden below, although nearly a wilderness, was walled in and
deserted. Miss Mott, with her usual common sense, decided to wait upon
events.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the following evening her dinner tray failed to arrive at the usual
time. There came instead a deep voice outside her door, a word of
warning and the turning of a key. Meredith presented himself. In his
rather severe dinner clothes, with black tie and black studs, his
appearance seemed even more forbidding than usual.

"You haven't forgotten our plan for this evening, I trust," he said.

"Your plan," Miss Mott corrected him. "I shall be very pleased to see
some other room than this."

He drew her hand gently through his arm and led her toward the stairs.
His gesture seemed to be one of courtesy, but she felt the imprisoning
touch. She felt, too, that his muscles were like iron. They passed down
a spacious stairway into a dining room of immense proportions. There was
faded tapestry on the walls and the remains of some fine furniture.
Dinner was served, however, at a small round table drawn within
reasonable distance of a huge fire.

"What a strange house," Miss Mott remarked.

"It is the house," he confided, as he fetched her a cocktail from the
sideboard, "for which the police have been searching for seven years.
During the whole of that time it has been the headquarters of--what is
it they call us?--the Number One Gangsters."

"Aren't you being a little over-confidential?" she asked, setting down
her empty glass.

"Not in the least," he replied. "You and I are one, or shall be in a few
hours. You have a right to share all my secrets, and besides, as I
reminded you before, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband."

"I shall never be your wife," Miss Mott said firmly, "nor shall I be the
other thing--whatever you like to call it. You are a much less
intelligent person than you seem if you have not already discovered that
there is no such thing as force between men and women."

"There is persuasion," he ventured.

"There is persuasion," she admitted, "but if that fails, there is
nothing."

"You're not afraid then?" he asked curiously.

"Not very much," she answered. "The only fear I have is that I might
have to die. I don't really want to: I'm much too interested in life."

Gordon, the perfect butler, began the service of dinner. She watched him
with wondering eyes. His manner was entirely respectful, he might never
have set eyes upon her before.

"Don't you sometimes feel," she asked her host, "that yours is a life of
unrealities? You are so near the edge of the precipice at every moment.
I think it is perfectly wonderful how you manage to ignore it. Look at
Gordon there, for instance; he might be serving a little dinner for two
in Grosvenor Square or anywhere. He looks as though the idea of a
policeman would shock him and that he'd never heard the whistle of a
bullet in his life."

Meredith smiled.

"We all get to be like that," he said. "It seems to be courage. It is
really a sort of inbred fatalism. No one who does not possess it would
drift into this desperate life."

"What made you do it?" she enquired, with genuine interest.

"The war," he answered, without hesitation. "It was the same with all of
us, I think. The war left us with newly aroused impulses--the lust of
killing, the craving for excitement. Those of us who had the instinct
became freebooters quite naturally. An interesting war somewhere else
would have been the only thing that could have saved us. The country, or
rather the Government of the country, treated its heroes foully; they
treated its rank and file worse. We represent the spirit of revolt.
That's all I can tell you about it."

"What were you before the war?" she asked. "Since," she added, with the
strangest smile that had ever flickered at the corners of her lips, "you
expect me to become your wife, I have a right to ask, haven't I?"

"I was the youngest son of a peer and a very decent fellow, though
poor," he confided. "So was the man whom you seem to have weaned away
from us and whom I shall kill at any time if he comes near you--Violet
Joe."

"Where is Violet Joe?" she enquired.

Meredith shook his head.

"I don't know," he admitted. "He has made a more or less honourable
retreat. Nevertheless, there are a few bullets waiting for him when he
comes into view. No good your looking cloudwards this time, my dear Miss
Mott. Neither Violet Joe nor any other man on earth is coming to rescue
you."

She shivered a little and watched the champagne bubbling in her glass.

"I don't see why you should be so confident," she said. "This seems to
me to be a very conspicuous house."

"It is," he acknowledged. "That is why no one would believe the truth
about it."

"What would happen if they did?"

"Since you ask me, I will tell you. We should fight until the last and
we possess here every known device for fighting. When, finally, we were
overpowered, as of course we should be, there are three separate buttons
in different parts of the building enclosed in glass bulbs. One of us
would smash the glass bulbs, press the buttons, and there would be the
most wonderful exemplification of that old Biblical remark about one
stone not remaining on another!"

"Then you yourselves would all be killed," she commented.

He smiled.

"You get the idea," he confessed. "As a matter of fact, no one is
allowed to cross the portals here, to attend the meetings or to become a
resident, unless their lives are already forfeit. You may take it that
there is not a soul in this building, excepting yourself, who has not
been guilty of either murder or manslaughter in the first degree."

Miss Mott had borne herself bravely, but the colour was leaving her
cheeks. She finished her champagne and pushed back her chair. The
tablecloth had been removed and the shaded electric light shone down
upon a bowl of hothouse fruit and two decanters of wine.

"A peach," Meredith begged--"muscatel grapes--a glass of port or
Madeira?"

Miss Mott braced herself. There was something terribly fascinating about
her host's confidences. She broke off some muscatel grapes from their
stalk and accepted half a glass of Madeira.

"You know I expect to be rescued," she said. "What will you do then?"

"The worst thing that could happen to you," he declared. "You'd have to
share our fate without having the joy of the fight--"

"That doesn't sound very gallant," she complained. "If there's a fire
anywhere, they always let the birds and the animals free."

He bowed a trifle satirically.

"The birds and animals in natural life are dumb," he reminded her. "They
don't even possess a cockatoo uncle in Scotland Yard!"

She finished her wine deliberately. Then she looked across the table at
her host. For the first time she realised that in a strange sort of way
he was handsome.

"I would not marry you, even if it were possible, I will not become
anything else to you, and if you try to make me, you will be guilty of
murder, because I shall kill myself. Will you let me go if I promise to
keep the secret of this house and of everything else you have told me?"

His voice was incredibly gentle, his eyes disturbingly soft.

"I will not," he replied. "I will not, Lucie," he repeated, "because I
love you and because I hope to make you change your mind."

"It is impossible," she cried.

"So has been my escape from justice on more than one occasion," he
reminded her. "But I am here."

       *       *       *       *       *

With every hour that passed, there grew stronger in Miss Mott's mind the
conviction that this time Fate had proved too much for her. People came
and went all day but, so far as she was concerned, the house at
Greenwich was a complete and absolute fortress. The woman who waited
upon her, and to whom, in a weak moment, she appealed, looked at her
with scorn.

"A thousand pounds wouldn't be no use to me, nor ten thousand," she
said. "No one ever got away from the master whom he wanted to keep, and
no one ever will. If I let you out into the street, you'd be back by
nightfall and I should be lying at the bottom of the river. If he wants
you, better make up your mind to it. There's many'd like to be in your
place."

Gordon brought up the cocktails the next morning, announcing that his
master was out to lunch. His contempt got the better of his perfect
manners.

"I like money, madam," he said, "but I value my life. Money is no use
unless you've a year or two to spend it in. Did you read the papers this
morning?"

"No," she confessed listlessly.

"There was a young Jew chap," he confided, "found dead on the
Embankment, with a hole in the middle of his forehead. He'd been taken
to Scotland Yard the day before and he was on his way there again. That
young fellow was your chauffeur! The master doesn't run any risks.
They're still waiting there to know where he drove you. They'll wait:
he'll never be their guide."

Miss Mott drank her cocktail and said no more.

Meredith was back for dinner and, for him, in gay humour. He even
ventured on a little badinage as to her pale cheeks and the rims under
her eyes.

"All that will soon go, dear," he assured her, "when we get south. I'm
beginning to hate these grey skies myself. Do you know that the time is
drawing very near?"

"Is it?" she asked, with well-simulated indifference.

He laughed across the table.

"One part of my scheme," he confided, "has miscarried. We run too many
risks in attempting that little ceremony here."

"It would have made no difference," she told him, "If you had brought
your special licence and the clergyman, I should still refuse to marry
you."

"You prefer '_la vie libre_'?" he questioned lightly. "Perhaps you are
right. The only trouble is that when, in the natural course of things,
death will have washed my sins away, there may be children, and my son
might very well become the heir to a title of some importance. My being
a more or less notorious criminal, you see, doesn't affect that
situation at all."

Miss Mott failed to afford him the satisfaction of a single sign of
emotion, whatever she might have been feeling. Her eyes met his steadily
across the table and there was a note almost of contempt in her tone.

"The occasion for disquietude on that account will never occur," she
assured him....

He held the door open for her with his usual courtesy. Contrary to his
custom, however, he mounted the stairs with her. She made no comment,
but as she entered her room she gave a little cry. It was swept bare and
her hat and coat alone remained upon the bed.

"What does this mean?" she asked, with sinking heart.

"The time is up," he told her gravely. "We leave in five minutes. We
cross the river by motor boat to the yacht. She is anchored on the other
side."

Then terror indeed came to Miss Mott and she shivered where she stood.
Even the kindness in his tone when he spoke to her was like a subtle
threat. He had seen the approach of her dour handmaiden and he frowned.

"As I daresay you know by experience, Miss Mott," he continued, "it is
perfectly easy to keep you semi-conscious or wholly unconscious, until
you are safely on the boat. I would rather treat you like a sensible
human being. Will you give me your word not to open your lips to any
one, not to cry out or try to attract any one's attention if I leave you
as you are?"

Miss Mott, also, had noticed the approach of the woman, whom she had
grown to hate, with a towel in one hand and a small medicine glass in
the other, and she shivered.

"Yes, I will promise that," she agreed reluctantly.

Miss Mott wrapped herself in her cloak, drew on her hat and descended
the stairs with Meredith. She passed into the front part of the house,
which as yet she had not visited. She was dimly conscious of people
about, like shadows, all men, all with that serious look in their faces
which betokened a certain amount of anxiety. At the front door, Gordon
was stationed, no longer in his livery, but dressed for a voyage. They
stepped out and crossed the road, empty of pedestrians. Alongside the
wharf a beautiful motor boat was waiting, her engines throbbing softly.
Miss Mott took her place upon the cushioned seat, feeling her way there,
for they were travelling without lights. Meredith went into the bows
and, leaning forward, watched. One of the two men took the wheel and
they shot away across stream....

Miss Mott looked up at the stars and prayed--this time very earnestly
indeed--and when she glanced on each side into the black waters of the
river, through which they were tearing, she seemed very near to death.
For a single moment she weakened. She had lost much of her fear of
Meredith. Life in its material aspects--and how else, after all, did
life appeal to one nowadays--might still offer her something very near
happiness. Then the subconscious revolt of her implacable virginity
swept aside all such falterings. Unseen in the gloom she slipped off her
coat, kicked off her shoes and stood for a moment poised on the edge of
the boat. Meredith saw her and a great agonised shout burst from his
lips. He leapt forward. Too late! There was a splash, and nothing to be
seen on the other side of the wall of darkness!

Miss Mott swam steadily on into the white rays of the searchlight of an
anchored liner waiting for her pilot. Gordon was on his knees in the
launch, with his long automatic, waiting for her to come into sight. His
finger was upon the trigger when he felt the gun snatched from his hand
and his master's fist crashing into his face.

"She'll peach," he cried.

"Let her," Meredith answered savagely, as he threw the automatic into
the river.

Up that long streak of white light, Miss Mott swam boldly. Hoarse voices
were shouting from the liner. The sound of oars drew nearer at every
moment. She was smiling happily when they dragged her into the boat.




VI

LOST MISS GREENE


Miss Mott, a little weary of the criminal world, welcomed with some
curiosity the caller who presented himself towards the middle of a
somewhat uneventful morning about a week after her return to the office.
His visiting card piqued her too. Its original inscription was clearly--

    THE REVEREND GEORGE PADMORE

but a thick-edged pencil had removed with meticulous care the prefix.

"Unfrocked," Miss Mott murmured to herself. "I wonder?"

George Padmore, duly ushered in, proved to be a rather shy, engaging
young man, awkward in his movements and carriage, with large hands and
feet, dressed in a shabby pepper-and-salt suit of semi-clerical cut,
lanky, with very little healthy colour in his cheeks, but with a pair of
large, earnest eyes. Miss Mott did her best from the first to set him at
ease, but it was clear that he was desperately nervous.

"Mr. Padmore, isn't it?" she asked pleasantly, as she motioned him to a
chair. "What can I do for you? It isn't often that I have a gentleman
client. I don't know much about your sort of troubles, you know."

"I doubt whether you or any one else in the world can do anything for
me, Miss Mott," he replied. "But it's about a missing young lady."

"Well, that seems to be in my line of business," she remarked, with an
encouraging smile. "Tell me about it."

"She's disappeared," the young man declared tragically, leaning back in
his chair.

"What's her name, when, how and where?" Miss Mott demanded.

"Her name's Florence Greene," the ex-divine confided. "She disappeared
from her home in Farringford about a week ago and no one's heard a word
of her since."

"Why do you come to me instead of the police?" was the next question.

He drew a copy of _Home Talks_ from his pocket and turned to the
"Answers to Correspondents."

"Because she must have written to you for advice," he explained. "Here's
your reply to her:

     To Florence G. My dear, surely you have some personal friend to
     whom you can confide your troubles. If, as you say, you are
     twenty-one, your aunts have no right to detain you and force you to
     do work which you dislike. With regard to the young man, if he is
     as fond of you as you think, I am sure he would disregard the fear
     of offending your aunts and help you, if you asked him. You say
     that you believe your father left you a little money, but you have
     never been told about it. Why not consult the local solicitor?"

Miss Mott nodded.

"Yes, I remember now," she acknowledged. "The young lady seemed in great
distress."

"I want you to show me her letter."

Miss Mott shook her head.

"Impossible," she regretted. "My client's letters to me are personal."

"But don't you see," he pleaded, "that something in her letter might
give me a hint as to what has happened? It might enable me to trace
her."

"I can't help that," Miss Mott persisted.

"There were reasons," he went on earnestly, "why, at the time she wrote
that letter to you, it was very important that I should be on friendly
terms with her aunts. They have disappeared now. The whole situation is
different. I must find her and tell her so."

Miss Mott rang the bell and went through the file which her clerk
presently brought her. She drew out a letter and read it thoughtfully.

"There is nothing in this to indicate any intention of leaving home,"
she announced, looking up.

"I'm sure she didn't mean to go," the young man affirmed eagerly.
"She--well--we're engaged. I'd been called away for a month, and only
two days before I returned, I had a letter from her, saying how she was
looking forward to my getting back. Then I got back and found her
disappeared. Her aunts declare that she just walked out of the shop with
a string bag to make some purchases, about a week ago, and they've never
seen her since."

"I think," Miss Mott decided, "that it is a case for the police."

"If she's just gone away to hide for a few days, she'll never forgive me
if I go to them."

Miss Mott looked across at him sweetly.

"You have something at the back of your mind which you have not told
me," she suggested. "Is there any special reason why she should want to
go away and hide?"

He flushed up to the temples and Miss Mott liked him for it. Suddenly he
rose from his place. He walked to the window and back with long, awkward
strides. Then he stood in front of her desk. Watching him closely, she
could picture him as a revivalist preacher.

"We've been married nearly a year," he confided, "and there might be a
reason. That's why I'm so terrified. She was under a promise to me not
to tell her aunts. I wasn't independent then--and they supported the
Chapel."

Miss Mott nodded and there was more sympathy than she had intended in
her gesture.

"I will motor down to Farringford this afternoon," she promised.

       *       *       *       *       *

At five o'clock that afternoon, Miss Mott--having recently invested in a
Bentley--found herself seated upon an exceedingly slippery horsehair
sofa, waiting for the coming of Miss Caroline Greene, who was at that
moment occupied with customers in the adjoining shop. It was a small
and stuffy parlour, which apparently did duty also as a dining room, for
the odour of many meals still hung about it. The window abutted on the
market place and was protected from the curiosity of passers-by by a
wire blind of ancient design. There was no single article in the prim,
ugly room upon which the eye could rest with pleasure. Miss Mott, who
was sensitive to surroundings, had already begun to sympathise with her
unknown correspondent--the mysterious Miss Florence Greene.

The door was opened and the proprietress of the shop presented herself.
She was a thin woman of medium height, with a plain, anmic face, a poor
complexion and hair brushed severely back from her forehead. She wore a
black stuff dress, the front of which was decorated with many pins. Hers
could not by any chance be called a pleasing personality. She was a
spinster growing old unwillingly and ungracefully. Miss Mott felt that
her task might possibly become more difficult than she imagined.

"What do you want with me, please?" the shopkeeper asked sharply.

"I am a private enquiry agent," her visitor announced. "I want you to
tell me what you can of your niece's disappearance."

"A private enquiry agent indeed!" Miss Greene repeated resentfully.
"What has happened to Florence is nobody's business but our own."

At that moment the door was again opened. A very short, fat old lady
wearing steel-rimmed spectacles entered and seated herself somewhat
precariously upon the edge of one of the slippery chairs.

"This is my manageress--Miss Toller," the other woman announced. "She
has been with us for forty years. She was the last person to see my
niece. Martha, this young lady says she is an enquiry agent. Some one's
engaged her to find out what's become of Florence."

"It seems a strange thing," the little old lady declared in an
unexpectedly shrill voice, "that any one should think it necessary to
meddle in our business to that extent. Farringford's a small place and
folks can't slip off the edge of the earth, as it were."

"Maybe not," Miss Mott agreed, "yet, according to your own story, Miss
Greene, it is ten days since your niece walked out of this parlour and
went through the shop, swinging her string bag, without any one having
set eyes on her since. Do you mind telling me exactly what her
destination was?"

"Weggs, the greengrocer, on the top side of the market place," Miss
Greene replied.

"Had she other errands?"

"Not that I know of."

"Had she any money with her?"

"She had her purse. Neither she nor I go about penniless. She might have
had a matter of six or seven shillings--no more."

"Did she seem in good spirits?"

"She was whistling when she passed through the shop--a habit I never
approved of myself for young girls."

"Do you know whether she was in any sort of trouble?"

"Not that any of us were aware of," was the stiff reply.

"What was her age?"

"Twenty-one."

"Have you a photograph of her?"

Miss Greene rose to her feet, fetched an album bound in limp morocco and
fastened with a gilt clasp from its resting place upon the top of the
family Bible, took out a loose photograph and passed it to Miss Mott. To
her surprise, although it was badly taken, it was the photograph of a
very pretty girl.

"She left here at eleven o'clock last Wednesday week," Miss Mott
recapitulated, replacing the photograph; "you saw her start out across
the market place and you have not seen her since. Did she order the
vegetables?"

"Never went near the shop."

"Did any of the tradespeople see her?"

"Not one."

Miss Mott glanced thoughtfully across the market square. It was a very
small town, with the principal shops set in a circle round the market
place. It seemed incredible that any one could cross it without being
seen by some loiterer.

"Was any one else in the shop when you saw her leave?" Miss Mott asked.

"There was the young lady assistant, Miss Brown, and the young
gentleman, Mr. Murdin, about at the time, but they neither of them
happened to be looking," Miss Toller explained. "Miss Brown was packing
up a parcel and Mr. Murdin was examining some calico we'd had some
complaints about--yellow spots there were on every other roll. She came
out of the parlour--opened the door of the shop, lifted the flap of the
counter, just gave me a sort of nod and out she went, whistling."

Miss Mott reflected for a moment.

"She had nothing on her mind? No special anxiety that you know of?"

"None whatever," the missing young lady's aunt replied tartly. "She
disliked the shop very much and never took her place behind the counter
if she could help it."

"Life here," Miss Mott mused, "must be very quiet for an attractive
young lady. Had she any special admirers?"

"Not that I am aware of," Miss Greene rejoined. "We do not encourage
anything of the sort."

Miss Mott looked thoughtfully at the woman opposite to her,
flat-chested, anmic, with all the evidences of indifferent health in
her sallow skin and colourless lips, yet with that curious
half-suppressed rebellion against spinsterhood in her uneasy eyes.

"You yourself have no theory," she enquired, "as to what has become of
her?"

"None at all."

"When she failed to return at the end of the day," Miss Toller pointed
out, "we mentioned the matter at the Police Station. We could do no
more."

"Can I have a look at the young lady's room?" Miss Mott asked.

Her aunt seemed somewhat surprised. After a moment's hesitation,
however, she rose reluctantly to her feet.

