Angel Esquire

A Superlatively Good Mystery Story by a Writer of Thrillers.

Angel Esquire

By EDGAR WALLACE

Angel Esquire, of Scotland Yard, has his hands full in helping Jimmy Stannard, as he is known to the criminal element of London, solve the puzzle of the great safe which held the fortune of Old Reale who had placed it there, and who had taken the precaution to hide the combination in a bit of doggerel verse that served as a cryptogram.

When Old Reale’s Will was read it was found that four people might benefit by it. Two of them, known as members of the famous “Borough Lots” gang would stop at nothing to gain possession of the fortune. Jimmy and his friend are pitted against them in a story that constitutes the finest entertainment for the person liking excitement, love and mystery combined.

Other Books By This Author:

THE BLACK ABBOT THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS THE MELODY OF DEATH A KING BY NIGHT THE RINGER THE SINISTER MAN THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE TERROR KEEP TRAITOR’S GATE

A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers · New York

_See Reverse Side of Jacket for Complete List of 75c Fiction_

Angel Esquire

By Edgar Wallace

Author Of

“The Girl from Scotland Yard,” “The Traitors’ Gate,” “The Clue of the New Pin,” “The Green Archer,” “The Hairy Arm,” “Blue Hand,” “The Black Abbott,” “The Sinister Man,” “Terror Keep,” “The Ringer,” “The Door with Seven Locks,” “A King by Night,” “The Melody of Death,” “The Four Just Men,” “Jack O’Judgment,” etc.

[Illustration]

A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with Lincoln Mac Veagh, The Dial Press

Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1908, By Henry Holt And Company

Copyright, 1927, By Small, Maynard & Company (Incorporated)

_Printed in the United States of America_

Angel Esquire

Contents

Chapter I. Page

The Lombard Street Deposit 1

Chapter II.

The House In Terrington Square 10

Chapter III.

Angel Esquire 35

Chapter IV.

The “Borough Lot” 59

Chapter V.

The Cryptogram 85

Chapter VI.

The Red Envelope 107

Chapter VII.

What The Red Envelope Held 129

Chapter VIII.

Old George 149

Chapter IX.

The Great Attempt 172

Chapter X.

Some Bad Characters 202

Chapter XI.

The Quest Of The Book 223

Chapter XII.

What Happened At Flairby MILL 238

Chapter XIII.

Connor Takes A Hand 260

Chapter XIV.

Opening The Safe 283

Chapter XV.

The Solution 306

Angel Esquire

Chapter I

The Lombard Street Deposit

Mr. William Spedding, of the firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach, Solicitors, bought the site in Lombard Street in the conventional way. The property came into the market on the death of an old lady who lived at Market Harborough, who has nothing to do with this story, and it was put up to auction in the orthodox fashion.

Mr. William Spedding secured the site at £106,000, a sum sufficiently large to excite the interest of all the evening papers and a great number of the morning journals as well.

As a matter of exact detail, I may add that plans were produced and approved by the city surveyor for the erection of a building of a peculiar type. The city surveyor was a little puzzled by the interior arrangement of the new edifice, but as it fulfilled all the requirements of the regulations governing buildings in the City of London, and no fault could be found either with the external appearance--its façade had been so artfully designed that you might pass a dozen times a day without the thought occurring that this new building was anything out of the common ruck--and as the systems of ventilation and light were beyond reproach, he passed the plans with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I cannot understand, Mr. Spedding,” he said, laying his forefinger on the blue print, “how your client intends securing privacy. There is a lobby and one big hall. Where are the private offices, and what is the idea of this huge safe in the middle of the hall, and where are the clerks to sit? I suppose he will have clerks? Why, man, he won’t have a minute’s peace!”

Mr. Spedding smiled grimly.

“He will have all the peace he wants,” he said.

“And the vaults--I should have thought that vaults would be the very thing you wanted for this.” He tapped the corner of the sheet where was inscribed decorously: “Plan for the erection of a New Safe Deposit.”

“There is the safe,” said Mr. Spedding, and smiled again.