"If you wish," she assented stiffly. "She shares it with our young lady
in the shop--Miss Brown."

Miss Greene led the way up two flights of narrow stairs to a sleeping
apartment which was scarcely better than an attic. Even here there was
very little light or air. The whole place seemed built in--musty with
the dead odours of generations of inadequate ventilation. The wall of
the adjoining house butted out across one window, the other was in the
nature of a skylight, grimy and inaccessible. There was a worn fragment
of oilcloth upon the floor, a text upon the wall, two iron bedsteads and
a few articles of deal furniture.

"The chest of drawers belongs to my niece," Miss Greene explained. "Our
young lady assistant keeps her things in the wardrobe."

Miss Mott pulled open several of the drawers and glanced through their
contents.

"You will find nothing there but ordinary wearing apparel," the missing
young woman's aunt assured her, frowning.

"Quite so," Miss Mott concurred. "On the other hand, your niece did not
disappear without some reason or other, and the very slightest thing
might furnish us with the clue we want. Is there no place where she
would be likely to keep letters?"

"She very seldom received any. That desk is hers."

Miss Mott tried it and found it locked.

"You haven't the key?" she enquired.

"I have not," was the curt response. "I am sure that you are wasting
your time here, Miss Mott. Your enquiries had better be prosecuted
outside."

Miss Mott raised her eyebrows deprecatingly.

"I'm obliged to work in my own way," she regretted. "You will have to
apologise to your niece when she returns."

She inserted the thin blade of a knife and the desk opened easily. It
contained, after all, little of interest. There were some letters of
ancient date, most of them from girl friends or relatives, several
prospectuses from shorthand schools, and a faded photograph, at which
Miss Mott looked for several moments doubtfully until she suddenly
remembered the young divine at whose bidding she was here. She was in
the act of replacing it, when to her amazement it was snatched from her
hand. The woman by her side was staring at it with the venomous gleam of
a tigress in her eyes.

"Where did you find that?" she demanded. "It wasn't in the desk."

"It was," Miss Mott replied.

The woman by her side was breathing so fast that speech for a moment
seemed almost impossible. Before Miss Mott could interfere, she threw
the photograph upon the floor and stamped on it.

"Deceitful little slut," the woman almost shrieked. "He never gave her
that. She stole it!"

Miss Mott became aware of an unexpected interest in her wearisome task.

"Is that the photograph of any one you know?" she enquired.

"It is the photograph of our pastor, the Reverend George Padmore," she
declared. "He is a wonderful man, but Florence--why, he's never taken
the least notice of her! He may have said a few kind words, because he's
kind to everybody. She must have lost her head. She stole that!"

"Well, it doesn't seem of much consequence," Miss Mott observed,
stooping to pick it up. "There was another thing I wanted to ask you
about."

She reopened one of the drawers over which she had lingered previously
and pulled out a dress. It was a poor, crumpled little affair of thin
brown serge, very creased and torn in several places.

"When did your niece last wear this dress?" she asked.

For several moments there was no reply, and, glancing around, Miss Mott
realised why. The woman's thin, disagreeable face, still distorted by
its recent fit of passion, had developed a new repulsion. The weak eyes
were half closed. She was blinking as though she wished to avoid the
sight of something repellent.

"I don't know," she replied at last. "Why do you ask such a question?
What have her clothes to do with the matter?"

"Nothing, I daresay," Miss Mott acknowledged. "Most probably nothing.
And yet the condition of this frock is rather surprising, when compared
with the neatness of the rest of your niece's things. It looks as though
it had been bundled up and thrown in hurriedly."

"Florence is only tidy by fits and starts," her aunt explained. "Let me
fold up the dress and put it back."

Miss Mott, however, retained it.

"I'll keep the dress for a short time, if you don't mind," she decided.
"I should like to have a look at the shop now, if I might."

"What do you want to look in there for?" Miss Greene demanded
suspiciously, as she followed her visitor downstairs.

"Well, just a fancy," the latter answered. "We have to work on ideas,
you know, in a case of this sort."

The other made no further protest. Arrived in the passage, Miss Mott
opened the door leading into the shop and found herself behind the
counter of a dingy, unprepossessing-looking emporium. A young woman had
just finished wrapping up two reels of cotton for a child. Miss Mott
turned towards her with the dress upon her arm.

"I believe," she ventured, "that you share the room upstairs with Miss
Florence Greene, don't you? I wonder whether you could help us by
remembering when she last wore this frock?"

Miss Toller was crossing the floor from the opposite counter. She looked
fatter and more grotesque than ever. Her face was very red, her eyes
beady.

"I can't have you in here, interfering with my assistant," she exclaimed
in a shrill, angry voice.

The girl appeared frightened for a moment, but Miss Mott smiled at her
reassuringly.

"Miss Toller doesn't quite understand," she confided. "You must please
answer my question. It is important."

The girl examined the dress, glanced nervously at the flushed, furious
face of the manageress and back at her questioner.

"I thought that was the dress Florrie had on the morning she
disappeared," she confided.

There was a moment's silence. Miss Mott seemed puzzled.

"Well, I'm afraid that's impossible on the face of it, isn't it?" she
observed.

"I suppose so," was the doubtful response. "I thought Florrie put it on
when she got up: of course, she might have changed later."

Miss Mott turned towards the grotesque little figure by her side. Miss
Toller was breathing stertorously as she leaned against the counter.

"By-the-bye, you saw Miss Florence leave the shop," she remarked. "Did
you notice what dress she was wearing?"

"Why should I?" she rejoined sullenly. "She had too many dresses for an
idle young woman, in my opinion. She couldn't have been wearing that one
or you wouldn't have found it in the drawer."

"She was wearing grey," Miss Greene declared, creeping a little nearer
to them from the other end of the shop. "Grey tweed--at least, it looked
like tweed. It was made from a sample length we bought from one of the
travellers."

Miss Mott nodded and laid the dress, which she had been carrying, on the
counter, pushing it on one side, as though dismissing the matter from
her thoughts.

"After all, it isn't very important, is it?" she observed, "unless we
issue bills later on with the description. The great thing is to find
out what has become of the young lady. What do you think of it, Miss
Brown? Where do you think your bedroom companion's disappeared to?"

Miss Brown was a tall, awkward-looking girl with high cheek bones and
she spoke the dialect of the county. She seemed half pleased and half
disturbed at being invited to give her opinion.

"Can't say, I'm sure," she declared. "Doesn't seem to me she'd any call
to upset us all like this--going away without a word to anybody."

"Just so," Miss Mott agreed. "Very inconsiderate. Well, Miss Greene, I
am very much obliged to you for your information and I shall now go and
think things over. If I have any more questions to ask, perhaps I'll
look in later on."

"I don't see why you should have," was the acid reply. "I don't quite
see why you're poking your nose into the business at all and in any case
there's nothing to be learnt here. It's outside you ought to be making
your enquiries. When you know already that the young woman walked out of
the shop and didn't come back, what's the use of hanging around here?"

"I expect you're right," Miss Mott acquiesced humbly. "I'll stroll
across and have a talk with the police."

Miss Toller threw down a bale of cloth which seemed far too heavy for
her to lift, upon the counter. Somehow or other, one felt that she was
expressing her opinion of the police.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott found her presence in the lounge smoke room of the George
Hotel during the early hours of that evening a matter which excited
little comment amongst the tradespeople who had dropped in for their
drink and chat. There were Roman remains in the neighbourhood, a curious
hill which had puzzled many an archeologist, and tourists of both sexes
were by no means a rarity. Neither had she to go out of her way to
learn what popular gossip said about the disappearance of Miss Florence
Greene. The conversation drifted naturally into this one subject of
absorbing interest, without any encouragement on her part. It was the
local stationer, a grey-haired, pompous little man, with gold-rimmed
glasses and a somewhat protuberant stomach, who opened the subject. He
was vicar's churchwarden, chairman of the Farringford Literary Society,
and a member of the County Council. His name was John Standish.

"No news of the young lady, I suppose?" he asked the company generally.

"Fatty Grimston thought he saw her come out of one o' them tea shops in
Didcot," some one observed.

"Fatty's always got a tale to tell," Mr. Adams, the butcher, scoffed.
"What would she want to go to Didcot for? Besides, it isn't humanly
likely that she could have got away without being noticed. There's old
Sam, the station master! I bet you there's not a morning he couldn't
tell you the names of every passenger on his train."

Fellowes, the ironmonger, stretched out his hand for his glass of
whisky.

"I spoke to the Sergeant this morning and he seemed at his wits' end.
The Chief Constable is wanting to send to Scotland Yard about it, but
her aunt and Miss Toller, they're dead against it."

There was silence for a moment. One gathered that the two ladies
mentioned were scarcely popular.

"It seems to me it would be better to have the girl back again and risk
a bit of scandal," Mr. Adams declared.

There was a little murmur of assent. Then Miss Mott decided on a
somewhat unusual course--a course inspired by the fact that the case
itself was unusual in its simplicity and yet in its vagueness. She
leaned forward and joined in the conversation.

"May I tell you all something?" she begged. "I own a small Enquiry
Office in London and I have been engaged by some one to come down and
look into the matter of Miss Florence Greene's disappearance."

The announcement was received courteously but with some surprise.
Observations of a tentatively welcome nature were made. Mr. Standish,
the stationer, expressed the general feeling.

"Glad to meet you, Miss--" he began.

"Miss Mott, my name is," she confided.

"--Miss Mott," he went on. "Seems a queer thing for a young lady like
you to be a kind of private detective and to be so ready to own up to
it. The sort you read about generally hides in corners and pretends to
be some one else."

"Turns up with a case of samples, like a commercial traveller," Mr.
Adams suggested.

"Or pretends to be an American professor come to view the tumuli," a
dapper little man, who appeared to have some connection with horses,
interposed.

There was a guffaw of laughter. It was a tradition of the George Lounge
that a laugh must always be raised when Billy Dent, who was the town's
humorist, opened his mouth.

"It is unusual to be quite so candid about oneself, I admit," Miss Mott
agreed. "This is one of those cases, however, where secrecy doesn't seem
particularly necessary, and I may get just the hint I want at any moment
from any one of you. I take it you are all interested in discovering
what has become of the young lady? She seems not to have an enemy in the
world or the slightest complication in life, therefore why should I make
any mystery about the fact that I have come down to see if I can find
out what's become of her?"

"Common sense," Mr. Standish acknowledged portentously; "sound common
sense."

"Of course, I am a complete stranger here," Miss Mott went on. "I didn't
know a soul until I arrived this afternoon. Miss Greene now, the young
lady's aunt, and Miss Toller, the two ladies I have been to see--they're
old residents, aren't they?"

Mr. Standish removed his pipe from his mouth. It was evident that he was
usually regarded as being spokesman.

"They're as old as any we've got in the town," he confided. "The
business belonged to Caroline Greene's father. I remember him well. He
died thirty years ago, when Caroline was something like twenty-two or
twenty-three years old. Miss Toller was manageress then--a slim young
body she was too, and she and Miss Caroline have carried on the shop
ever since. Don't know as it's much of a catch nowadays," the stationer
continued thoughtfully, "but they must have made a decent bit of money
out of it. They haven't been spenders either, except that they've always
been ready to put their hands into their pockets for the Chapel."

"Charitable, are they?" Miss Mott ventured.

Mr. Standish knocked the ashes from his pipe and paused for a moment.

"There's charitable and charitable," he propounded. "They don't take
much stock in the poor. It's their own Chapel--the Independent Chapel
here--that all their money goes to. Last year they gave one of those new
American organs and this year they paid for a stove between them. Three
times a day to worship--that's them on a Sunday--and there's never a
Tuesday or a Friday but young Parson Padmore doesn't take tea or supper
with them. They're religious folk, without a doubt, but it's in a way of
their own."

"And Miss Florence?"

"Well, she used to go to Chapel too, pretty regular at one time," Mr.
Standish confided. "Since last Easter, however, she's taken to coming to
Church."

"I suppose," Miss Mott observed thoughtfully, "no one can suggest a
reason as to why she should have been anxious to get away from home?"

The dapper little man with the horsy appearance chuckled.

"I could, and a darn good one too," he declared. "To get away from
those two, her aunt and t'other. You've seen them, miss?"

"Yes, I've seen them," Miss Mott admitted, with the flicker of a smile
upon her lips.

"Well, the Lord forgot the looks when he was fixing them up. I ain't a
particular man, so as you'd notice it, but it would give me the shivers
to sit at the same table with them, year in and year out. Good and holy
folk they may be as the Bible itself, but when you've said that, you've
done with them. I always thought that some day or other Miss Florence
would launch out--get up to London or something of the sort."

"Typing it was she was considering," Mr. Standish intervened in an
important manner. "She came to me for advice upon the matter."

"A typist is very likely what she's gone to be," Mr. Adams assented,
"but she have done it in the most mysterious way."

"Extra mysterious," the stationer agreed. "Listen here, Miss Mott,
market day might have been a different matter, but Tuesday ain't a busy
morning with us and we're curious folk, as people grow to be, living in
a quiet place like this. That she could walk out o' that shop at eleven
o'clock in the morning, as her aunt and Miss Toller declare she did, and
go anywheres in this town without a single pair of eyes following her,
seems to me amazing. I'm generally on my shop doorstep myself, taking a
breath of air, and there's plenty of the others always looking out to
see what's going on. Amazing, I do call it, surely."

"No young man, I suppose?" Miss Mott enquired. "She wasn't engaged to be
married or anything of that sort?"

"Not as ever I heard tell on," Mr. Standish replied, with a sigh, as he
thought of his own unmarried daughters. "Young men in these parts are
scarce."

"Snapped up quick, we young 'uns are," Billy Dent, who was well over
sixty, chuckled.

There was a brief and somewhat strained silence. Miss Mott was trying to
find her way behind it.

"I fancy," the stationer continued presently, "that Miss Florence,
although she seemed cheerful enough, was none too well pleased with
life. You might find plenty of motives, Miss Mott, for her going away,
but the puzzle to us is--how did she do it, with the whole town's eyes
upon her?"

"If she'd wanted to sneak away," Mr. Adams pointed out, "being a young
woman of ordinary common sense, she wouldn't have come out with a string
bag at eleven o'clock in the morning and started off across the market
place. What I should have done now," he went on, accepting a tumbler
from a tray which the landlady, at Miss Mott's request, was carrying
round, "if my little business was going bust, say, and I had to make a
mysterious disappearance from my creditors--"

"What about that bob you owes me, William?" Billy Dent interrupted.

"I should have left at night, when every one had gone to sleep," the
butcher continued unmoved. "And to sleep they do go early in these
parts. I should have walked to the Junction, which is only two miles and
a half away, and caught one of them night trains somewhere."

"Apparently," Miss Mott observed with a smile, "the young lady was more
clever. She managed to disappear quite as effectually in broad daylight,
and from the middle of the town."

There was a renewal of that strained silence and the thoughts engendered
by it were practically all that Miss Mott gained by her unconventional
effort. Then the clock struck half-past seven, and as though with one
accord, every one in the room rose to his feet and straggled towards the
door.

"See you later, miss," Mr. Standish remarked, with a little bow towards
Miss Mott.

"I expect so," she answered pleasantly, "unless I've finished my job and
found the young lady before you come back!"

There was a guffaw of laughter as the room cleared. When the last man
had departed, Miss Mott finished her glass of sherry and, approaching
the bar where Mrs. Holmes the landlady was seated, making up her
accounts, produced a photograph.

"I wonder, Mrs. Holmes," she asked, "if you could tell me if this is a
photograph of any one living in the neighbourhood?"

Mrs. Holmes adjusted her spectacles and looked at it curiously.

"Why, surely!" she exclaimed. "That's a picture of the Reverend George
Padmore, the Independent Minister here--him that Mr. Standish was
talking about."

"Married?" Miss Mott enquired, although she was beginning to have faith
in her client's story.

Mrs. Holmes shook her head.

"Better for him if he were," she confided, "though seventy pounds a year
is no decent wage for any married man. The way these old women who ought
to know better runs after him must make life cruel and uncomfortable
sometimes. There's them two opposite," she went on, dropping her voice a
little, although the lounge was empty, "who surely did ought to know
better--Miss Caroline Greene and Miss Toller--it's something cruel the
way they persecute the poor man. And what for, a body'd like to know?
They're both of them--well, you've seen them, Miss Mott! I ask you what
sort of sense there is in females like that pestering a young man of
thirty-five, pauper though he may be, and man of God. There's others in
the congregation, but them two are the worst. It's my belief Miss
Florence left the Chapel and took up Church religion sooner than watch
her aunt and the other old lady making fools of themselves all the
time."

Miss Mott replaced the photograph in her pocket.

"Very interesting," she murmured.

"You found the photograph over in Miss Greene's sitting room, no doubt?"
the landlady asked curiously.

"It was somewhere lying about," was the evasive reply. "I'm going to
have a wash now and see about dinner."

"You'll be in and have a talk with the other gentlemen later, perhaps?"
Mrs. Holmes invited. "They'll all be here again, round nine o'clock, and
Mr. Goodlip as well, the bank manager. A very nice company they are and
as sociable as can be."

Miss Mott took her leave with a noncommittal reply. She felt that she
had already learnt all that the local gossips had to tell her. The
lounge was fuller than usual that night, in anticipation of her coming,
but while they waited, the very trim little lady with beautiful eyes,
who had seemed to them so untrue to type, was justifying the more
conventional traditions of her profession. With a pair of light
rubber-soled shoes upon her feet, a torch in her pocket and a
burglarious instrument in her hand, she had crossed the market square of
the drowsy town, picked a lock and undertaken a brief investigation of
the rear of the premises from which Miss Florence Greene had
disappeared. Her task proved to be a very brief one. In less than a
quarter of an hour she was knocking at the front door of the six-roomed
cottage next to his Chapel, in which Mr. George Padmore lived.

       *       *       *       *       *

Caroline Greene, when the shop was finally closed for the day, and
supper disposed of, rose to her feet and drew the curtain a little more
closely over the wire blind, in order to shut out the observation of
even the least curious of passers-by. Secrecy ensured, she crossed the
room to the cupboard, produced a decanter and two glasses, set one
before Miss Toller and retained the other. Solemnly she half filled
both, poured in an equal quantity of water, and resumed her seat on the
hard horsehair sofa. Miss Toller, seated sideways at the table, for the
reason that her legs were too fat to go underneath it, looked up from
the heavy calf-bound volume she had been studying and drank slowly from
the tumbler, her weak eyes rolling all the time. Miss Greene followed
her example.

"Have you found any new ones?" the latter asked.

"There's one here," Miss Toller announced, fixing a stubby forefinger
upon the open page. "'The harlot hath no place amongst the children of
men nor in the heaven to come. She shall be thrown into everlasting
darkness.'"

Miss Greene sighed.

"I sometimes wish," she murmured, "that we had taken George into our
confidence; if she could hear him read these lines, then indeed she
might be afraid."

"It is hard," Miss Toller said, taking another gulp from her tumbler,
"to put fear into the heart of the sinner. As for George Padmore--he's a
holy man, but it is better that he knows nothing of our disgrace. We
must persevere, Caroline. Last night she weakened; to-night we must
pray."

"Yes, we will pray," Caroline assented.

They sat for some moments in silence. As though by mutual consent, they
finished the contents of their tumblers as the church clock across the
way struck ten. Then they rose and left the room, Miss Toller leading
the way with a book under her arm, making swaying progress down the
smelly passage, through the stuffy kitchen in which was no window
opening to the light, out into a paved way covered with a whitewashed
glass roof. They passed several doors and paused at length before one
secured on the outside with a padlock. Miss Greene opened it with a key
which she drew from her pocket, and the two women entered. There was a
slight moan from somewhere in the darkness, as they closed the door
behind them. Miss Toller, breathing stertorously, struck a match and lit
a malodorous tallow candle. In the roughest of iron bedsteads, set in a
corner of the room, a girl was lying. The bedstead was shaped like a
baby's crib, with high rails at the sides, and to these the girl's
wrists were bound with strong packing cord. There was no window or any
ventilation in the place. A spider hung down from the ceiling, dust lay
thick upon the floor. A pile of newspapers, the accumulation of years,
had been thrown into a corner. Two empty packing cases and a few bales
of calico stood against the grimy, whitewashed wall.... The girl's eyes
were open. There was fear lurking in them, as she looked at the two
women, but it was fear which had lost its panic, a sort of numb,
hopeless fear. She said nothing. She only moaned slightly. Miss Toller
brought a short stool up to the side of the bed and seated herself. Miss
Greene held the candle high, while she found her place in the book. The
girl shook her head piteously.

"No more," she faltered, "I think that I am dying."

Miss Greene leaned over her niece. In the candle-light her teeth seemed
yellower and more prominent than ever. Her voice was thin and acrid.
There was hate in her expression, as she seemed to realise the soft
pathetic beauty of the trembling mouth and pleading eyes even in these
mortal straits.

"If you are dying, Florence, you will die in sin. You will pass from
here into hell unless you confess. Read to her, Martha."

Miss Toller read the passage which she had quoted in the sitting room
and she read it with relish. The girl kept her eyes closed.

"Read some more," Caroline Greene enjoined; "then I will pray."

The girl's eyes were closed now, although her eyelids fluttered. Her
face was wasted. There was a delicate but unhealthy flush in her cheeks.
She was breathing quickly.

"Stop," she begged. "Don't read me any more out of that terrible book.
If you won't give me any food, give me some water."

"'And he stretched his hands out of hell,'" Miss Toller droned on,
dropping the spectacles over her pudgy nose and reading with fervour.
"'He cried out to the passers-by for drink and they gave him vinegar.'"

The girl began to sob. There was something appallingly inhuman about the
indifference of the two women. Miss Greene produced a bottle from the
bag she was carrying, poured out a wineglass full of water and offered
it to their victim, who drank it feverishly. Then she fell on her knees
and broke into a rambling prayer which ended in an exhortation:

"Into this house where you have lived, Florence," she declared solemnly,
"sin has never before entered. We have found grace here and we have kept
it. Our days have been days of holiness. We have been blessed with the
spiritual aid of one of the Lord's good men. Think how terrible a shock,
then, to find that one of our household whom we have trusted has dipped
her hands into the waters of abomination."

"I am dying," the girl moaned. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

"You will not die," her aunt assured her harshly. "You will have no
peace in earth or in hell until you have told us the name of the man."

There was a moment of complete silence. Then the girl raised herself as
much as the cord which bound her permitted.

"I will tell it to one person in the world," she announced, with
unexpected strength, "not to you, Aunt Caroline, nor to you," she added,
turning away with loathing from the other figure by her bed. "I will
tell it to George Padmore."

There was anger now, furious and venomous, in the expressions of her
torturers. Miss Greene buried her face in her hands.

"Our friend in God!" she cried. "You would pollute his ears with your
horrible story!"

"One of the Lord's chosen," Miss Toller added unctuously. "You would
besmirch our good name, you would mark with a black cross this godly
household."

They leaned over her, scowling. Then, from outside, came the sudden rush
of heavy footsteps. The two women stood dumbfounded. The door was
crashed open by some unseen force and the ex-Reverend George Padmore
stumbled in. He was wearing black, semi-clerical clothes, bicycle clips
still confined the bottoms of his dusty trouser legs, perspiration
streamed down his face. He looked past the two women with horror towards
the form upon the bed. In the background stood Miss Mott.

"What does this mean?" he gasped. "What are you doing to Florence?"

He pushed roughly forward, knife in hand, and cut the cords which bound
her wrists. They fell down like dead things. Caroline Greene stood
erect--a thin, ugly figure of denunciation.

"Florence has committed what you yourself have called the great sin. She
is here until she tells us the name--the name of the man."

He knelt by the side of the bed. His rough hands caressed the girl's
face, upon the lips of which a slow smile was breaking.

"Do you mean that you have kept her a prisoner here all the time I've
been away--all the time the police have been searching for her?" he
demanded.

"That is what we have done," Miss Toller pronounced sonorously. "She
will remain here until she loses the strength of which she has been so
proud, until she feels the threshold of the other world beneath her
feet, and tells the truth. We have kept her alive, but to-night she is
weaker. She is nearer confession. I have read the word of truth to her
for hours--" the woman ogress went on, her breathing becoming more
difficult. "She takes no notice, she is in the clutches of sin, her
heart is hardened."

"And I too have prayed, dear Brother George," Miss Greene cried
fervently. "She is far gone in evil, the obstinacy of sin is hers. It is
for you, George, to make her speak. Lift your hands as you do in our
blessed Chapel, speak so that the ceilings are opened and her heart is
moved. We have heard sinners sob out the truth to you before, Brother
George! Make this poor Magdalen confess."

The man rose to his feet and swung suddenly around. His eyes were on
fire. He looked at the two women by the bedside and they shrank from him
aghast.

"In Christ's name, what has she to confess?" he demanded. "_Mine_ is the
name her lips have never uttered, for me her foolish sacrifice. I am the
father of her child, and her husband. My wife--it is my wife whom you
are doing to death here--you two she-devils.... Florence dear, you
should have broken your promise. Everything is all right now. Can you
forgive?"

The most tremulous but happiest of smiles quivered upon her lips. One of
her hands twitched with reawakening life and he took it into his. Miss
Mott was holding water to her lips and gently massaging her other hand.
Miss Toller's mouth was grotesquely opened--an unwholesome colour was
flooding her face. Caroline Greene stood like a figure of stone.

"Curse you, I had to live!" he shouted to them. "Thirty pounds a year
was all I got from the Ministry--you made up the rest. I worked for you,
I prayed for you, I put up with your hypocrisy--the small hypocrisies of
all the men and women--even the best of them, who kneel every Sunday in
my pews. You kept the church going; I know that. What for? What sort of
charity was in your hearts--you two, who could torture a human being
like this? And she--we were married a year ago, but she daren't tell
you, for my sake. She knew the truth. She knew the jealousy that was in
your hearts," he added, scowling at Miss Greene. "You'd have left the
Chapel to go to ruin and me to starve, if you'd known the truth. And I
wasn't man enough to tell you.... Well, you know now. I've finished. I
may have done some good here--there are a few honest people whom I've
helped and comforted--they've taught me to feel sometimes how ignorant I
am. Whether God deserts me or not--blast you both! No more of your
Chapel for me; I can take care of Florence without it."

He stooped down, drew off some of the bedclothes and, with Miss Mott's
help, wrapped a blanket around the trembling figure and lifted her
gently up. Her hands went around his neck, the fingers of one of them
seeking for Miss Mott's kindly clasp. He arranged the covering tenderly
around her. Still neither of the two women spoke.

"Well?" he challenged them.

There was still silence. He turned towards the door.

"I am taking my wife home," he said. "You can come and fetch your
furniture to-morrow, you can stop your money, you can fetch your organ
away, if I haven't smashed it up first, and you can close the Chapel. If
people like you are coming to pray there, it's better closed. We sha'n't
starve. But," he added, glowering back at them, "if you've done her real
harm, if she suffers from this, I'll send you where you belong. You
shall taste a prison on earth before your kingdom in heaven."

He strode out. The girl in his arms was sobbing softly, but he felt the
warmer blood in her veins as she clung to him with one hand and to Miss
Mott with the other. At the outer gate, with his fingers upon the latch,
they all three looked back upon a curious sight. Holding the fluttering
candle in her hand, Miss Greene led the way towards the house, gaunt and
uncertain of step, Miss Toller following, swaying from side to side,
more like a great, unwholesome insect of fabulous age. George Padmore
opened the gate and slammed it, and the girl in his arms gave a little
sob of pleasure as the fresh sweet air blew into their faces.

"Life!" she murmured. "After all, life--"

In the airless sitting room, with its hard horsehair chairs and grim
ugliness, the two women hours later slept, Miss Greene half upon the
couch, Miss Toller doubled sideways, with her head upon the table,
making terrible noises. The empty decanter was between them, the
grandfather clock in the corner ticked away the minutes towards
daylight. Across the dreaming market place Miss Mott, having given
orders for an early morning start, was slumbering peacefully in her
four-poster.

       *       *       *       *       *

At nine o'clock the next morning, Miss Mott, seeing the Chapel door
open, peered in. George Padmore with a sheepish grin upon his face and a
hatchet in his hand, came down the aisle. Behind him lay the mangled
remains of an American organ. Neither Miss Mott nor he made any allusion
to the circumstance.

"How is your wife, Mr. Padmore?" she enquired.

"Fine," he answered. "She's sleeping still."

"Can I do anything for her?"

"Thank you, Miss Mott. I've a woman in to look after things. If you
wouldn't mind telling me," he went on awkwardly, "what I owe you for
finding her--you needn't mind taking a bit of money. My uncle left me
his business and a thousand pounds. That's why I've been away so
long--fixing things up!"

Miss Mott went out into the sunny morning, laughing happily.

"You can tell me the nearest cut into the Great West Road."




VII

MEREDITH WALKS OUT


Miss Mott studied her visitor with more than ordinary interest. She, the
visitor, was almost flauntingly Italian--in complexion, colouring and
the grace with which she wore her somewhat shabby clothes. Her black
fringe descended low over her forehead, her brown eyes flashed with
every word she spoke, her mouth was sullen and a little hard.

"Did you say that you had been one of my correspondents?" Miss Mott
asked.

"Yes," the girl replied. "You answered me in last week's paper. Fenetta
I called myself. I wrote to you about my husband."

"I remember."

"I wanted to follow him when he stayed out at night," the young woman
went on. "You advised me to do nothing of the sort. You told me to ask
him frankly what was keeping him out so much and so often late at night.
Well! I followed your advice--I asked him. He replied with one
word--business. He would say no more. Business indeed!"

"What does your husband do for a living?"

The girl threw out her hands.

"That is what I ask myself. When I married him he was a _matre
d'htel_. Now he sells on commission--the wine of Italy--the oil--what
he can."

"I see," Miss Mott remarked briskly. "Well, I gave you the best advice I
could. I think he ought to tell you more. I'm afraid there's no other
way I can help you."

"But you have here an enquiry agency, haven't you?" the girl asked.

"Quite true, but to use it costs money," Miss Mott explained. "It has
nothing to do with my work upon the paper. It is an independent
enterprise of my own."

"I have money," the girl announced. "Out of my savings I will be able to
pay."

"What do you want me to do?" Miss Mott enquired.

The girl smoothed out a strip of paper and laid it upon the desk. There
were a few words only--and the paper was scented:

     "_Caf de la Pomme d'Or--8 o'clock._"

"That I find in his pocket," the girl exclaimed, with a little, dramatic
gesture. "It is in a woman's writing. There is a woman; I always knew
there was one."

Miss Mott was bored. She had come to the conclusion long ago that to
meddle, even to the extent of giving advice, in the love entanglements
of Italians of this class was a dangerous thing.

"It is for you, this affair," the girl decided, with a new vivacity in
her tone. "I pay. Do not be afraid. You send or go to the Caf de la
Pomme d'Or to-night and you tell me with whom my man is."

"Thank you," Miss Mott refused. "I'd rather not."

The girl burst into a stream of rapid speech. Miss Mott checked her
firmly.

"I do not take divorce business," she explained. "I do not care to
interfere between husband and wife. Besides, I have plenty of work to do
at present."

"What I ask is not much," the girl insisted. "I give you a photograph of
my husband--here it is. You go to the Pomme d'Or a little before eight,
you eat your dinner there, you watch--my husband come in--you see with
whom--you find out the girl's name and where they go. I pay."

"It would cost you ten guineas," Miss Mott warned her.

The girl opened an almost worn-out black bag, with tarnished silver
clasps. She counted out the money.

"I come to-morrow to know," she said, rising to her feet. "You are
satisfied, yes?"

Miss Mott sighed resignedly and pushed half the money back again.

"This will be quite enough," she said. "I didn't really want to take
your commission at all. However, I'll do what I can."

"I come back to-morrow morning," the girl repeated, as she left the
room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott rang up her uncle at Scotland Yard. Superintendent Detective
Wragge was in and very pleased to talk to his niece.

"The Pomme d'Or Restaurant," he repeated. "Wait a minute; I'll send for
the records."

There was a brief pause devoted to desultory conversation. Then another
pause. Finally Superintendent Wragge's announcement.

"Absolutely clean sheet," he reported. "Kept by an Italian name of
Entonelli. Never been in trouble, looked upon as one of the best type of
small restaurateurs. Why the enquiry?"

Miss Mott disclosed the nature of her commission. Her uncle grunted.

"I thought you didn't go in for that sort of business," he said.

"I don't usually," she admitted. "The girl got round me."

"Well, it doesn't look as if you'd come to much harm, anyway," he
declared, and rang off....

Miss Mott went out that afternoon to a tea party at the house of a girl
friend. When she returned at six o'clock, there was an official-looking
envelope on her desk with the always impressive words "_On His Majesty's
Service_." It was also marked "_Immediate and Important_." Miss Mott
opened it quickly. There was only one sentence in her uncle's
handwriting:

     "On no account go near the Pomme d'Or. Wait for me at your office."

The bespectacled young girl who attended to Miss Mott's correspondence
came hurrying in.

"You've got your note, Miss Mott?" she asked.

Her chief nodded.

"Yes. When did it come?"

"About an hour ago," the girl confided. "The man had two others. One
addressed to you at your club and one at your flat."

Miss Mott felt a little thrill of excitement.

"Tell them in the office they needn't wait," she said, as she took off
her hat. "My uncle is coming in to see me. I'll lock up afterwards."

"There's a young woman to see you, in the other office," the girl
announced. "The young woman who was here this morning."

Miss Mott was interested.

"Show her in at once," she directed. "And, if my uncle comes before she
is gone, ask him to wait."

The girl hurried out. For the second time during the day Signora
Ferruchi was ushered into Miss Mott's sanctum. This time it was
apparently a young woman of a different temperament who presented
herself. There was a furtive light in her beautiful eyes, distinct
traces of nervousness in her manner.

"What brings you back again?" Miss Mott asked curiously.

"Everything's all right now between Guido and myself," the girl
announced. "No more dispute: everything has been explained. You can keep
the fee, miss, because I take up your time, but the watching
to-night--it is not necessary. Guido has explained."

"Sit down for a moment," Miss Mott invited.

The young woman complied unwillingly. Miss Mott unlocked a drawer.

"Of course, I shall give you back your five guineas," she said. "I
should not think of taking it for doing nothing. I am very glad
everything is all right between you and your husband. I don't like
watching people. I always think it rather mean, don't you?"

"I know now that there is nothing to watch Guido for," the girl
explained anxiously. "If you wish, I will take the five guineas, but I
must go."

Miss Mott slowly counted out five treasury notes and five shillings.
Just as she was finishing, there was the sound of a heavy footstep upon
the stairs, a familiar voice outside, a knock at the door and her uncle
walked in. He nodded to his niece and his eyes flashed in a quick glance
of enquiry towards the girl.

"This is my uncle--Signora Ferruchi," Miss Mott introduced, with a
little wave of the hand.

The Superintendent's interest in the young woman seemed to cease at
once. He drew a chair up to his niece's desk.

"I'm not intruding, I hope?" he asked.

"Not in the least," she assured him. "My client was just going."

The young woman grabbed at the notes which Miss Mott was offering her
and, with a hurried word of farewell, left the room. Superintendent
Wragge's right arm shot out towards the telephone.

"Give me the commissionaire," he demanded. "A Government call please,
miss.... That you, Johnson? Good. There's a young woman on her way down
from Miss Mott's office--Italian--dressed in black. You'll find my car
outside with Preston on the box. You know the car?... Good. Tell
Preston to follow the young woman. It's important, mind. He's not to
lose sight of her. He's to report at my room in the Yard. I'm going back
there from here.... Just coming out of the lift, is she? That's right.
Look sharp."

The Superintendent replaced the telephone and, producing a crumpled
package of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one.

"What's it all about, please?" his niece asked patiently. "First of all
you tell me that there isn't a thing against the Pomme d'Or Restaurant,
then you stop my going there, and just when I'm getting over my
disappointment, the girl comes back in a state of terror and withdraws
her commission. Not only that, but she seems paralysed with fear lest I
should go there. I am becoming a little intrigued."

"What were you to do?"

"Really, I might just as well be a branch of your Scotland Yard," Miss
Mott declared, with mock sarcasm. "I'm all the time having to give my
clients away. There's nothing wrong with Signora Ferruchi, is there,
except that she seems to be one of these fatally jealous Italians?"

Mr. Wragge stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Ferruchi she calls herself, does she?" he mused. "A very nice name too.
No, there's nothing wrong with her, except that she's not married and
that her name is something very different. She and her man are trying to
earn five thousand pounds. You can't blame her, can you? Five thousand
pounds is a very nice sum of money."

"How could they earn a sum like that?" Miss Mott demanded incredulously.

"They might have earned it," was the grim rejoinder, "if you had been
induced to climb the back stairs of the Pomme d'Or on a suitable
occasion. To-night, it appears, was an unfortunate choice.".

"Somebody either hates me or loves me, apparently," Miss Mott exclaimed
incredulously.

"You've had proof of that before," was her uncle's dry reminder.

Miss Mott sprang suddenly to her feet. The colour faded from her cheeks.
The ghosts of forgotten fears reassembled in her heart.

"You told me--that he had left the country--that he had been traced to
Brazil!"

Superintendent Wragge nodded.

"It looked like it," he admitted. "At present, we are a little
bewildered with too much information. He's either in Brazil, or if you
take a pair of compasses with a radius of one hundred yards and make a
circle around the Pomme d'Or--he's inside that."

"My God!" Miss Mott murmured softly. "So that's why you've made me come
and stay with you and why you've got a couple of men sleeping in the
house. I could understand Holmes, although he's not the cleverest butler
in the world, but why you brought Mair in, I couldn't imagine."

Superintendent Wragge lit another cigarette.

"Men who are supreme at their jobs, who are what is called diabolically
clever," he remarked, "have nearly always one weakness. Meredith--I say
this deliberately--is the cleverest criminal we've ever had on our books
at Scotland Yard. He's walked through brick walls and regiments of
police. He ought to have been dead or in prison a dozen times and he's
free; and his one imbecility, my dear Lucie--I don't want to turn your
head--is you."

"Don't I know it," she agreed. "But where's the connection between all
this, my visit to the Pomme d'Or and my jealous little Italian lady?
First of all, she was crazy for me to go there and now she is crazy to
keep me away."

"I forgot," her uncle remarked, "you don't read the afternoon papers.
There was one of the worst burglaries we've had in London this season in
Soho this afternoon. The premises of a firm of Italian merchants--eleven
thousand pounds in cash stolen and two men killed. It was such an
amazingly conceived affair," the Superintendent went on impressively,
"and obviously a gangsters' affair too, that we've only been able to
think of one man."

"You haven't anything against--against--"

Superintendent Wragge glanced at the inevitable bunch of violets on the
table.

"No, we've nothing against Violet Joe," he admitted. "In fact, if you
ask me, I think he's quit the gang for good. By eight o'clock this
evening, though, we shall have a hundred men on the outskirts of Soho,
working inwards. The centre of the circle will be the one place without
a black mark to its name--The Pomme d'Or. That's why, although I don't
think they'd have time to bother about you to-night, I want you to keep
away. That is also the reason why Madame Ferruchi has been told to
withdraw her commission. That is also the reason why I am here to see
that you don't set foot inside the place."

"I understand," Miss Mott murmured.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nevertheless, at eight o'clock that evening, Miss Mott pushed open the
swing door of the Restaurant de la Pomme d'Or, and with her much derided
little gun in her black bag and her heart in her mouth, took her place
at the corner table to which she was ushered. The appearance of the
place surprised her. It was neat and clean and almost elegant. There
were flowers and a shaded lamp on every table. The linen of the _matre
d'htel_ who had shown her to her seat was spotless, his manner pleasant
without being too effusive. The only trouble seemed to be lack of
custom. There was a whole row of empty tables and barely half a dozen
diners. Miss Mott sat down and then ventured to glance around her. The
general effect of her survey was one of reassurance. The _clientle_,
though small, appeared perfectly harmless. She ordered half a bottle of
claret and addressed a question to the wine waiter.

"I thought this was a popular place," she remarked. "Why are there so
few people here?"

The man leaned downwards almost to within whispering distance. He was
Italian and his white teeth flashed as he spoke.