This William Spedding, now unhappily no longer with us--he died suddenly, as I will relate--was a large, smooth man with a suave manner. He smoked good cigars, the ends of which he snipped off with a gold cigar-cutter, and his smile came readily, as from a man who had no fault to find with life.

To continue the possibly unnecessary details, I may add further that whilst tenders were requested for the erection of the New Safe Deposit, the provision of the advertisement that the lowest tender would not necessarily be accepted was justified by the fact that the offer of Potham and Holloway was approved, and it is an open secret that their tender was the highest of all.

“My client requires the very best work; he desires a building that will stand shocks.” Mr. Spedding shot a swift glance at the contractor, who sat at the other side of the desk. “Something that a footling little dynamite explosion would not scatter to the four winds.”

The contractor nodded.

“You have read the specification,” the solicitor went on--he was cutting a new cigar, “and in regard to the pedestal--ah--the pedestal, you know----?”

He stopped and looked at the contractor.

“It seems all very clear,” said the great builder. He took a bundle of papers from an open bag by his side and read, “The foundation to be of concrete to the depth of twenty feet.... The pedestal to be alternate layers of dressed granite and steel ... in the center a steel-lined compartment, ten inches by five, and half the depth of the pedestal itself.”

The solicitor inclined his head.

“That pedestal is to be the most important thing in the whole structure. The steel-lined recess--I don’t know the technical phrase--which one of these days your men will have to fill in, is the second most important; but the safe that is to stand fifty feet above the floor of the building is to be--but the safe is arranged for.”

An army of workmen, if the hackneyed phrase be permitted, descended upon Lombard Street and pulled down the old buildings. They pulled them down, and broke them down, and levered them down, and Lombard Street grew gray with dust. The interiors of quaint old rooms with grimy oak paneling were indecently exposed to a passing public. Clumsy, earthy carts blocked Lombard Street, and by night flaring Wells’ lights roared amidst the chaos.

And bare-armed men sweated and delved by night and by day; and one morning Mr. Spedding stood in a drizzle of rain, with a silk umbrella over his head, and expressed, on behalf of his client, his intense satisfaction at the progress made. He stood on a slippery plank that formed a barrow road, and workmen, roused to unusual activity by the presence of “The Firm”--Mr. Spedding’s cicerone--moved to and fro at a feverish rate of speed.

“They don’t mind the rain,” said the lawyer, sticking out his chin in the direction of the toiling gangs.

“The Firm” shook his head.

“Extra pay,” he said laconically, “we provided for that in the tender,” he hastened to add in justification of his munificence.

So in rain and sunshine, by day and by night, the New Safe Deposit came into existence.

Once--it was during a night shift, a brougham drove up the deserted city street, and a footman helped from the dark interior of the carriage a shivering old man with a white, drawn face. He showed a written order to the foreman, and was allowed inside the unpainted gate of the “works.”

He walked gingerly amidst the debris of construction, asked no questions, made no replies to the explanations of the bewildered foreman, who wondered what fascination there was in a building job to bring an old man from his bed at three o’clock on a chill spring morning.

Only once the old man spoke.

“Where will that there pedestal be?” he asked in a harsh, cracked cockney voice; and when the foreman pointed out the spot, and the men even then busily filling in the foundation, the old man’s lips curled back in an ugly smile that showed teeth too white and regular for a man of his age. He said no more, but pulled the collar of his fur coat the tighter about his lean neck and walked wearily back to his carriage.

The building saw Mr. Spedding’s client no more--if, indeed, it was Mr. Spedding’s client. So far as is known, he did not again visit Lombard Street before its completion--even when the last pane of glass had been fixed in the high gilded dome, when the last slab of marble had been placed in the ornate walls of the great hall, even when the solicitor came and stood in silent contemplation before the great granite pedestal that rose amidst a scaffolding of slim steel girders supporting a staircase that wound upward to the gigantic mid-air safe.

Not quite alone, for with him was the contractor, awed to silence by the immensity of his creation.

“Finished!” said the contractor, and his voice came echoing back from the dim spaces of the building.