"There has been great trouble near here this afternoon," he confided. "A
burglary. Men shot dead. The police are still on the look-out. People
are afraid and they stay indoors. Even in here," he added, dropping his
voice and glancing in scared fashion towards the door, "it has been
terrible. One hears heavy footsteps all the time. Always they pass on.
Nevertheless, one is afraid."

Miss Mott felt that curious little shiver of excitement that came to her
at rare intervals.

"But this place has a very high reputation, hasn't it?" she asked.

The man was silent. In a sense there was nothing significant about his
silence. He had not the air of reflecting or deliberating about his
reply, only he said nothing. He looked out of the windows, a
healthy-complexioned, brisk Italian of the most respectable class, with
smoothly brushed hair and manicured finger nails.

"The Maison de la Pomme d'Or has an old reputation," he agreed. "In
these days, though, one has to fight to keep anything. Mademoiselle will
accept my recommendation? She will eat the dinner that I will serve?"

"Willingly," she assented. "I hate ordering...."

Miss Mott had no reason to regret her choice. In its initial stages, at
any rate, she had never dined better. She took note once more of the
people in the room and found them still harmless. There were no signs
here of the man hunt outside. Once in the distance she fancied she heard
a police whistle and then--

There are several unmistakable sounds in the world. One is the sound of
flying footsteps inspired with the urge of fear. Miss Mott sat up
suddenly in her place and listened. The footsteps were on the opposite
pavement, coming rapidly down the street. There was a hoarse cry as
though some one had been hurt. Now it seemed that they were crossing the
road. The door shook and opened with a wide sweep. A man, breathless and
pale, pushed his way through, a man whom Miss Mott recognised in a
moment as the original of the picture she had seen that morning. He may
have been young in years, but at that moment he was old in terror and
anxiety. The skin was drawn like white parchment over his high
cheekbones, his lips were parted like a dog's waiting to bite, the upper
lip close to his teeth and showing his gums. With the door closed behind
him, he paused to listen, a matter of seconds only, his head turned
backward, every pulse of his long, lean body stiff with the effort. Miss
Mott instinctively listened too but she could hear nothing. Then the
man, without removing his black slouch hat, walked stiffly between the
tables across the restaurant, and, lifting a curtain about halfway down
the room, disappeared. There was a pause. Miss Mott listened again. She
heard no following footsteps, outside was an almost unnatural silence.
Suddenly the door seemed to be pushed open by an unseen hand. Another
man made deliberate entrance, a stalwart, keen-eyed man with small
moustache, neatly dressed, wearing no overcoat, notwithstanding the
inclement weather, but carrying a heavy walking stick. He hung up his
hat and seated himself deliberately exactly opposite Miss Mott, at a
table within a few feet of the entrance. As he turned away, Miss Mott
saw the shape of something in his pocket. She took note of his firm,
square shoulders, and she knew that the stage was being set for grave
happenings. She had paid too many visits to Scotland Yard not to
recognise the type....

A waiter came up and accepted an order from the newcomer. A flask of
Chianti was placed upon the table and he drank a half tumblerful almost
at a gulp. Notwithstanding his leisurely, almost stealthy, entrance,
Miss Mott saw that the damp of perspiration clung to his forehead. He
looked across at her once or twice keenly and then buried himself in an
evening paper. She had all the average human being's sympathy with the
hunted object, and yet, owing to her long association with her uncle,
her keen sympathy was also with the hunter, taking his life into his
hands. All the time she wanted to cross the room and whisper in his
ear--"Through that curtain, you fool! You're giving him time to hide or
get away. What about the back entrance?" She did nothing of the sort, of
course. She sat in her place and presently, after a lengthened
disappearance, the waiter who had been attending to her reappeared. He
brought her a wonderful ice and spoke of the _caf_ of the house, an
Italian liqueur too, Campari, which every one tried. "Mademoiselle
would excuse that he had been away for a long time? There were guests
that night in a private room."

"Where are your private rooms?" Miss Mott asked him.

The man pointed discreetly towards the curtain. There was no meaning
smile upon his lips, nothing but the most perfect respect and good
humour.

"One has clients," he murmured, "who prefer solitude."

Then--looking over his shoulder, Miss Mott saw what neither he nor the
man opposite saw--the slow drawing back of that curtain--a white face
peering slowly into the room--the face of the man who had entered only a
few minutes ago. Even at that distance Miss Mott saw the pin-point of
fire in the eyes, the terror in the face as he saw the man by the door.
Then the curtain was dropped.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the other side of that curtain, up a narrow flight of stairs, in the
first of the little row of private dining rooms, the man for whose
apprehension were various rewards amounting to over ten thousand pounds
was enjoying a leisurely and sybaritic repast. The dining room was
small, but pleasantly furnished; the usual easy-chair and couch were
against the wall, an ornate but not unpleasing French mirror hung over
the mantelpiece, and a blazing fire burned in the grate. The table was
laid for two but the other place was unoccupied. The chief of the
Number One Gangsters dined alone. With his back to the window stood the
man who had just returned from his furtive contemplation of the
restaurant.

"They're on to us to-night, Chief, if they never were before," he said
earnestly. "They're closing in all the time. The streets between here
and Shaftesbury Avenue are swarming with them. Lynn and Peterson are
both taken. Down below Hurlbut's sitting next the door--Jim Hurlbut, who
shot Parry and took in both the Regans single-handed. Got his stripes
for that. I can see the shape of his gun under the newspaper on the
table. He wouldn't be sitting there so quiet if they hadn't got all the
back entrances stopped. You and me are the only two left, sir. How are
we going to get away?"

Meredith poured himself out another glass of wine and sipped it in
leisurely fashion. He pushed the bottle in its cradle towards his
companion.

"I shall leave when I've paid my bill and I'm ready, by the front door,"
he declared. "Here, take a glass of that wine and don't stand there,
shaking life a leaf. It isn't the first time you've had the police on
your heels, is it?"

The man poured himself out a glass of the wine; some of it was slopped
over on to the tablecloth. His companion watched him with a sneer.

"I can't imagine," he said calmly, "how some of you fellows had the
pluck to come into this game. You stood up and did your share all right
this afternoon. You picked off that fellow with the glasses as neatly as
any one could wish."

There was a little sob from the man who was trying to drink.

"Don't!" he begged. "It wasn't I who killed him. It was some one from
behind me. I swear it was some one behind me! It was Tom Baum--that's
what I told--"

The man broke off in his sentence as though he were shot. He staggered
and caught at the table. His eyes fell before Meredith's steely glare.
He mopped at his forehead, on which the unhealthy sweat was breaking
out.

"That was what you told whom?" Meredith asked, with deadly precision.

"Told Jansen, told all of 'em. I told the wife so too. The little lady's
downstairs. We were to have got something for that--the wife and I."

Meredith listened with unchanging expression. The words seemed to fade
away on the other's lips.

"You were going to say something else, Ferruchi," Meredith suggested.
"Perhaps you stopped just in time."

"I swear I wasn't," the man declared eagerly. "I'm scared; I'll admit
I'm scared. We've never been so close boxed up as this before. We've got
the police on every side of us."

"Is it the police you're frightened of?" was Meredith's cold query. "Not
altogether, Ferruchi. You've killed a man and you've lost your nerve.
Tell the truth, you dog!" he added, in a suddenly changed tone. "You've
been to the Yard. You've sold us. You're trying to save your miserable
skin."

"I swear--"

Ferruchi suddenly lost the power of speech, his eyes rolled, faced with
the hideous revelation. Meredith's hand came up from underneath the
tablecloth. There was a little stab of flame across the few feet of
intervening space. Ferruchi rolled over, twitched once and never moved
again. Meredith glanced at him contemptuously. Leaning across the table,
he watched for the signs he knew so well, ejected the shell from his
automatic and slipped in another. Then he finished his wine, holding his
glass with perfectly steady fingers, glanced at the bill which lay on a
plate by his side, counted out some treasury notes from his pocketbook
and added a sovereign tip. On the sofa his black silk-lined coat was
lying and a black Homburg hat. He removed both carefully and carried
them behind the large screen which almost covered one side of the room.
He reappeared almost at once and, for the first time, there was a
certain hesitation, a look almost of disgust upon his face, as he
crossed the floor and looked down on the body of the dead man. What he
was about to do was obviously costing him an effort. Nevertheless, he
proceeded with his task.... In ten minutes' time he opened the door,
locked it on the outside and threw the key down the corridor. With
leisurely, unhesitating footsteps he descended the stairs.

Miss Mott, from her distant table diagonally opposite, was perhaps the
first to see that slight shiver of the curtain. Almost immediately
afterwards it was drawn aside and a tall, gaunt figure came hesitatingly
into the room, walking down the almost deserted restaurant with his
black slouch hat low on his forehead and his hands in his overcoat
pockets. Half-past nine was striking from the church clock near at hand
as he paused for a moment to light a cigarette. His back was towards the
other solitary diner. He faced Miss Mott. His twitching face, his
nervous movements, his attire all belonged to Ferruchi, but the eyes
which flashed for a moment across to hers, while his lips parted in the
slightest of smiles, seemed like an insane reminder of some other
person. She clutched at the tablecloth and looked eagerly round for the
little _matre d'htel_. She had disobeyed orders in coming, but she was
safe, she told herself, she must be safe. Hurlbut was opposite--one of
the most dreaded of her uncle's myrmidons. Her heart beat madly. For
whom was it that he was watching? Not for Ferruchi, for he could have
taken him an hour ago. She stared across at him--he was sitting
sphinxlike and motionless, his eyes turned indifferently towards the now
approaching man. The latter, his cigarette hanging from his lips, his
hat drawn even farther over his eyes, was apparently bent upon leaving
the restaurant in the same furtive manner as he had entered it, with the
least possible delay. He looked now neither to the right nor to the
left; his slouch as he neared Hurlbut became a little more pronounced.
Miss Mott gripped the sides of her chair. Now surely the great
happening would occur. She looked to see Hurlbut rise, see him hold out
his arm, tap the departing man upon the shoulder, whisper a word in his
ear. Would there be a fight, she wondered? Miss Mott's hand stole into
her handbag and her fingers closed upon the butt of her own minute but
deadly weapon. She need have had no fear. No one asked for her help.
Hurlbut was leaning lazily back now, watching the man who had reached
the swing doors, with only a faint gleam of contempt in his eyes,--the
contempt of the detective for an informer. The door opened and swung to.
Miss Mott was suddenly conscious that the _matre d'htel_ was standing
by her table and had twice addressed her. She took the note which he
passed surreptitiously into her fingers. As she read it, the colour
mounted into her cheeks:

     Alas, it was all so well arranged for this place, but our friend
     Ferruchi played the fool and chose the one impossible night. Wait
     for me, Miss Mott. The next time the luck will be with us.

Miss Mott tore the note into pieces and rose to her feet. From outside
came the soft beating of a high-powered automobile in the act of
starting. She rose in her place and called across to Hurlbut.

"For whom are you waiting there?" she demanded.

There was a very official frown upon his face as he rose to his feet. He
came across the few intervening yards of space.

"You are Miss Mott?" he enquired.

"Of course I am," she answered. "What I am asking you is--why do you sit
there and let the man for whom you were waiting walk out?"

"How do you know for whom I am waiting?" he asked.

"I am not a fool," she replied passionately. "It seems to me that you
are--brave man though you may be. You should be waiting for Meredith,
the head of the Number One gang."

"You appear to be well informed," he admitted caustically. "I am."

"Then why did you let him pass you?" she demanded.

"That," he told her patiently, "was a man called Ferruchi. He came in an
hour ago. We can take him any time we want him, which it seems to me
won't be very long. At present he is more useful to us free."

"You idiot!" she cried. "That was Meredith who went out in Ferruchi's
clothes."

Hurlbut was only half a fool and he knew the truth when he heard it. He
snatched at his hat. Miss Mott mocked at him. She was really very angry.

"You will find Ferruchi probably with a bullet through his heart
upstairs," she gibed. "The gang don't like informers. Why not run after
the car instead? It can't have got any farther than Leicester Square."

Hurlbut, with a profane exclamation, tore up the stairs, wasted at least
five minutes before the key of the sitting room could be found, and
discovered then the melancholy truth. In a corner of the disordered
apartment he found the body of Ferruchi stripped of his outer clothes, a
stark and revolting sight. He hurried downstairs again, and within a few
seconds word was being flashed around the cordon to detain and search
every high-powered car occupied by a single passenger. When he emerged
from the telephone box, Miss Mott was still seated in her corner,
drinking a second cup of coffee.

"How did you come to recognise Meredith?" he demanded.

"Well, it obviously wasn't the man who came in--Ferruchi," she pointed
out. "He was very cleverly made up about the head, but Ferruchi's boots
were splashed with mud and the man who went out wore very well-cut
patent shoes. Besides, Ferruchi was only in danger from his friends, not
the police, so he wouldn't have had a gun ready, but this man was ready
to shoot from his pocket all the way down the room."

Hurlbut glowered across at her. What an exceedingly unpleasant young
woman this niece of his Superintendent's was!

"You ought to join the force," he remarked, with a distinct note of
bitterness in his tone.

"I do very nicely on my own, thanks," Miss Mott assured him sweetly.




VIII

MARCONI SAVES MISS MOTT


Superintendent Wragge had finished his breakfast, folded his _Times_ for
more careful perusal during the day, lit his pipe and accepted his
overcoat from his very soldierly-looking butler. Still he seemed in no
hurry to leave the house. His car was waiting outside and it was already
five minutes past his usual hour of departure. Miss Mott looked at him
speculatively.

"You have the air, Uncle," she confided, "of wishing to say something to
me, or some one, before you leave."

"Amazing intuition," he grunted. "You are the victim."

She laughed across at him from her place at the breakfast table.

"I knew it," she exclaimed. "Well?"

"I'm still a little uneasy in my mind about you," the Superintendent
admitted.

She looked at him with raised eyebrows and a smile of protest upon her
lips.

"My dear man," she expostulated, "what can you do more, short of locking
me up in a cell? I've come here to live with you and find myself in a
fortress. That has to be for your sake as well as mine, I suppose. The
commissionaire is an ex-Scotland Yard man, so is the lift man, so is the
butler. They are also expert gunmen, they are never off the floor
without being relieved and I drive the little way to my office escorted
always by one of them. What do you mean--you are not comfortable about
me?"

"You're all right here," her uncle conceded. "What I'm always afraid of
is that you'll tumble into some faked business through applicants at the
office."

She laughed scornfully.

"I've had my warnings, haven't I?" she asked. "And I'm not quite an
idiot--besides, you've practically smashed up the dangerous gang--two of
them hanged, one of them penal servitude for life and two others seven
years each. I should think the Number One Gangsters would keep quiet
after that."

"The Number One Gangsters as a body are finished," her uncle
acknowledged, "but you mustn't forget that their chief, who is probably
the most dangerous criminal living in any country, is still free.
Remember this, too, he is a desperate man--he'll stick at nothing. He
must know that he's near the end of his time--that's when you have to
really fear a man."

Miss Mott made a little grimace.

"Well, I haven't come to much grief up till now, have I?"

Superintendent Wragge looked down at her. His mouth was hard set. He
could be stern when he liked, as well as kindly, and he was stern now.

"Let me tell you this, young lady, if you don't know it," he said. "When
we want a man badly at Scotland Yard and we think it's going to do any
good, we offer a reward for him. Meredith has taken a leaf out of our
books. There's a reward at the present moment of five thousand pounds
offered for you, delivered--God knows where. It's gone through the
underworld like a flash of lightning. They've brains, you know, our
enemies--criminals. There aren't many of 'em who wouldn't risk the
maximum penalty for abducting a young woman to get hold of that five
thousand pounds. The man's mad, of course. Most criminals go mad in
their last moments, but that doesn't make your danger any the less."

"Shall I enter a convent?" Miss Mott suggested. "What do you want me to
do?"

"I should like you to drop your agency," her uncle replied, "and just go
on with your newspaper work."

"I can't do that," she answered firmly. "I've made nearly two thousand
pounds by my agency already this year and I won't be frightened out of
it."

"Then I should like you," he went on, "to submit to me every case you
are offered and not to proceed with it until I give you the O.K."

"I'll do that," she promised, after a moment's reflection. "You're a
dear old thing to worry so much about me," she added, standing on tiptoe
and kissing him. "I won't take on the simplest case in the world without
telephoning to you."

He nodded and relit his pipe.

"You've taken a load off my mind," he confessed, as he hurried out.

Miss Mott was only halfway through her pile of correspondence that
morning when Mr. Wells, her editor in chief, was announced. She welcomed
him with some surprise.

"Why didn't you send for me?" she asked. "I feel that there is something
all wrong in an editor coming to see a contributor."

He coughed a little nervously and leaned back in the client's chair.

"Still plenty of mail," he remarked.

Miss Mott nodded.

"I shall have to be asking for another column soon," she warned him.
"Even now I'm scrapping a few letters I feel I ought to deal with."

"We might manage that," he declared. "Certainly we might manage that.
How is the agency business going?"

"I've had some interesting cases," Miss Mott acknowledged.

"And got into a little trouble now and then, haven't you?" he asked
frankly.

"You're quite right; I have," she assented.

Mr. Wells coughed once more, patted his shaggy hair for a moment and
broached the subject of his visit.

"Miss Mott," he began. "I wonder whether we could induce you to give up
this agency business?"

She looked at him ruefully.

"What, give it up altogether?"

"That's what we'd like," he admitted. "Has it been a success
financially?"

"I've made nearly two thousand by it this year," she confided.

"Of course, we couldn't compete with that," he confessed, "but I have an
offer to make to you, Miss Mott The directors--Mr. Warren and the
others--talked it over, and we have decided to offer you the post of
sub-editor of the paper with an increase in salary of five hundred
pounds a year, if you cared to accept it."

"That is very nice of you all," Miss Mott declared. "I think it is an
extraordinarily pleasant offer."

"We should want you," Mr. Wells continued, "to give up the agency
business and to take up your position in the offices. You would have a
suite to yourself, a secretary, a typist, and a seat on the Board. In
short, we would try to make it as comfortable as possible."

"But you would want me to give up my agency?" she queried.

"We certainly should," Mr. Wells agreed. "We think that it brings you
into touch with a good many undesirable people. If you had more time on
your hands--although with your new duties I'm not sure that you would
have--we should always welcome independent articles from you."

Miss Mott remained silent for several moments. Mr. Wells whistled softly
to himself--the sign of a very perturbed state of mind.

"Leaving the business side of the matter alone altogether for the
moment, Miss Mott," he went on, "I personally have been occasionally
very much worried by the adventures into which you have been led. My own
feelings as regards you are quite unchanged."

Miss Mott sighed.

"You are very kind to me, Mr. Wells," she admitted. "I don't think I was
made for marriage and that sort of thing."

Mr. Wells sighed.

"If only you had a little more sentiment," he lamented.

Miss Mott leaned ever so slightly towards the huge bunch of violets
which decorated her table and drew in a waft of their perfume. Away
danced her heart into the misty places of life. A voice, a never clearly
seen face, a queer tangle of throbbing memories. No sentiment, indeed!
She smiled faintly and very wistfully. Mr. Wells, who was a sensitive
and apprehensive man, saw the smile and sighed once more.

"I suppose I'm very stupid," she declared, with a new briskness. "I've
the love affairs of too many other people to think of to develop one of
my own. I consider yours is a very wonderful offer, Mr. Wells. I can't
just make up my mind for a moment about giving up this agency business.
I know my uncle would love me to and, of course, one has to take one's
risks."

"Think it over for a week," Mr. Wells suggested. "I need a sub-editor
badly and I'd rather have you than any one."

She nodded.

"In one week you shall have my reply," she promised.

Mr. Wells thereupon took his leave and Miss Mott, with half her letters
unopened, indulged in the very reprehensible practice of day-dreaming.
She broke off one of the violets and held it for a moment to her lips.
He was a very unseeing person who imagined Miss Mott to be devoid of
sentiment....

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott was still feeling a little dazed as she greeted the two
callers who were ushered in a few minutes later. Mother and daughter,
she decided at once, strictly middle class, the girl affected,
over-addicted to the use of cosmetics, but pretty, and the mother of the
same type, but passe. Miss Mott glanced at the card:

    MRS. EWAN BROWNE

and underneath, in somewhat smaller type:

    MISS DOROTHY EWAN BROWNE

All very stylish and what it should be!

"What can I do for you?" Miss Mott asked, brightly, but with an
involuntary glance at her still unopened letters.

Mrs. Ewan Browne spoke as one who had a grievance.

"I thought it best to come and see you, Miss Mott," she said, "with
regard to the advice you gave my daughter in your paper last week."

"Really," was the somewhat chilly reply. "I don't as a rule see my
correspondents personally. I'm afraid I should never get through my
day's work if I did. You won't mind telling me what it is you want as
quickly as possible, will you?"

"You can have it in two words," Mrs. Ewan Browne declared. "I want to
know how you dared advise my daughter to throw away her money on those
silly dancing lessons?"

Miss Mott was a little bewildered. The girl was helpful.

"I signed myself Dorothy," she reminded her. "I wrote and told you that
I was twenty-one years old and had just come in for a thousand pounds
left me by my uncle. I told you that I'd decided to spend a small part
of it in taking stage dancing lessons and that my mother disapproved.
You replied last week, saying that if I was satisfied I had some ability
and that the dancing school was a first-class one, you thought I was
justified in going on with the lessons. So I did and I mean to
continue."

Her mother drew herself up.

"That's the spirit one's daughters grow up with nowadays," she remarked
bitterly. "I'm surprised to find any one connected with a magazine so
widely read as yours, madam, advising a girl to go against her own
mother."

"Having given my advice," Miss Mott said, glancing at the clock, "I
have no further interest in the matter. Do you mind my pointing out that
I am very busy?"

"But I haven't begun yet!" Mrs. Ewan Browne protested.

"Begun what?" Miss Mott asked impatiently.

"To explain what I came for. You yourself, in your reply to Dorothy,
mentioned the standing of the dancing school--I don't approve of it."

"Why not?"

"There's a footman to answer the door," Mrs. Ewan Browne confided; "the
house is much too large and expensive, they only charge two guineas a
lesson and strange gentlemen are there watching."

The girl looked across at Miss Mott appealingly.

"Mother is such a fool," she complained. "The men who go there to watch
are the agents for theatrical managers and they often give engagements.
Then Madam Hansen only charges two guineas a lesson, but you have to pay
her a commission if you get an engagement. I don't know what we came
here for, anyway," she added peevishly; "I'm going on with the lessons.
We're taking up Miss Mott's time, Mother."

"Sensible girl," Miss Mott declared. "I'm afraid I can't be of any
assistance to you, Mrs. Browne."

Miss Mott's finger was upon the bell and it seemed as though the matter
would have ended then and there but for the tears which suddenly
appeared in the elder woman's eyes. Miss Mott's finger hesitated.

"What did you want me to do?" she enquired.

"They told me you ran an enquiry office as well as just answering these
questions in the paper," Mrs. Ewan Browne said a little brokenly. "I
wanted you to go and see if this place is all right. I'll pay you your
fee--after all, you did advise Dorothy to go on with the lessons."

"Name and address of the place, please," Miss Mott asked briskly. "I'll
let you have a report on it by to-morrow."

"The name is Madam Hansen, Number 7a Kensington Square," the girl said.
"Why wouldn't you come with me, Miss Mott, when I go for my lesson at
five o'clock this afternoon? You could set Mother's mind at rest then
about the place."

Miss Mott reflected. She had two or three unanswered enquiries for an
establishment of that sort which was absolutely above suspicion.

"Call here at a quarter to five," she enjoined. "Don't be late and
please let me send you away now."

Mrs. Ewan Browne wiped her eyes and, with a mincing little gesture,
opened her bag. Miss Mott waved her away.

"If there's any charge," she said, "I'll let you know how much it is
later."

The girl smiled her farewell behind her mother's shoulder and these
strange visitors took their leave....

Later in the day, Miss Mott received the following reply to the enquiry
which she had put through to Scotland Yard:

     Dancing School, or Academy as it is styled, conducted by Madam
     Hansen, Number 7a Kensington Square, is believed to be a quite
     responsible institution. There have never been any complaints and
     it seems to be frequented by a very respectable class of people.

Miss Mott thrust the note into her bag and made an entry on her block
for the engagement that afternoon.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was no footman, but a butler of very staid appearance who opened the
door of Number 7a Kensington Square, in response to Miss Ewan Browne's
summons. He led the way into a large Victorian-looking drawing-room
which had been almost denuded of furniture and the floor of which was
highly polished. There was no doubt about the bona fide nature of the
Dancing Academy, at any rate. Four young ladies in tunics and knickers
were performing gyrations at one end of the apartment under the
instruction of a dapper little man and to the music of a piano and one
string instrument. A thin, rather austere-looking woman, plainly dressed
in black, was taking careful note of the performance. She came across
the room to meet the new arrivals.

"Better get into your costume at once, Miss Browne," she suggested. "Mr.
Fitch is able to spare us another quarter of an hour to-day."

Miss Browne introduced her companion, who was graciously received.

"Another possible pupil?" Madam asked with a smile.

Miss Mott shook her head.

"I am rather past the age when one takes up a new profession," she said.
"Miss Browne asked me just to come and have a look at her dancing."

Miss Browne had already disappeared. Madam nodded indifferently.

"You wish to judge whether she has talent, I suppose," she remarked.
"Nothing extraordinary, I'm afraid. The course of instruction she is
getting here will improve her style of ordinary dancing, but I don't
think it will ever get her on the stage."

Two gentlemen were shown in and took seats at the far end of the room.
Madam waved her hand to them.

"That's Mr. Paxton--one of the best agents," she pointed out. "He only
engages girls for provincial shows, though."

Miss Mott sat in an easy-chair and watched a very quaint, but, in its
way, businesslike performance. Presently Miss Browne returned, having
changed her clothes. Madam took her on one side and whispered with her
for a few minutes. Miss Mott, who had the gift of seeing without
looking, fancied that they were speaking of her. She turned her head and
for a moment caught Madam's quickly averted but somewhat supercilious
gaze. The young woman came across the room.

"I shall be dancing in ten minutes," she confided. "One of the girls
has to do a show dance. Afterwards we are going to practise some ballet
steps. They say the taller of those two men in the corner engages more
girls than any man in London."

Miss Mott glanced at her wrist watch.

"I hope you won't be too long," she said. "After all, I don't know that
I need to stop. I can make a fairly good report to your mother as it
is."

"Stay and see me dance for five minutes," the girl pleaded. "If you tell
her that you think it's worth while, it will make such a lot of
difference."

Some folding doors were half opened and a girl appeared from an
adjoining room and danced, so far as Miss Mott could judge, with some
skill. Afterwards cocktails were handed round. Miss Mott's refusal
passed without comment. But when, a little later, she rose to go, Madam
crossed the room towards her.

"You mustn't hurry," she begged. "You haven't seen your young friend
dance yet."

"I can't stay much longer," Miss Mott demurred.

"I never like my visitors to hurry away," Madam observed, with a
regretful intonation. "It seems as though they weren't interested. Sorry
you wouldn't have a cocktail. Would you care for some tea or something?"

"Nothing at all," Miss Mott assured her. "Thank you very much."

The music was changed again and the little troupe, with the addition of
Miss Browne, indulged in some fancy dancing. Miss Browne seemed to be
neither better nor worse than the average young woman who imagines that
she has a vocation for the stage, and as soon as the performance was
over, Miss Mott rose to go. At a sign from Madam, the dancers passed
into the back room, followed by the musicians. The folding doors were
closed and it seemed to Miss Mott rather a strange thing that Miss
Dorothy Browne departed without even a wave of the hand. Madam, the
agent and his friend, and Miss Mott were alone in the apartment. Miss
Mott made her little speech of farewell.

"So good of you to let me come, Madam Hansen," she said. "I agree with
you about Miss Browne--she seems to have just an average talent--but I
certainly cannot discover any reason for her not persevering in her
lessons. I shall tell her mother so."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," Madam acknowledged, with mock
graciousness. "You mustn't think of leaving us yet, though, Miss Mott.
We are expecting some friends of yours presently."

Then, for the first time, a cold shiver of apprehension stole into Miss
Mott's heart. She had done the unforgivable thing: she had broken her
word to her uncle, she had embarked upon an enterprise without
consulting him. Madam was looking at her with a cryptic smile upon her
lips. In the room behind the closed doors she could hear the tinkling of
strange music and the shuffling of feet. She found herself following the
rhythm of it and she shook her head impatiently.

"Friends of mine?" she repeated. "I do not think that there are any
friends of mine likely to be coming here, madam, and even if there were,
I haven't time to stay and see them."

Madam shrugged her shoulders but she made no effort to ring the bell,
and Miss Mott, even though she made her way to the door and turned the
handle, felt that her gesture was useless. In a few seconds she was
convinced of it. The door was fastened. She turned around with flashing
eyes.

"What is the meaning of that?" she demanded, pointing to the door.

Madam laughed, not at all pleasantly.

"Your friends," she confided, "have come to the conclusion that a course
of dancing lessons would be good for you."

       *       *       *       *       *

Superintendent Detective Wragge was clearing up his desk and filling his
pipe, preparatory to leaving his office for the day, when a
commissionaire opened the door, saluted, and handed over a folded
minute.

"From Mr. Harrison of Number 8 Department, sir," he announced.

The Superintendent glanced at the minute and frowned. He read it over
half-aloud, slowly and thoughtfully:

     With reference to your enquiry of this morning's date, as to the
     character of Dancing Academy carried on at No. 7a Kensington Square
     by Madam Hansen, an addendum has now been made to our information
     on the matter.

     While there is still no information to hand reflecting upon the
     general character or conduct of the establishment, it is reported
     that two members of well-known London gangs have been seen to enter
     and leave same. It is believed that one is employed there in some
     capacity or other. The premises have been placed under observation.

Superintendent Wragge folded up the memorandum and reached out for the
telephone. Miss Mott's young secretary answered the enquiry he made as
soon as he obtained her number.

"Sorry, Mr. Wragge," she said. "Miss Mott left early this evening. She
has been gone quite an hour."

"Do you know whether she was making a call on her way back?" Mr. Wragge
asked.

"I believe so," the girl replied. "She had two clients here this
morning--a mother and daughter--about a dancing class, and I think the
mother paid a fee to have Miss Mott go and look at it."

Mr. Wragge rang off without comment. He turned to the commissionaire.

"Tell the Sergeant to put two plain-clothes men in my car at once," he
ordered.

The man saluted and withdrew. In five minutes, Superintendent Wragge was
being rapidly driven westward. The car came to a standstill before the
somewhat imposing entrance to the house in Kensington Square. The door
was opened by the same rather pompous-looking butler, who admitted the
three men without hesitation.

"I should like just a word with Madam Hansen," Superintendent Wragge
announced shortly. "Never mind my name."

The three men were left in the hall. From inside the room into which the
butler had disappeared came the haunting little air of some popular
dance tune and the shuffling of feet. Superintendent Wragge was half
inclined to believe that he had made an idiot of himself and wondered
for a moment how he could dispose of his two attendants. Without delay,
however, the door was opened and the butler signed to him to enter.

"Madam will speak to you in the dancing room, sir," he explained. "She
is occupied with her pupils."

The same girls were there and the same musicians. This time, however, it
was Madam who was instructing. She held a little baton in her hand and
she looked at Superintendent Wragge with chilly curiosity.

"What can I do for you?" she asked.

Superintendent Wragge was very polite.

"You have, I believe, a pupil called Miss Dorothy Browne here?"

Madam nodded.

"What about it? Do you wish to speak to her?"

"For a minute, if you please," Mr. Wragge begged.

"Take a seat there, then," Madam invited, pointing to a chair. "I can't
have my lesson interfered with in the middle. We must finish this
movement. Now then, music, please."

The music struck up again. The girls revolved and danced, retreated and
danced, and, with a terse volley of instructions from Madam, performed
even more complicated gyrations. When at last the figure came to an end,
Madam took Miss Browne by the arm and led her ungraciously towards
Superintendent Wragge.

"This sort of thing is altogether against the rules," she complained.
"You must not have your friends call upon you again, Miss Browne."

The young lady--an anticipatory lipstick in her hand--gazed at
Superintendent Wragge in surprise.

"This is no friend of mine," she told Madam Hansen. "I never saw him
before."

Superintendent Wragge rose to his feet, large and ponderous.

"My name is Superintendent Detective Wragge of Scotland Yard," he
announced. "I am in search of a Miss Mott who came here with you this
afternoon."

"No one came here with me this afternoon," the girl answered. "I came
alone. Didn't I, Madam?"

"I don't know who you brought with you to the front door," Madam Hansen
replied. "Certainly no one entered with you."

"You called for Miss Mott this afternoon," her uncle persisted.

"Yes, I called for her, all right--Mother and I were there this
morning--and she promised to come and see this show and my dancing. At
the last moment she wouldn't come. She left me at the door and got into
a taxi."

Superintendent Wragge looked at the young woman with eyes which had won
the truth from many a criminal. The girl returned his gaze with
light-hearted impudence. A lie was nothing to her.

"You will permit me, madam, to use your telephone?" Superintendent
Wragge begged.

"You'll find the instrument in the hall," was the brusque reply. "I hope
that will be the end of your interference here. I don't care whether you
come from Scotland Yard or not--my Academy is above suspicion and I
dislike having policemen about the place."

"You shall not be troubled with us any longer than is necessary, madam,"
Wragge promised, as he left the room....

In five minutes, the Superintendent was back in the dancing room. Madam
watched his reappearance with a little exclamation of annoyance. The
music was just starting a gavotte.

"Do tell me what else it is you want, please," she demanded irritably.

"I'm taking that young lady I spoke with to the police station,"
Superintendent Wragge bluffed. "Miss Mott was seen to enter this house
with her."

The girl was plainly terrified.

"Who saw her?" she cried. "It's a lie. She left me on the step--ask the
butler."

"I shall have a few more questions to ask the butler presently,"
Superintendent Wragge said sternly. "In the meantime, madam, I shall
require to search the house."

Madam at any rate had nerve.

"You can search it until you are black in the face," she agreed, "so
long as you leave me and my pupils in peace."

Superintendent Wragge turned towards the door.

"If I let the young lady remain here for a few minutes," he asked,
looking back, "will you see that she does not leave the premises?"

"I don't make prisoners of my pupils," Madam answered. "However, we
sha'n't have finished for three quarters of an hour."

Nevertheless, when Superintendent Detective Wragge returned to the room
in considerably less than three quarters of an hour, Miss Browne was
missing.

"Where's the young woman?" he demanded of Madam.

"You've frightened her to death," was the brusque reply. "She's run off
home."

"And where's that?" Wragge enquired.

"I'm afraid we haven't her address."

Superintendent Detective Wragge squared his shoulders. He held out his
hand firmly.

"You'll leave that telephone alone, madam," he ordered, "and be so good
as to put your hat and coat on immediately. One of my men will escort
you to your room if you need to go there."

"What do you mean?" she demanded furiously.

"I mean that you're coming to the nearest police station with me," was
the stern explanation. "You are under arrest--on suspicion of being
concerned in the abduction of Miss Mott."

       *       *       *       *       *

The butler of the very dignified-looking house in Berkeley Square, who
had completed his task of drawing the curtains, in an apartment spacious
and handsome enough to have been the library of a palace, threw a log
upon the fire and loomed through the shadows which surrounded the
writing table.

"Can I bring you anything, my lord?" he enquired. "It is after six
o'clock."

The man, whose pen had been scratching wearily across the paper for the
last two hours, looked up. He pushed one of the books of reference by
which he was surrounded a little farther on one side. A powerful
electric lamp threw a strong light upon the paper below, but the man
himself was almost invisible. He sat head and shoulders above the green
shade, and the whole of the rest of the room was in darkness, save for
such faint and uncertain illumination as came from the dancing flames
upon the hearth.

"You can bring whisky and soda," a quiet voice answered.

"The young lady is asking to see you, my lord," the man ventured.

"She must wait. These sheets must be at the typist's to-night."

The man started for the door, and long before he reached it had faded
into obscurity. His master bent once more over his task. In due course,
whisky and soda and ice were placed on a table by his side.

"There have been callers, Grover?" he asked.

"Quite a good many, my lord," the man replied. "I told them all that
your lordship was finishing some work and that you were not to be
disturbed. There are a good many telephone messages too, when your
lordship has time to look through them."

The man at the table nodded impatiently. A perfectly shaped hand,
wearing a wonderful signet ring, flashed from underneath the little
circle of light in a gesture of dismissal. Almost immediately he was
alone again and his pen was continuing its rapid progress across the pad
of foolscap....

He left off presently to mix himself a drink. With the tumbler halfway
to his lips, he paused. A draught from the nearest window was stealing
into the room. He listened. Yes--there was some sort of a sound behind
him. He turned around in his chair. The curtains of the window
immediately behind him had been drawn aside and were still shivering.
The dimly seen figure of a man was standing within a few feet of him.
The firelight flashed upon the dull metal of an outstretched revolver.

"Don't move, please, Walter--I know where you keep your gun and where I
should be if you could get at it, but you can't. It's just out of your
reach. Move your chair a little farther from the table--that's good."

The man laid down his pen and obeyed. Then he swung around to face the
intruder and laughed--mirthlessly.

"Since when have you gone in for this sort of thing, Joe?" he
remonstrated. "I can scarcely ever remember seeing you hold a gun. Be
careful it doesn't go off. I'd sooner face a Chicago killer than an
ignoramus fiddling about with firearms."

The newcomer came on towards the table, cautiously watching for a sudden
spring. He found a chair and dragged it out.

"Why this unexpected visit?" the other asked. "Since your withdrawal, I
thought it was understood that we only received and exchanged visits in
a social way. If you have anything to say, why didn't you say it at
Glenster's dinner last night?"

"I didn't know then what I know now," Violet Joe replied. "I've come
after Miss Mott."

The man at the table chuckled.

"How do you suppose you're going to get her?" he enquired. "Certainly
not by this stunt of brandishing firearms at me."

"There are several methods I might make use of," Violet Joe said calmly.
"One of them will have to succeed."

"Be as brief as possible; there's a good fellow," the other enjoined.
"The F.O. are waiting for this report of mine. Ridley wants to go
through it before the Cabinet Council to-morrow."

"I should hate to interfere with your political activities, Walter," the
visitor remarked, "and I don't think there's a man in the world knows
more about Abyssinia than you do, but at present--I want Miss Mott."

"So do I," was the curt rejoinder. "I happen to have the advantage, too,
of being the man in possession."

"What do you mean by that?" Violet Joe demanded, with sudden fierceness.

"Not what you seem to fear," was the calm reply. "You forget that I am
an artist."

"I should have thought you would have gathered by now," Violet Joe
observed, "that the young lady was never likely to stay with you
voluntarily."

Meredith sighed.

"The young lady has been difficult," he admitted. "I think that this
time, however, my reward is coming."

Violet Joe laughed scornfully.

"You flatter yourself!" he scoffed.

Meredith pushed his writing pad away from him and leaned back in his
chair.

"Supposing we have the cards on the table," he suggested. "What are you
butting in like this for?"

"I don't mind explaining," was the quiet reply. "Get up and walk two
yards towards the fire, will you?"

Meredith obeyed without hesitation. He stood upon the hearthrug with
his hands behind him, the firelight playing upon his thin, ascetic face,
upon which the scar no longer showed--a sinister and yet a not
unprepossessing figure of a man. He watched his visitor indifferently
while the latter removed an automatic pistol from one of the drawers of
the desk, extracted the cartridges and threw it on to the top of the
desk.

"I hate this melodramatic nonsense," Violet Joe observed, replacing his
own revolver in his pocket. "Now we can get to business. You're asking
for trouble, Meredith, and bad trouble."

"Think so?" Meredith rejoined. "I never looked upon you as the brains of
our enterprises, you know."

"Like all conceited men," Violet Joe remarked, "you underrated the
brains of your opponents. I broke away on this woman question and I'm
hanged if I don't believe I've had better information than you since I
left. You think because you had your double arrive in Aden by aeroplane
and travel home under an assumed name that your alibi for the last eight
months is complete, but you're wrong. There's just one person who has
got you in the hollow of her hand--and that's Miss Mott."

Meredith laughed scornfully.

"Well, as my wife," he remarked, "she won't be able to give evidence
against me."