The solicitor did not answer.

“Your client may commence business to-morrow if he wishes.”

The solicitor turned from the pedestal.

“He is not ready yet,” he said softly, as though afraid of the echoes.

He walked to where the big steel doors of the hall stood ajar, the contractor following.

In the vestibule he took two keys from his pocket. The heavy doors swung noiselessly across the entrance, and Mr. Spedding locked them. Through the vestibule and out into the busy street the two men walked, and the solicitor fastened behind him the outer doors.

“My client asks me to convey his thanks to you for your expedition,” the lawyer said.

The builder rubbed his hands with some satisfaction.

“You have taken two days less than we expected,” Mr. Spedding went on.

The builder was a man of few ideas outside his trade. He said again--

“Yes, your client may start business to-morrow.”

The solicitor smiled.

“My client, Mr. Potham, may not--er--start business--for ten years,” he said. “In fact, until--well, until he dies, Mr. Potham.”

Chapter II

The House In Terrington Square

A man turned into Terrington Square from Seymour Street and walked leisurely past the policeman on point duty, bidding him a curt “good night.” The officer subsequently described the passer, as a foreign-looking gentleman with a short pointed beard. Under the light overcoat he was apparently in evening dress, for the officer observed the shoes with the plain black bow, and the white silk muffler and the crush hat supported that view. The man crossed the road, and disappeared round the corner of the railed garden that forms the center of the square. A belated hansom came jingling past, and an early newspaper cart, taking a short cut to Paddington, followed; then the square was deserted save for the man and the policeman.

The grim, oppressive houses of the square were wrapped in sleep--drawn blinds and shuttered windows and silence.

The man continued his stroll until he came abreast of No. 43. Here he stopped for a second, gave one swift glance up and down the thoroughfare, and mounted the three steps of the house. He fumbled a little with the key, turned it, and entered. Inside he stood for a moment, then taking a small electric lamp from his pocket he switched on the current.

He did not trouble to survey the wide entrance hall, but flashed the tiny beam of light on the inside face of the door. Two thin wires and a small coil fastened to the lintel called forth no comment. One of the wires had been snapped by the opening of the door.

“Burglar-alarm, of course,” he murmured approvingly. “All the windows similarly treated, and goodness knows what pitfalls waiting for the unwary.”

He flashed the lamp round the hall. A heavy Turkish rug at the foot of the winding staircase secured his attention. He took from his pocket a telescopic stick, extended it, and fixed it rigid. Then he walked carefully towards the rug. With his stick he lifted the corner, and what he saw evidently satisfied him, for he returned to the door, where in a recess stood a small marble statue. All his strength was required to lift this, but he staggered back with it, and rolling it on its circular base, as railway porters roll milk churns, he brought it to the edge of the rug. With a quick push he planted it square in the center of the carpet. For a second only it stood, oscillating, then like a flash it disappeared, and where the carpet had lain was a black, gaping hole. He waited. Somewhere from the depths came a crash, and the carpet came slowly up again and filled the space. The unperturbed visitor nodded his head, as though again approving the householder’s caution.

“I don’t suppose he has learnt any new ones,” he murmured regretfully, “he is getting very old.” He took stock of the walls. They were covered with paintings and engravings. “He could not have fixed the cross fire in a modern house,” he continued, and taking a little run, leapt the rug and rested for a moment on the bottom stair. A suit of half armor on the first landing held him in thoughtful attention for a moment. “Elizabethan body, with a Spanish bayonet,” he said regretfully; “that doesn’t look like a collector’s masterpiece.” He flashed the lamp up and down the silent figure that stood in menacing attitude with a raised battle-ax. “I don’t like that ax,” he murmured, and measured the distance.

Then he saw the fine wire that stretched across the landing. He stepped across carefully, and ranged himself alongside the steel knight. Slipping off his coat, he reached up and caught the figure by the wrist. Then with a quick jerk of his foot he snapped the wire.