"Going as far as that, are you?" Violet Joe murmured.

"You'll find a special licence in that drawer, if you care to look,"
Meredith confided. "Notwithstanding that lack of intelligence with
which you reproach me, I realised some time ago that Miss Mott was my
chief danger. That was one reason why I made up my mind to marry her."

"Interesting! Has she, by the by, made up her mind to marry you?"

Meredith smiled--a gesture of supreme contempt at the imbecility of the
question.

"Why not? The family estates are rehabilitated and it isn't every Miss
Mott in the world who can become a Countess."

"Snob!" Violet Joe sneered. "Look here, Walter," he went on seriously,
"I'll grant I'm the half-wit you seem to think I am, and I'll admit that
you've planned some great and successful enterprises, but listen to
me--you don't know Miss Mott. Would you mind having her down and letting
me ask her one or two questions?"

"With pleasure," Meredith acquiesced, "so long as you will remember that
we are back in the humdrum world and will promise not to make any silly
attempts at carrying the young woman off."

"I promise that," Violet Joe agreed.

Meredith touched a bell, gave an order to a servant and in a very few
minutes Miss Mott appeared. Notwithstanding his bold front, Violet Joe
gave a little start as he saw her calmly crossing the room. She was in
street clothes, as usual plainly but exceedingly well dressed and she
showed not the slightest signs of any nervous discomposure. Only when
she saw Violet Joe rise to his feet was there any change in her
expression. At first, her face brightened as though with pleasure; then
she became graver and the smile faded.

"I thought that you had stopped this sort of thing," she said.

"So I have," he assured her. "At the same time, one remains human. This
man was my associate and chief for years and I have come to save him
from making a bad mistake, if I can."

Miss Mott indulged in a little grimace and sank into an easy-chair. Her
arms dangled down on each side.

"And I hoped that you had come to rescue me," she sighed.

"I'm not at all sure that you need rescuing," Violet Joe replied.

"Why should she?" Meredith asked coolly. "We have an interesting
document here to which we propose to give effect within the next few
days."

The intruder rose to his feet and stood between the two. He looked older
than the last time Miss Mott had seen him clearly in the Milan Grill
Room, but his expression remained the same.

"Miss Mott," he begged, "please answer me these questions. Our friend
here had made elaborate plans for having you carried off from that
dancing Academy in Kensington Square. You rendered them all useless by
offering to come with him voluntarily. Will you tell us both why?"

She hesitated.

"Would it be wise of me, do you think," she meditated.

"No harm shall come to you now, at any rate," Violet Joe promised.
"Please answer my question."

"I came," she confided, "because I knew that he"--pointing to
Meredith--"had offered a reward of five thousand pounds to any one who
would trap me into coming to him. I came voluntarily, first because it
was not my desire that any one should earn that five thousand pounds at
my expense, and secondly because there was a ten thousand pounds reward
for the man known as Walter Meredith, head of the Number One Gangsters."

There was a dead silence for several moments. Then Meredith spoke. His
voice was not quite natural. The old restlessness was back in his eyes.

"You came here to earn that?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"How?"

"By delivering you over to justice."

"Your prospective husband?" he mocked.

"I've never had the slightest intention of marrying you," she assured
him firmly.

"Then why did you come here quietly?"

"In order to betray you."

He took a cigarette case from his pocket, selected one deliberately,
knocked it against the mantelpiece and lit it.

"Are you breaking your parole?" he asked.

"I'm not," she answered. "I have not spoken to one of your servants,
except as regards their service. I have not used the telephone or
attempted to leave the house. Yet you will be in the hands of the
police, I should say, within the course of the next five minutes."

The old ugly smile distorted his lips, it took him away from his
dignified surroundings, it thrust him back amidst the squalid places.

"You must have cheated, then!" he exclaimed.

She opened the hand bag which lay in her lap and drew out a
strange-looking little metal case in the shape of a box. She laid it
upon the table, raised the lid, touched a spring and the four walls fell
away. Within were a mass of discs and springs and tiny plaques of
oxidised metal. The whole thing seemed to be just a tangle but from a
case fastened on to the side, Miss Mott produced a pair of miniature
receivers, the ends of which she inserted into two plugs, and the
listening portions of which she placed in her ears. She then touched a
spring and a confused jangle of sounds crept out into the room. The two
men stared at it in amazement. Miss Mott smiled somewhat cryptically, as
her fingers touched various knobs and dials.

"An ingenious little toy, isn't it?" she remarked. "My uncle and I have
the only two in Europe. They came from Detroit and cost a small fortune.
However, just now, they're worth the money. If I have the wavelength
right.... Yes, Yes--" she went on--"Miss Mott speaking.... Is he? Yes,
that's right; he'll be here directly, then. Number 42a Berkeley Square.
Thank you."

She removed the receivers from her ears, pulled out the plugs, and
pushed back the spring.

"The reason why I came quietly," she explained, "was because I had this
in my bag. I have been talking to Scotland Yard from upstairs. It's
Marconi's latest invention. At present we can only manage a wave length
of ten miles: as soon as he can make it twenty, the secret will be out
and there will be thousands on the market."

Meredith lost his marvellous composure. He hurried to the window. As yet
there was only one car at the door--his own. He crossed the floor in
half a dozen strides. From the threshold he looked back.

"I wish you'd wring that little devil's neck for me, Joe," he called
out. "I'll do it myself some day."

He disappeared. They heard the car drive off. Violet Joe rose to his
feet with a gesture of politeness but Miss Mott had already rung the
bell.

"Will you get me a taxi at once," she asked the butler, who made prompt
appearance.

"Very good, madam," was the undisturbed reply. "There will be one here
immediately. There's a stand just around the corner."

Violet Joe walked by her side down the hall and handed her into the cab.
She gave her uncle's address.

"What about me?" he enquired.

"Oh, you're all right," she assured him. "You're off the black list
altogether. Besides, I told them not to come unless I didn't report in
half an hour."

"How long have you had that infernal instrument?" he asked.

"About a week," she confided. "It's a marvellous idea, isn't it? The
only trouble about it is that so far we haven't got it to work!--Au
revoir, and no more violets for a week, please."

The taxicab drove off and Violet Joe faded away into the shadows on the
other side of the square. Miss Mott leaned back among the cushions of
her taxicab, lit a cigarette and began to smoke meditatively. She was
speculating as to how Superintendent Wragge might behave when he was
thoroughly angry.




IX

THE TERRIFIED WIFE


Miss Mott was caught again. She sighed as she waved her visitor to a
seat--a middle-aged, over-dressed woman, with a hard, but not
disagreeable face.

"Tell me your name once more, please," she begged, "and in which number
of the magazine my answer to your enquiry appeared."

The woman sank into the client's chair, deposited her stubby little
umbrella and bag upon the floor and began the story of her woes.

"My name is Mrs. Belton," she confided--"Bessie Belton. I used the
pseudonym of Bonnie Bess, and your answer to my enquiry appeared in last
Saturday's _Home Talks_."

Miss Mott rang the bell and presently had a copy of the magazine and a
letter in front of her. She glanced through the latter, a slight frown
upon her face.

"I don't like anything to do with divorce business," she said, "and to
my mind it is a terrible thing to have a husband watched. You say in
your letter that he wrote you apparently from Leicester, saying that he
had been working there all day, whereas you know that he was in London
on that day and was seen late at night in Pimlico. Why not ask him about
it and make him tell you the truth? There may be a mistake in the
date--that is what I suggested, I see, in my answer. I advised you to
have it out with him."

"That is very good advice in an ordinary way and among ordinary people,"
Mrs. Belton agreed. "My Sam, though, isn't an ordinary sort of man. He
goes to church on a Sunday and reads very serious books; he never looks
at a woman that I can see, very seldom enters a public house and saves
money all the time. He's saved far too much, to my way of thinking," she
concluded mysteriously.

"That is quite an unusual complaint," Miss Mott remarked. "I don't want
to take up your time, Mrs. Belton, and I must warn you that I am letting
my agency business run down. I have an uncle who strongly objects to it
and I am taking very few fresh cases. If you want me to have your
husband watched, I must tell you frankly that I cannot do it. I only
took a case of that description once and it got me into trouble. Cases
of disappearance or blackmail I am still interested in, but very few
others."

The woman listened but showed no signs of being willing to take her
departure.

"I thought you might be inclined to help me, Miss Mott," she persisted.
"Your answers to people who consult you are always so kind and
sympathetic. There's none of them who write about their silly little
love affairs who have trouble so near to their hearts as I."

"I don't think you ought to have," Miss Mott argued. "Your husband,
according to your own showing, is a sober, religious and saving man. His
only fault seems to have been that he did not tell you the truth on one
occasion about his whereabouts. For heaven's sake, have it out with him
instead of brooding."

"I didn't say it was on only one occasion," Mrs. Belton sighed. "It's
happened already eight times."

Miss Mott was startled.

"Do you mean that eight times he has been away, or not been away, and
deceived you as to his whereabouts?" she asked.

"I do mean that," Mrs. Belton asserted; "and each time he has not only
written me from a place where he wasn't, but each time he has had the
letter registered."

"Registered?" Miss Mott meditated.

"Looking, to my mind, as though he meant to have it to use as an alibi,
if necessary."

"You don't imagine that your husband is a criminal, do you?" Miss Mott
asked.

"God knows," the woman replied. "He's a strange, silent sort of person
and in some ways he's as far aloof from me now as he was when I married
him--thirteen years ago. Perhaps it's because we've had no children.
Anyway, there's always seemed to be something between us."

"What excuse did your husband make for registering his letters?" Miss
Mott asked.

"He always said that he'd taken a good order and he enclosed me a pound
or thirty shillings to buy something with."

"And how do you know that _all_ these letters were posted from places
where he hadn't been?"

"Because when I got the one saying he was in Leicester, when I knew, for
a positive fact, that he was in London, I made enquiries about the
others."

"You have employed some one to watch him, then?" Miss Mott said quickly.

"No, I haven't," the woman answered. "I'm acquainted with a young man
who works for the same firm and I got to know from him that Sam wasn't
supposed to be in one of those places on the dates the letters were
posted."

"I'm afraid I can't help you," was Miss Mott's decision. "Your husband
evidently has something in his life which he desires to keep secret from
you. A stranger can't do any good. Have it out with him yourself. That's
my advice."

"You don't know Sam," Mrs. Belton said gloomily. "It isn't as though it
were only once, either. It's the best part of a dozen times he's
deceived me."

"Do you suspect him of infidelity?" Miss Mott asked.

"Sometimes I almost wish I did," was the passionate avowal. "I
don't--and that's the worst of it. He never casts an eye at another
woman. I've some good-looking friends, girls that used to work in the
dress-making establishment where I was, and they often come to see me.
He never takes any notice of them, never jollies them like any other man
would. He's always either reading some deep book that no ordinary person
could understand or else studying stocks and shares."

"You haven't told me yet what his business is," Miss Mott reminded her
visitor.

"He's a traveller for a firm of leather merchants in Bermondsey. They
give him a lot of liberty, it seems. He can go anywhere he likes in
reason where he thinks he can make a sale."

Miss Mott deliberated for a moment. There were some curious points about
the case.

"Look here," she said, "I don't think I can help you, but tell me
this--if you don't suspect your husband of infidelity, what do you
suspect him of?"

Mrs. Belton suddenly began to shake in her chair. The hardness seemed to
fade from her face. She was a care-worn, anxious woman.

"I don't know," she groaned. "I wanted to find out privately."

"By privately," Miss Mott suggested, "I suppose you mean not through the
police?"

The woman was shaking now in every limb. There was real terror in her
face.

"The police!" she muttered. "They couldn't have anything to do with Sam,
but I don't know--I'm miserable till I find out."

"Have you anything more on your mind?" Miss Mott asked her, after a
moment's pause.

"Nothing," the woman almost shouted. "Why should you think that?"

"Perhaps there is something you would rather not tell me?" Miss Mott
persisted.

The woman picked up her stubby little umbrella and bag and rose to her
feet. She made an attempt at a dignified exit.

"Since you don't want to help me," she complained, "what's the use of
asking all these silly questions?"

Miss Mott rang the bell.

"If ever," she concluded, "you feel inclined to confide in me what your
real trouble is, and everything that is on your mind, I will reconsider
the matter. I might then, perhaps, be disposed to help you."

The woman made no reply. She looked for a moment at the open door as
though uncertain, then she took her leave without saying good-bye.

Miss Mott had an article to write that morning and very soon forgot all
about her disappointed client. Just as she was finishing it, however,
her young secretary brought her in a card.

"A gentleman to see you, madam," she announced.

Miss Mott gazed at the card--a neatly engraved, impressive affair--and
frowned slightly in perplexity. It bore the name of Mr. Samuel Belton,
and in small type in the corner, crossed through in pencil--H. Castle &
Sons, Leather Merchants.

"The gentleman said he would only detain you a few minutes, Miss Mott,"
her secretary added.

"Show him in," was the brief injunction.

Mr. Belton, carrying a small bag in his hand, made due appearance. He
was well and quietly dressed, a man apparently about forty-five years
old, with a brownish-grey moustache, pale complexion and thoughtful
eyes.

Miss Mott waved him to a chair.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Belton?" she enquired.

"I picked up a copy of your magazine a few days ago," he explained, "and
read the column entitled 'Ask Miss Mott.' There was one reply there
addressed to some one under the pseudonym of 'Bonnie Bess.' That is a
pseudonym which my wife has adopted on many occasions; and before she
was married, it was her nickname. I found out your address from the
office of the paper and I came to ask you, Miss Mott, whether the reply
to Bonnie Bess was in answer to an enquiry you had received from Mrs.
Bessie Belton?"

"Possibly without meaning it," Miss Mott pointed out, "you have come to
ask me a most improper question. I do not disclose the identities of my
correspondents."

"Not even to their husbands?" Mr. Belton asked softly.

"Not even to their husbands," was the firm reply.

"In that case," Mr. Belton said, stretching out his hand for his bag--

"Quite so," Miss Mott interrupted briskly. "Good morning."

There was a little glint in the man's eyes as he lingered before taking
his leave. Miss Mott's manner had been perhaps unnecessarily abrupt, but
she had taken a dislike to the man.

"I should have preferred your showing me the letter which my wife had
addressed to you," he said, "and letting the matter remain there. As it
is, I have no alternative but to seek an explanation from my wife
herself. It may perhaps lead to some trouble between us."

"Why should that affect me?" Miss Mott rejoined. "Good day."

       *       *       *       *       *

There were no more troublesome callers and Miss Mott had recovered her
spirits when she met her uncle at the close of the day at a famous grill
room near the Strand. As they were ushered to their allotted table, she
realised with a little catch of the breath that it was the exact scene
of her first meeting with Violet Joe. She glanced at the table which he
had occupied, as though expectantly. There was no sign of him there or
anywhere else. A wave of her former listlessness came back as she took
her place.

"Busy day?" her uncle asked.

"Not very," she admitted.

"You look tired," he remarked. "Case for a cocktail, I think.
Waiter--two dry Martinis."

"What a heavenly idea!" Miss Mott murmured. "Anything fresh to-day?"

Superintendent Detective Wragge shook his head.

"Nothing in my department," he replied. "Wonderful article in the
_Times_ this morning by Lord Westerleys. He seems to have spent the last
eighteen months absolutely hidden in the southern provinces of
Abyssinia. Fellow must be a second Lawrence."

"He's back in London now then, is he?" Miss Mott enquired.

Her uncle nodded.

"He owns one of those fine houses in Berkeley Square," he confided. "One
of the most interesting men of modern days, I should think. The
Westerleys have always been a brilliant family, but they say that this
man, if he could have settled down, could have been anything. There is
no man in the world," he concluded, with a meditative gleam in his eyes,
"with whom I would sooner have half an hour's conversation."

"Why don't you go and call on him?" Miss Mott suggested. "I expect he'd
be very glad to see you."

"He might," her uncle mused.... "So you had a quiet morning?"

"Only two stupid callers--a man and his wife. The husband had recognised
his wife's pseudonym in one of my replies to correspondents and came to
ask me what his wife had written me about. Damn fools!"

Her uncle smiled and Miss Mott also relaxed. The cocktails had been
excellent; so was the omelette which had subsequently been served.

"I think you're right," she went on. "I shall have to give up this
agency business. The fact that every now and then it pays wonderfully
well doesn't atone for all the time it wastes and the silly people one
has to talk to."

"The day you finish with it finally," her uncle promised, "I will make
you a present of a thousand pounds. I hate the idea personally."

"It might have been quite all right," Miss Mott sighed, "if only I'd
found the right sort of clients."

"The right sort of clients come to the police, if they're in trouble,"
Superintendent Wragge told his niece. "The only ones who don't are the
wrongdoers, and you don't want to help them, I suppose."

"There is something rather attractive about a wrongdoer," Miss Mott
reflected wistfully.

Her uncle looked at her across the table with a queer expression in his
eyes.

"The sooner you get that idea out of your head the better," he
admonished her. "Slushy sentiment, I call it. Worse than that--it does
real harm. Perhaps you'd sympathise with the Western Street murderer?"

"Never heard about him," Miss Mott confided.

"It was only last week," her uncle recounted. "A harmless old man who
made a fortune out of his shop, and committed the usual mistake of
keeping too much of it in cash and bearer bonds--got bragging a little
about it, I suppose, in the local pub, and when closing time came,
invited a stranger to go home with him and have a drink. The stranger
strangled him in his sitting room, emptied his safe, tidied up the place
and was making his way from the house when he came face to face with a
policeman who challenged him. He shot him through the chest and
disappeared. He died this morning--the policeman. I've just come from
the hospital. You'd sympathise with a brute like that, I suppose."

"Of course I shouldn't! No one could. A cold-blooded criminal is too
terrible. You've got him, I hope?"

Superintendent Wragge glanced gloomily at his plate and, for the moment,
his very excellent cutlets seemed to have lost their flavour.

"We haven't," he admitted. "The policeman--fine fellow he was too, and a
married man--never recovered consciousness, and the descriptions we got
of the murderer from the public house aren't worth a snap of the
fingers. He'll get away, unless he trips up on a fluke."

"Was it a gangster affair, do you think?" Miss Mott asked a little
timidly.

Her uncle shook his head.

"No, it was a single-handed affair," he confided. "They are always the
most difficult. The gangsters are keeping pretty quiet."

"Ten thousand pounds you offered for their chief, didn't you?" Miss Mott
reflected. "It's a lot of money. I wonder whether any one will ever earn
it."

Her uncle looked at her again with that queer expression in his eyes.
There were times when he wondered about this brilliant little relative
of his.

"It would be money very well earned," he said. "Our reports just now,"
he continued, "are that the man we wanted, and whom I should think you
would have felt glad to know was safely in prison, has got away again.
If no one takes his place, we rather expect the gang will break up."

Miss Mott gazed greedily at the asparagus which was being served.

"Let us," she suggested, "abjure crime for a while. We waste too much
time talking shop. I've been offered the sub-editorship of the magazine.
What do you think of that?"

"I'd rather you found a husband," her uncle replied bluntly.

Whereupon the conversation became frivolous and ended without further
reference to the criminal activities by which they were surrounded.

       *       *       *       *       *

On her arrival at the office on the following morning, Miss Mott
discovered confusion. The commissionaire was absent from his box, the
lift man told a confused story of burglary, of which Miss Mott could
make neither head nor tail, and her office, when she arrived at it, she
found invaded by her youthful secretary, her typist, the commissionaire
and a policeman. The safe door, which she had carefully locked before
leaving, was open; her desk, which was always a miracle of neatness, was
in complete disorder, and, most curious thing of all, the wastepaper
basket had been emptied upon the carpet and its contents scattered far
and wide.

"What on earth has happened?" she asked.

The commissionaire, who was an ex-Scotland Yard man and a protg of her
uncle's, explained in a few sentences.

"Some one broke in here last night, Miss Mott. Easy enough, of course.
Got in through the windows of the furnace room, picked the lock of one
door and just walked up the stairs. He found your keys in your outside
office and seems to have searched the place thoroughly. How much had you
in the safe?"

"About ten pounds," Miss Mott replied. "I never keep any money here,
except for petty cash."

"Any papers?"

"Nothing that would be of any use to anybody."

"Perhaps the young lady would look around," the policeman suggested,
"and report upon what is missing."

Miss Mott made careful search for a quarter of an hour. The trifling
amount of money had gone from the safe but every paper she could
remember owning was in its place. The drawers of her desk were
practically undisturbed. Her cigarette case, gold lighter and one or two
other trifles remained intact. The most curious feature of the whole
affair was, without a doubt, the attention that had been paid to the
wastepaper basket--the contents of which had been strewn far and wide.

"There's about ten pounds gone from the safe," Miss Mott reported at
last. "Not another thing."

"And nothing at all from our office," the young secretary declared.

The constable was disappointed.

"I've sent for a man, madam, to take fingerprints of the safe," he said,
"although, under the circumstances, it scarcely seems worth while. There
isn't anything you've removed from here," he went on, "that might have
been more valuable?"

"Nothing at all."

"Because," the policeman continued, "the affair, although it doesn't
amount to anything, was evidently carried out by an expert. The cutting
of the window and the picking of the locks prove that. An expert would
scarcely be likely to risk trouble for the sake of ten pounds."

"I've never kept more than that here," Miss Mott assured him, "and I've
never had anything here of the slightest intrinsic value. I'll ring up
my uncle at Scotland Yard. He'll probably like to hear about it."

The constable closed his book.

"There isn't any more to be done, then, so far as I am concerned," he
decided.

       *       *       *       *       *

A myrmidon from Scotland Yard arrived within a short time, but a further
and more scientific search of Miss Mott's two offices failed to discover
any possible clue to the apparently purposeless burglary. Everything, as
the visitor pointed out, was done in the best possible fashion. The safe
had been opened without leaving a scratch, the pane of glass had been
removed in the lower premises with perfect neatness, footmarks in the
dust had been brushed away, gloves had evidently been worn, for there
was no sign anywhere of a fingerprint.

"The only thing one can conclude, Miss Mott," the detective decided, as
he prepared to take his leave, "is that there were false rumours of your
having been in possession of some valuable property. It was lucky you
were all out of the way. A man as clever as this one seems to have been
wouldn't have stood any nonsense."

"You can't suggest any possible cause for the burglary, then?" Miss Mott
enquired.

"The suggestion--if any--would have to come from you, miss," the man
replied. "Sit down and think whether you have had any letters in your
possession lately which might have been of value or incriminating to any
one. Take particular note of the care with which the wastepaper basket
was searched."

The detective took his leave and Miss Mott, somewhat intrigued, sat down
to think. Very slowly she began to reconstruct. In the midst of her
somewhat vague reflections, there was a knock at the door and a visitor
was announced.

"It's the woman who was here yesterday," her secretary confided. "I
didn't let her in because you made no notes about the case, so I thought
there was nothing doing."

Miss Mott nodded.

"Quite right, Esther," she said. "I'll see her for a moment, though."

Mrs. Belton was ushered into the room. It was obvious that this morning
she had again committed the sin of indulging too freely in her weakness
for cosmetics. Rouge and powder had been applied with a wanton hand.
Nothing, however, had been able altogether to conceal the dark lines
under her eyes. She had the look of a haunted woman.

"Well, what can I do for you this morning, Mrs. Belton?" Miss Mott
enquired pleasantly. "I thought you were rather fed up with me
yesterday."

"For one thing, I left without paying my fee," the woman explained,
drawing two treasury notes from her pocket. "Would this be all right?"

"I don't want a fee, thank you," Miss Mott assured her. "I wasn't able
to do anything for you."

The woman pushed the two notes across the table.

"Anyway, you did your best," she acknowledged. "You needn't mind taking
it. Sam, with all his faults, ain't a mean man, and I can afford it."

Miss Mott did not argue the matter. She was studying her visitor's
expression.

"More trouble?" she asked kindly.

The woman shook her head.

"Rather the other way," she confided. "I know all about it now. Sam's
owned up."

Miss Mott nodded in sympathy and waited. Her visitor dabbed at her eyes
with an unprepossessing handkerchief and continued.

"I never thought it of him. He seemed so different, what with his church
going and that. He's owned up, though. He's been carrying on with a
little bit o' stuff out Chiswick way, and that's where he was those
nights when he pretended to be somewhere else. We've had it all
out--nearly killed me, it has--"

She began to sob and showed signs of hysterics. Miss Mott waited
patiently.

"You're going to forgive him, I hope," she suggested.

Mrs. Belton sighed.

"What is there for a woman to do in this life," she pointed out. "I'm
like the rest of the poor muts--I'll have to forgive and make the best
of it. If I were young and had my looks back again, I'd take a man of my
own and that'd teach him. It's too late for that, though. Sam's saved
enough money--he's given up his post and we're going abroad."

"Well, perhaps it's all for the best," Miss Mott said vaguely. "I'll
take your two pounds if you insist, Mrs. Belton, and wish you a pleasant
journey."

The woman dabbed once more at her eyes.

"Can I have the letter I wrote you?" she asked.

Miss Mott looked at her in some surprise. The woman's tone had suddenly
changed. There seemed to be an attempt at indifference but underneath
was a note of almost crafty anxiety. She was drawing her handkerchief
restlessly through her fingers.

"Why, I suppose so," Miss Mott acquiesced. "Wait a moment and I'll see
if I can find it."

She made her way into the outer office, closing the door behind her,
gave a few rapid instructions to her young secretary, lingered several
moments and reappeared.

"My clerk is going through the files," she announced. "It hasn't been
destroyed, so you can have it with pleasure. Where are you going to
settle down?"

"My husband wants to go to the Argentine. He's got a cousin or two out
there and doing well, and he likes company. Not that he needs to work,
either. He had money left him, Sam did, three years ago, and he's
scarcely touched it yet.... Your clerk don't seem to be able to find
that letter," she broke off uneasily.

"She'll come across it all right," Miss Mott declared. "With our filing
system, nothing is ever lost, but occasionally it takes some time to get
at. Here we are," she added, as the young person from the outer office
entered the room.

The woman almost snatched the letter away. She stowed it into the bottom
of her bag, but, apparently changing her mind, drew it out again, tore
it savagely into small pieces and, making her way to the fireplace,
dropped them carefully into the flames. When she stood up, she seemed a
younger woman.

"So that's the end of that," she concluded, with a little sigh of
relief. "I was a foolish woman. You were quite right, Miss Mott! Never
work against your husband secretly. It don't do any good."

As she walked across the room, her footsteps were lighter and the ghost
of some terror seemed to have left her. She picked up her bag and the
same stubby little umbrella and took her leave. For nearly half an hour
Miss Mott sat at her desk with her hands behind her head, thinking hard.
Then she rose quickly to her feet, drew on her small hat, wriggled into
her coat, picked up her gloves and hurried out.

"Back in five minutes," she called into the office. "You took a copy of
the letter?"

The girl held it up.

"And James witnessed it?"

"I did that, madam," the man replied.

Miss Mott descended to the street, walked about a couple of hundred
yards and entered the shop of a small dyeing and cleaning establishment.
She greeted the woman, whom she knew quite well, with a pleasant smile.

"I only had your gloves yesterday, Miss Mott," the latter remarked
reproachfully.

"I didn't expect them," Miss Mott assured her. "What I came about was
something quite different and--much more important. I came to know
whether, by any fortunate chance, you had kept the long envelope in
which I sent them."

The woman was puzzled.

"The long envelope," she repeated thoughtfully.

Miss Mott nodded.

"Yes," she said. "I was in a hurry to send them in to you. I hadn't an
envelope large enough in my office and I picked up a crumpled one from
the floor. I didn't even address it. It wasn't necessary because I sent
the commissionaire in with them."

The woman opened a drawer.

"Well, you'll have to excuse me, Miss Mott," she begged, "but the fact
is we're very busy just now, and it's no good sending things into the
room which can't be touched. Your little packet's just as we received it
and here it is."

She placed it upon the counter--a couple of pairs of gloves, the ends
protruding from a long, legal envelope on which an address had been half
scratched out. Miss Mott stared at the address and her eyes grew larger
and rounder. Her first impulse was one of triumph, then she felt a
little shiver pass through her frame. She could almost see the enactment
of those last few minutes of the greatest tragedy left to us in the
world.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Miss Mott, is there?" the woman asked
anxiously.

"Nothing at all," Miss Mott declared, in a voice she scarcely recognised
as her own. "I'm not leaving the gloves, if you don't mind. Give me a
piece of tissue paper, will you."

The woman obeyed, still brimful of curiosity. Miss Mott wrapped up her
packet and took her leave.

       *       *       *       *       *

Superintendent Wragge was not altogether too pleased by his niece's
message. It was rather a busy morning, his chief was in a bad temper,
and Miss Mott, after all, had not the appearance of a serious visitor.

"Wouldn't this evening do, Lucie?" he asked her.

"Nothing would do but ten minutes from this instant," Miss Mott replied.
"And you ought to be able to trust me."

"I'm clearing the office already," he assured her. "Come right along."

Miss Mott, in her uncle's car, with James on the box and her own little
unneeded popgun in her bag by her side, drove in guarded state to
Scotland Yard. Her uncle received her without delay but with just that
slight note of impatience in his manner which warned her to get
started.

"Is any reward offered for the Galliope murder in the Western Road?" she
asked.

"Five hundred pounds. The bills are up this morning," he replied. "What
have you got to do with the Galliope murder? Your little company of
friends are not in that."

"What was the date of it?" she enquired.

"Eighth of March," he answered.

She nodded.

"Now would you be so kind as to tell me," she went on, "whether any
burglary, robbery with violence, or other misdemeanours took place on
January 27th, February 18th, March 1st?"

"March 1st was the Hatton Garden robbery," he replied quickly. "February
18th was the date of the murder of Francis Green, the shopkeeper, and
the raiding of his premises. The other date--wait a moment--" he
consulted a ledger and closed it with a snap. "On the other date," he
announced, "Barclays were robbed of fifteen thousand pounds at their
Fenchurch Street Bank."

Miss Mott felt her heart beating fast.

"A few days ago," she began, "a woman who was obviously jealous of her
husband wrote me this silly letter, asking for advice."

She passed a copy of Mrs. Belton's letter across the table. There was a
gleam in Superintendent Wragge's eyes as he noticed the date.

"Well?"

"I made the usual sort of reply," Miss Mott went on, "and she called on
me. Each one of the dates on which he had written her she had found out
that he was somewhere else. She wanted me to have him watched. I refused
the business. Then he called. He wanted the letter back. I can guess why
now--I couldn't at the time. Of course I refused. When he was leaving,
he drew a muffler from his pocket and I noticed that an old envelope
fell out. I made no remark, however, for it was empty and didn't seem to
be valuable. Last night, as you know, my premises were burgled, a few
pounds were taken from my safe, but nothing else, although your man whom
you sent down--Detective Russell--reported that he considered it a very
cleverly done affair."

"The letter wasn't stolen then?" Superintendent Wragge asked.

"Would he have been such a fool?" she rejoined. "The letter which
contained the three dates of the various robberies and the date of the
murder--no, it wasn't that he was after--Madam came for that this
morning--said she had made it up with her husband and had discovered
that there had been another woman, but had forgiven him and was going
abroad at once. I let her have the letter," Miss Mott went on, "so that
they should not become suspicious, but I kept an attested copy of it."

Mr. Wragge pushed his watch rudely out of the way. He had forgotten that
there was such a thing as time.

"Clever girl," he murmured. "Now tell me, what was the object of the
burglary, though?"

"This," Miss Mott replied, producing a crumpled long legal envelope.
"It's the envelope which fell from the man's pocket when he drew out his
muffler. You see--it's got the name of a firm of stockbrokers on the
back and what's far more important--it's addressed to John Galliope,
Western Street, Shepherds' Market."

Superintendent Wragge turned it over and over.

"You can swear that this is the envelope?" he asked.

"I can swear to it," she answered. "I picked it up after he had left,
without looking at it, put a couple of pairs of gloves that needed
cleaning in it, and sent them around to a shop near the corner. I
retrieved it this afternoon exactly as I had sent it there."

Superintendent Wragge went through the papers once more rapidly, then he
leaned back in his chair and looked at his niece.

"A good day's work, Lucie," he declared. "Four crimes cleared up. Belton
will certainly hang. Five hundred pounds' reward for you and the Chief
Commissioner will probably ask me to dinner. What licks me, though," he
went on meditatively, "is the luck of this whole criminal business. The
best brains in the Yard have been focussed upon the Galliope murder and
these preceding crimes for months, and there a jealous woman walks into
your little show and gives the whole thing away."

"All luck!" Miss Mott sighed complacently.

       *       *       *       *       *

"A very comfortable start," Mr. Samuel Belton remarked, as he pushed
back his empty teacup and with deliberate fingers commenced to fill his
pipe. "I see our taxi's coming around the corner. You're sure the
luggage is all right?"

"Twenty-two pieces," Mrs. Belton announced, "all properly addressed to
Southampton. I sha'n't be sorry when we're on the steamer."

Mr. Belton smiled in superior fashion. He struggled into his overcoat
and picked up his well-brushed hat.

"There is nothing to be alarmed at, my dear," he said. "With the
exception of your somewhat foolish letter to that flighty young woman,
which is now happily destroyed, the slate is clean."

She clutched at his arm. There was a terrified light in her haunted
eyes.

"Sam," she begged, "when we're right away--when we start life
afresh--you won't begin again--promise that!"

"I promise," he said indulgently. "We have quite enough money for the
rest of our lives, and that's the great thing. The Galliope money,
indeed, was far more than I'd expected. Come along, my dear--"

They moved into the dark little hall. The front doorbell pealed. They
looked at each other through the gloom and even Mr. Belton's equanimity
was shaken.

"What the hell did the taxi man need to ring for?" he demanded.

"It may be one of the tradespeople we've forgotten," she faltered. "I
tried to think of every one."

"Open the door and see," he ordered curtly.

She drew back the latch and peered out. Scotland Yard men are polite
enough as a rule, but Belton's record was scarcely in his favour. They
were in the hall, three of them, before she could cry out, and if
Belton's swiftly moving right hand had really a destination, it started
too late. The handcuffs were on his wrists before a word was spoken.
Then the Sergeant was ready enough of speech.

"I'm arresting you, Samuel Belton," he announced, "for the murder of
John Galliope of Shepherds' Market on the night of March the eighth. I
should advise you to make no reply to the charge but to come along with
me to the station."

The woman's shrieks filled the deserted house. Belton crumpled up in a
senseless heap, but the law took its course--then and five weeks later,
in the dreaded chamber of Wandsworth Gaol.




X

INFORMERS STILL PAY


There had been an investiture at Buckingham Palace, and the grey streets
were bright in patches with visions of waving plumes and brilliant
uniforms. A dandified youth, issuing from Jermyn Street, caught sight of
a slim, aristocratic figure leaning back in the corner of his car, as
though to escape as far as possible from observation--a figure in
brilliant uniform with rows of medals and a hat with waving plumes. The
young man stood still, entirely heedless of the fact that a passer-by
almost elbowed him into the gutter. He stared at the impressive figure
in the car until it had passed him. A fortunate block enabled him to
copy down its number. Half an hour later, as Lord Westerleys' valet was
carrying down a lounge coat to his master, and a butler was serving him
with whisky and soda, a visitor was announced.

"There's a young man outside, my lord," the footman explained, "who
claims that he has found something of yours this afternoon. He won't
tell me what it is and he won't hand it over to any one but your
lordship."

Walter Paul Meredith, Earl of Westerleys, took another gulp of his
whisky and soda and set down the glass empty.

"You can show him in," he directed. "I don't remember having lost
anything. But one's always liable to shed a medal on a day like this."

In the hall, Reuben Kochs handed his smart little Derby and cheap cane
to a second man and was ushered into the library.

"The young person, my lord," the footman announced.

Westerleys glanced at his visitor but no sign escaped him. He looked him
over coldly as he might have done a stranger.

"What is it that you have found, young man?" he enquired.

"If you'll give me a moment alone, I'll show it you--my lord," was the
awkwardly spoken reply.

Westerleys waved the servants from the room, after which he seated
himself in an easy-chair and stretched out his legs with an air of
relief.

"Well, Reuben Kochs," he asked coolly, "what do you want?"

The young man's admiration was uncontrollable.

"Governor," he declared, "you've got me speechless. We always knew you
were a toff, of course, but God strike me dumb if ever I thought of
anything like this!"

Westerleys yawned.

"It would have been more in accordance with etiquette," he remarked, "if
you had failed to recognise me. However, since you have done so, and
since you have followed me to my home--what is it you want from me?"

The young man, unbidden, seated himself on the edge of a chair. His host
looked at him distastefully.

"I don't want to waste your time," the latter continued. "The gang is
broken up, as you know. I have retired and resumed my own station in
life. You are in a position to do the same, if you wish. You must
forgive my adding that now that our association has ceased, there is no
need for us to exchange visits."

"So that's it," Reuben Kochs muttered.

"That is it," the other assented smoothly. "I found it unnecessary to
draw my portion of the spoils, when things were wound up, so you ought
to have done quite well. If my memory serves me rightly, you drew over
twenty thousand pounds."

"Twenty-one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two pounds, eighteen
shillings," the young man confided.

"An adequate return for your labours, I should imagine," Westerleys
commented. "I wish you well, but--relieve me of your presence now, if
you please. I'm giving a lecture to-night and I desire to rest for an
hour."

Reuben Kochs clasped his forehead tightly.

"It's a blooming picture show," he declared. "Wotcher been wearing all
that circus stuff for?"

"That circus stuff, as you call it," Westerleys replied, "is part of the
costume in which it is my duty to array myself before I make my bow to
my sovereign. You observe," he added, stretching out his hand, "that I
am ringing a bell. That is for a servant to show you out."

Mr. Reuben Kochs rose to his feet.

"I'm ready," he acquiesced. "I couldn't talk to you now, if I tried.
Strike me lucky, if this ain't a game. I expect I'll find Violet Joe in
Piccadilly, wearing a coronet instead of a billycock!"

"You may find yourself in a police cell with something on your wrists,
if you become impertinent," was the cool rejoinder. "Grover, you can
show this young man out, if you please."

Mr. Reuben Kochs accepted his hat and stick from a footman in the hall
and meekly departed. On the pavement outside he paused and gazed at the
house. He counted the windows carefully each way, he examined the area
with a practised eye, then once more he took in the _tout ensemble_.

"Strike me lucky!" he muttered, as he turned away and sought the
seclusion of a pub at the corner of Clarges Street.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott was hard at work upon an article urgently required by her
editor when Mr. Reuben Kochs was announced and shown in. She looked at
him coldly. Unabashed, he grinned back at her in ingratiating fashion.

"If I had known who my visitor was," she told him, "I certainly should
not have seen you. Please say what you have to say and go away."

"Come, come, young lady!" he protested. "This time I'm here to do you a
bit of good. How would you feel about a cool thousand pounds, eh? And
nothing to do for it."

"I should imagine," she said coldly, "that any money that came from you
would have to be earned dishonestly."

"That's where you are wrong; and you're not only wrong, but I can tell
you this--you can not only earn the money legally and lawfully, but you
can get a bit of your own back at the same time."

"Indeed?" Miss Mott rejoined.

"You haven't forgotten Meredith yet--the man with the scar--who tried to
carry you off more than once? Well, the gang's bust. There's five
thousand pounds' reward offered for him and I know where he is."

"Why don't you earn the money then?" Miss Mott asked, speaking more
calmly than she felt.

"I'll be straight with you," Reuben Kochs replied. "If one of the gang
splits, their light's put out in twenty-four hours. Even though we're
bust, that goes on. You never were one of the gang--in fact, you were on
the other side; you can split and earn the money and nothing'll happen
to you."

"I see," Miss Mott murmured, "and I'm to have one thousand and you four
thousand pounds."

The young man was temporarily discomposed. His recovery, however, was
almost magical.

"I'd never be one to drive a hard bargain with a dame," he said. "Make
it fifteen hundred yellow goblins. What about that? And remember, miss,
you ain't got half the information nor a quarter of it. I'm the only one
can put my hand on Walter Meredith."

"Are you?" Miss Mott queried.

"Aye, and when I give you the address, your eyes'll pretty well fall
out," the young man declared. "Does it go?"

"I'll consider the matter," Miss Mott promised.

Reuben Kochs argued for some time longer, but he could gain no more than
a noncommittal reply from Miss Mott. He took his leave at last,
therefore, with an appointment for three days hence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott felt a little lost in the immensity of the apartment, even in
the confines of the capacious leather chair in which she was seated.
Softly toned lights flamed from unexpected places and the long,
apparently endless rows of calf bound books in their ancient shelves
gave a sort of monastic atmosphere to a room which indeed possessed only
a few embellishments in the shape of pictures or flowers. Meredith
himself was dressed in morning clothes of rather severe cut and hue, and
from behind the green lamp his face seemed paler than ever. He waved
away his secretary with a few parting instructions--sharply spoken,
incisive words. When he turned towards Miss Mott, his voice seemed
marvellously changed.

"So the mouse has wandered alone once more into the trap?" he murmured.
"What temerity!"

"The mouse believed it was safe," Miss Mott replied, "because it came on
an errand of mercy."

She felt his keen instincts almost anticipating the words that lay
behind her brain.

"I came," she said, "because you're in danger. I don't know why I should
care, but, in a way, I do."

"For me, Miss Mott?" he asked softly.

She shook her head.

"Not for you. You have been very cruel to me and sometimes you have
frightened me out of my wits."

"I wanted you for my mate, Miss Mott," he acknowledged. "I still do. The
special licence remains in that drawer--"

"I can never care for you like that," she assured him. "Sometimes you
play the great gentleman wonderfully, but I think that at heart you are
cruel."

He gave no immediate reply. His eyes were fixed upon a distant wall and
it seemed to her that all the weariness of a man's misspent life was
graven in his face.

"Yet you refuse to betray me? You came to warn me," he muttered
presently.

"Because you are at least a man," she said. "If you are a criminal, you
are not a criminal of the type of Reuben Kochs."

"A coward's courage, this of his, at the last moment," Meredith
reflected. "I never thought he would dare. I thought that so far as he
was concerned, I was safe."

"But don't you see how clever he is?" she pointed out. "He isn't going
to give you away at all. I am to do that. I am to go to my uncle and
just whisper that one little word which is to be your undoing."

"Yes, I suppose it could be done," he admitted. "Yet mine is the most
wonderful alibi for the last few years that a man ever wove. It cost me
months of thought. I could fill the court with people who would swear
that they had seen me in distant parts of Asia and Abyssinia. No one in
the world has lain so deeply hidden as I have in this city.
However--Reuben Kochs was always the weak point. He fashioned all our
disguises, painted our scars, turned men into women, turned youth into
age with a few simple implements and a touch of genius. So Reuben Kochs
wants to be an informer, eh? He'd better have lived to have spent his
twenty thousand pounds and left me to become a Cabinet Minister."

She studied him speculatively. Amazing though it was, she was forced to
admit that there was nothing in his face, his bearing, or his expression
which reminded her in the least of the terrible Meredith. He had stepped
back into his own identity with a facility which was perfectly
marvellous. His lined, ascetic face, his cold but brilliant eyes, the
firm cynical mouth--they were all the hall marks of the aristocratic
politician, the great gentleman absorbed in the cares of his country.
She felt a surge of bitter, indignant contempt against a creature like
Reuben Kochs.

"Can't you find some means of securing that young man's silence?" she
asked, almost afraid of the sound of her words, certainly afraid of the
slowly formed thought in her heart.

He smiled at her.

"Bravo, Miss Mott," he murmured. "Yes, I shall deal with Kochs, but the
poison of a reptile like that is an indestructible thing. Not even I
could wash the world free from it."

He touched a bell and Miss Mott knew that she was dismissed. He rose to
his feet, however, as the servant entered the room, and his farewell
smile seemed to chase from his face all those things that had terrified
her, and left her with a new memory of the man.

"My congratulations to lucky Joe, Miss Mott," he sighed, as she was
crossing the threshold.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was towards the close of the third day when Reuben Kochs made his
promised reappearance at Miss Mott's office. She looked at him, as he
slunk into the room, in blank astonishment. He seemed less than the
shadow of his former self. During those first few seconds his eyes
wandered restlessly and anxiously around the little room, searching out
its distant corners with fear in their uneasy depths. He had the air of
a hunted man--a man moving in mortal fear--terrified and torn with
imaginings. Even his clothes betrayed signs of the state of panic into
which he had fallen. He had lost his natty and spruce appearance, he was
unshaven and his linen was not above reproach--one might have imagined
that he had stolen away from the casualty ward of some asylum or prison
and that recapture meant death.

"What has happened to you?" Miss Mott asked wonderingly.

"It's these blasted three days' waiting," he confided, as he sank into a
chair. "I ought to have made you decide straight away. It's no good
going about with a thing like this in your brain. You want to do it or
forget it."

"Well, if you take my advice--you'll forget it," Miss Mott told him.

"You're not coming in, then?"

"I certainly am not," she assured him. "Fifteen hundred pounds is a
pleasant sum of money, but I don't care to go about with a curse upon my
head for the rest of my life."

"What do you mean--a curse upon your head?" he sneered. "The gang's all
broken up nowadays--if Meredith's once in prison, he'll never get out
again and there's no one left but Violet Joe to turn awkward."

"What about Violet Joe?" she rejoined. "Why wouldn't he be dangerous?"

"Never touched firearms," Reuben Kochs explained triumphantly. "Never
parked a gun, even against the cops. No need to fear Violet Joe."

"It is a question of my own feelings more than any sentiment of fear,"
Miss Mott confided. "I do not wish you to tell me where Meredith is or
what name he is living under. Even if you do, I shall not give evidence
against him."

Reuben Kochs sat for a few minutes in sullen silence. Miss Mott looked
across at him with a scornful smile. He certainly presented an almost
pitiable appearance.

"You're trying to pay me for doing what you're afraid to do yourself,"
she continued curtly. "If you are so sure that there will be no
retribution, why do you look already as though you were terrified of
your own shadow? I shouldn't have thought five thousand was worth it."

The young man rose to his feet.

"You mind your own business," he snapped. "All I came to know was
whether you were in this with me or whether you weren't."

"I am not," she told him firmly, "and if you take my advice, young man,"
she went on, "you'll give up the idea too. They aren't fond of informers
at Scotland Yard, you know. You may find they'll have something to set
off against that five thousand pounds."

"I can take care of myself, thanks, young woman," Reuben Kochs declared,
with a touch of his former swagger as he rose to his feet.

"You'll need to," she remarked, as she turned back to her work.

"What do you mean?" he snarled from the door.

"I mean," she replied, "that any one who turns informer against a man
like Meredith must be a brave man."

Reuben Kochs took his leave, slamming the door noisily behind him....

Miss Mott rang up a number upon the telephone and soon found herself
speaking to Walter Meredith.

"Reuben Kochs has just been here," she reported. "He is terrified but,
I'm afraid, determined. I believe that he is on his way now to Scotland
Yard."

Meredith's voice as he answered her was cold and pitiless.

"He will never reach there," he said.

"But I thought the band was all broken up," she suggested hesitatingly.

"Yes, the band is broken up," he agreed, "but informers still pay."

"You yourself," she began--

"I have made my plans," he interrupted. "Good-bye, little Miss Mott."

The telephone went dead. Miss Mott sat for a moment with the vision of
ugly things before her eyes. She was not sure, after all, whether crime
appealed to her so much.

       *       *       *       *       *

On that same afternoon, Superintendent Wragge gazed long and earnestly
at a visiting card which had been brought in to him. Upon it was
engraved the name of "The Hon. Joseph Chilcott," and in small characters
in the left-hand corner "Bachelors' Club." "You can show the gentleman
up, Parkins," he told the commissionaire.

A tall young man, personable, and of a pleasant expression, in spite of
a few telltale lines on his face, was presently ushered in. He smiled
good-humouredly at the Inspector and took the indicated seat.
Superintendent Wragge's keen eyes seemed almost to disappear in those
creases of flesh. There was a momentary silence during which the door
was closed.

"Violet Joe," Superintendent Wragge murmured softly.

"They would call me that," the young man admitted. "A trifle familiar of
them, I thought."

"Why have you walked into the lions' den?" Superintendent Wragge asked.

"I came to find out if it was a lions' den," was the prompt reply. "In
other words, Superintendent, I have come to ask you if you have anything
against me?"

"A curious question," the latter meditated. "For six years you appear to
have been a member of one of the most dangerous bands of gangsters in
London, and although I am not prepared to say that we have evidence
involving you in any of their exploits, I have no doubt but that it
could be collected."

"Why rake up the past?" Violet Joe asked deprecatingly. "I haven't come
to plead my cause, but, remember this, I was compelled to step out of
the gang because of my stipulations--no women and no firearms. I've
never carried a gun against the police in my life. I have more than
once, as a matter of fact, been on the side of the law."

The Superintendent held out a warning hand.

"I know all I wish to know about you, Mr. Chilcott," he said. "I will
answer your question if you like. We have nothing against you."

The young man laughed pleasantly.

"Just the reply I'd hoped for," he confessed. "Well, now comes the next
thing. Have you any objections to my marrying your niece?"

Superintendent Wragge winced.

"Several," he admitted. "But I sha'n't press them. Have you any money?"

"Eight thousand a year and a fine property in Norfolk. I don't think
that will make any difference to Miss Mott, though."

"I don't think it will," her uncle admitted. "If you've made up your
mind about it, I have nothing to say."

Violet Joe coughed.

"You understood my reasons for paying you this little visit first?"

"Perfectly," Superintendent Wragge acknowledged drily. "You can look
through your dossier if you like. I've marked it 'O.K.' myself."

"Then you won't mind shaking hands?" Violet Joe suggested with a broad
smile.

The Superintendent extended his large and hairy fingers to the other's
grip, after which Violet Joe brought his unusual visit to an end and
went on his way.

       *       *       *       *       *

A light rain was falling as Violet Joe proceeded towards the Embankment,
and he glanced enquiringly first at one and then at the other of two
taxicabs drawn up by the side of the curb. Neither responded to his
summons, and, moving a step farther, he saw that their flags were down.
He saw something else too which brought back the lines of anxiety to his
face. He glanced quickly around him in every direction. A moment later
he grasped the shoulder of a young man who, with a mackintosh turned up
to his throat and a bowler hat pulled down over his eyes, had just
crossed the road.

"Stand close to me, Reuben Kochs," he ordered. "Don't move!"

"Who the hell are you?" the young man blustered, shivering.

"You know who I am well enough," Violet Joe replied. "Look at those two
taxicabs. Do they seem familiar to you?"

"So help me God," Reuben Kochs muttered, as he gazed through the
twilight from one to the other of the two waiting vehicles, "they're the
'fly by nights'."

"Another few yards," Violet Joe said to him sternly, "and you'd have
felt a bullet rattling in your chest."

The young man was shaking like an aspen leaf. He looked towards the City
and he looked towards Westminster; in each direction two great staring
eyes glittered at him.

"What shall I do, Guv'nor?" he asked anxiously.

Violet Joe looked down at him and his usually kindly eyes were like
points of fire.

"You dirty little skunk," he said. "You were going in there to give
Meredith away."

Reuben Kochs had just sense enough to know when lying was useless.

"They'll nab him before long," he declared earnestly. "He can't bring a
bluff like this off. House of Lords and circus togs at Buckingham
Palace! They'll get him sure. Why shouldn't I have the five thousand?"

"You were a good deal nearer a ten-foot plot in the police cemetery a
few seconds ago," Violet Joe reminded him. "Do you want to go on with
it? Step away, if you do. I don't see any reason why I should interfere
to save your life."

"Don't you leave me, Guv'nor," Reuben Kochs begged nervously. "I'm not
going in there--I'll swear to it."

"Walk along by my side, then," Violet Joe ordered. "We'll find a taxi at
the corner and I'll take you to some place where you can hear a few
words of plain truth."

Reuben Kochs, however, had obviously no desire to hear those few words
of plain truth. He slunk along the pavement, keeping as near as possible
to his protector, but glancing furtively around in every direction.
Suddenly he saw what seemed to him his chance. They had passed the broad
entrance and were within a few feet of the narrower gate. They were no
longer alone on the pavement, either, for a little crowd of men and
women had hurried over from one of the islands in the middle of the
broad road. Reuben Kochs ducked low and broke into a coward's run, as he
had done many times before in his life. Unfortunately for him, the
crowd thinned for a moment, just as he moved. There was a startled
shriek from one or two dumbfounded passers-by, but the singing bullet
sped safely to its home. People even a dozen yards away had no idea of
what had happened. There was a sharp report like the cracking of a whip,
a pencil of flame and a groan. Reuben Kochs, rapidly surrounded by a
little crowd of people, none of whom realised the cause of the tragedy,
lay huddled upon the pavement--one hand clutching at the railings, the
other at his side. Violet Joe was one of those apparently who felt no
interest in street accidents, for he walked calmly away into the
sheltering twilight. The two taxicabs were lost in the stream of
traffic.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mott recognised the step upon the stair and she felt her knees grow
weak, although there was nothing at all like fear in her heart. She had
been day-dreaming a moment before, but she surrounded herself swiftly
with papers and affected to be deeply immersed in their perusal when the
expected knock at the door came.

"It's the gentleman who's been here before," her secretary announced.
"Mr. Joseph Chilcott, I think he said his name was."

"You can show him in," Miss Mott directed calmly.

Mr. Joseph Chilcott seemed to be little changed under the shelter of his
new name. He shook hands with Miss Mott across her desk and she felt
suddenly and ridiculously embarrassed.

"I've come to consult you on a personal matter, Miss Mott," he said, as
the door closed.

"You haven't come for any rubbish of the sort. I won't be made fun of,"
she laughed.

He took her other hand, and then, changing his mind, relinquished both
and came around to her side of the desk. Her knees trembled more than
ever. So this was what it was like to be in the power of a criminal!

"No one has ever dared--" she faltered.

"No one else has ever had the right," he told her, as he took her into
his arms....

Superintendent Detective Wragge ought to have knocked at the door, but
he was so used to visiting his niece at unexpected moments that this
time he forgot. He made indifferent amends by turning around to hang up
his hat.

"So you've taken a partner into the business, Lucie," he remarked.

Miss Mott smoothed her hair. Her heart was singing and there was the
light in her eyes which shines only once in the eyes of young women of
her type.

"You won't mind, Uncle?" she ventured.

"A reformed criminal is the safest kind of nephew-in-law," Mr. Joe
Chilcott added.

Superintendent Wragge shook hands with them both, then he sank into the
one vacant chair.

"Look here," he said, "come back for a moment to serious subjects. It's
no question of informers any longer. We linked up early this morning on
Lord Westerleys."

There was a twitching at the corners of Miss Mott's lips--a look of pain
in Violet Joe's eyes.

"I needn't tell you both," the Superintendent went on gravely, "that as
between you and Lord Westerleys there is, from the official point of
view, an enormous difference. What I was able easily to do for you,
Chilcott, no person on earth--not even the Chief Commissioner
himself--could do for Westerleys."

"He isn't arrested yet?" Chilcott asked.

The Superintendent shook his head.

"My niece's office being the repository of many confidences," he
continued, with a sad little smile, "I may tell you that I've delayed
the arrest upon the pretext of verifying an unimportant piece of
evidence. If either of you young people should think it worth while--"

"Thank you, Superintendent," Violet Joe interrupted. "You needn't say
any more."

Superintendent Wragge picked up his hat and stick.

"We shall perhaps have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner to-night,
young man," he suggested. "I'm sorry to say I shall have to leave you
early myself, as there is a meeting of the Police Orphanage Fund, but--"

"Please don't apologise," Violet Joe begged earnestly. "About eight, I
suppose?"

There was a sober-looking but very handsome limousine car drawn up
outside the house in Berkeley Square, when Chilcott's taxicab set him
down. He fancied, as he rang the front doorbell, that the place
presented a gloomy, almost a barricaded appearance. The door was
promptly opened, but not until he had recognised the visitor did the
butler withdraw his portly form from the entrance. There were several
other menservants lurking in the background.

"I will send your name in to his lordship," the man promised. "He is
engaged for a few minutes with his physician--Sir Godfrey Foss--but he
may be able to see you afterwards. Step this way, sir."

Chilcott had barely established himself in the morning room before the
butler rentered.

"His lordship would like you to meet Sir Godfrey," he announced. "Will
you step this way."

Chilcott acquiesced without delay. He was ushered into the great library
where Meredith, assisted by his valet, was resuming his clothes. The
physician was standing with his hands behind his back, examining a
celebrated Romney upon the wall. Meredith nodded to the newcomer and
waved the servant away.

"I'll finish myself," he told the valet. "I'll ring for you when Sir
Godfrey's ready, Grover--" he went on. "Glad you came, Joe. I should
like some one else to hear what Sir Godfrey has just told me. My
friend--Joseph Chilcott, Doctor--Sir Godfrey Foss."

They shook hands. The three men were now alone. The physician turned to
his patient.

"Yes, tell him, please," the latter begged, "exactly what you told me."

The physician cleared his throat.

"Lord Westerleys," he confided, turning to Chilcott, "has asked me here
to make an examination of his heart. He described to me certain symptoms
which I confess I found somewhat ominous--so much so, in fact," the
physician continued, "that I was not altogether unprepared for what I
discovered. I am afraid there is no doubt that Lord Westerleys is
suffering from a rather uncommon and dangerous type of heart disease,
which one sometimes finds in men of his age and adventurous
disposition."

Meredith straightened his tie and drew on his waist-coat; then he
touched the bell and held out his hand to the doctor.

"I am much obliged to you, Sir Godfrey," he acknowledged. "It's a relief
to me to know the worst, at any rate."

"But can't something be done?" Chilcott intervened anxiously. "A period
of--"

Like a flash, the recollection of the truth flashed into his mind. He
broke off in his speech.

"I have given Lord Westerleys my advice," Sir Godfrey said, "although I
am afraid he won't find it much to his liking. I have told him that his
days of travel and active life are over. It is a very sad decision, but
I was able to arrive at no other."

Westerleys handed over the cheque which he had just signed and the
famous physician took his leave. The two men were alone.

"I say, Meredith, I'm awfully sorry about this," Chilcott sympathised a
little awkwardly.

Meredith leaned back in his chair and for a moment the old laugh
disfigured his face. Then he broke off. There was a sudden change. A
different expression had triumphed.

"Joe," he said, "I think I was born with a sardonic sense of humour. It
stays with me to the last, you see. Thanks to my travelling in those
out-of-the-way places, I know as much about drugs as most physicians. I
took some tabloids before the doctor came which did exactly what I meant
them to do. They fooled him! My heart's leaping about now so that I can
scarcely keep my breath. By to-morrow it would have been all right
again, but you probably know as well as I do that there will be no
to-morrow."

"You've heard?"

"Yes, I've heard. I'm surprised they haven't had their hands on me by
now. I'm running no more risks. I want you out of this room in less than
two minutes, Joe. The physician will give his evidence--you will give
yours. The life of an--invalid wouldn't exactly suit me. Shake hands,
Joe. Don't be a fool, man," he went on, in altered but a kindlier tone;
"you went your way and I went mine. There wasn't excitement enough in
your way for me. I'm sorry for some of the things, of course. For what I
stole from life, I pay. Not another second. My time's up. Grover," he
added, turning to the butler who had opened the door, "show Mr. Chilcott
out and admit no one else for half an hour. I have some important
letters to write."

From the door Chilcott looked back. Meredith was seated at his table,
his pen in his hand, his head bent. Chilcott strangled the last word of
farewell upon his lips in deference to Grover's stately presence and
followed the butler down the hall with a queer little singing in his
ears.

       *       *       *       *       *

For weeks after Westerleys' funeral, the few words of his unfinished
letter were quoted everywhere as containing the very elements of
dramatic pathos. No one knew for certain to whom it was written:

     My dear Friend,

     The physician has this afternoon told me that I am suffering from a
     mortal disease, that I must forego my life of adventure, my
     travels, any thought of a political career. It is a sentence of
     death which I claim the right to deal with in my own fashion....

The butler in his evidence admitted that against his late master's
orders he had knocked at the door within a few moments to deliver a note
from the Prime Minister, and found him dead in his chair, the pen fallen
from his fingers. What was written served its purpose, however.


THE END





[End of Ask Miss Mott, by E. Phillips Oppenheim]