He had been prepared for the mechanical downfall of the ax; but as the wire broke the figure turned to the right, and swish! came the ax in a semicircular cut. He had thought to hold the arm as it descended, but he might as well have tried to hold the piston-rod of an engine. His hand was wrenched away, and the razor-like blade of the ax missed his head by the fraction of a second. Then with a whir the arm rose stiffly again to its original position and remained rigid.

The visitor moistened his lips and sighed.

“That’s a new one, a very new one,” he said under his breath, and the admiration in his tone was evident. He picked up his overcoat, flung it over his arm, and mounted half a dozen steps to the next landing. The inspection of the Chinese cabinet was satisfactory.

The white beam of his lamp flashed into corners and crevices and showed nothing. He shook the curtain of a window and listened, holding his breath.

“Not here,” he muttered decisively, “the old man wouldn’t try _that_ game. Snakes turned loose in a house in London, S.W., take a deal of collecting in the morning.”

He looked round. From the landing access was gained to three rooms. That which from its position he surmised faced the street he did not attempt to enter. The second, covered by a heavy curtain, he looked at for a time in thought. To the third he walked, and carefully swathing the door-handle with his silk muffler, he turned it. The door yielded. He hesitated another moment, and jerking the door wide open, sprang backward.

The interior of the room was for a second only in pitch darkness, save for the flicker of light that told of an open fireplace. Then the visitor heard a click, and the room was flooded with light. In the darkness on the landing the man waited; then a voice, a cracked old voice, said grumblingly--

“Come in.”

Still the man on the landing waited.

“Oh, come in, Jimmy--I know ye.”

Cautiously the man outside stepped through the entry into the light and faced the old man, who, arrayed in a wadded dressing-gown, sat in a big chair by the fire--an old man, with white face and a sneering grin, who sat with his lap full of papers.

The visitor nodded a friendly greeting.

“As far as I can gather,” he said deliberately, “we are just above your dressing-room, and if you dropped me through one of your patent traps, Reale, I should fetch up amongst your priceless china.”

Save for a momentary look of alarm on the old man’s face at the mention of the china, he preserved an imperturbable calm, never moving his eyes from his visitor’s face. Then his grin returned, and he motioned the other to a chair on the other side of the fireplace.

Jimmy turned the cushion over with the point of his stick and sat down.

“Suspicious?”--the grin broadened--“suspicious of your old friend, Jimmy? The old governor, eh?”

Jimmy made no reply for a moment, then--

“You’re a wonder, governor, upon my word you are a wonder. That man in armor--your idea?”

The old man shook his head regretfully.

“Not mine entirely, Jimmy. Ye see, there’s electricity in it, and I don’t know much about electricity. I never did, except----”

“Except?” suggested the visitor.

“Oh, that roulette board, that was my own idea; but that was magnetism, which is different to electricity, by my way of looking.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Ye got past the trap?” The old man had just a glint of admiration in his eye.

“Yes, jumped it.”

The old man nodded approvingly.

“You always was a one for thinkin’ things out. I’ve known lots of ’em who would never have thought of jumping it. Connor, and that pig Massey, they’d have walked right on to it. You didn’t damage anything?” he demanded suddenly and fiercely. “I heard somethin’ break, an’ I was hoping that it was you.”

Jimmy thought of the marble statue, and remembered that it had looked valuable.

“Nothing at all,” he lied easily, and the old man’s tense look relaxed.

The pair sat on opposite sides of the fireplace, neither speaking for fully ten minutes; then Jimmy leant forward.

“Reale,” he said quietly, “how much are you worth?”

In no manner disturbed by this leading question, but rather indicating a lively satisfaction, the other replied instantly--

“Two millions an’ a bit over, Jimmy. I’ve got the figures in my head. Reckonin’ furniture and the things in this house at their proper value, two millions, and forty-seven thousand and forty-three pounds--floatin’, Jimmy, absolute cash, the same as you might put your hand in your pocket an’ spend--a million an’ three-quarters exact.”

He leant back in his chair with a triumphant grin and watched his visitor.

Jimmy had taken a cigarette from his pocket and was lighting it, looking at the slowly burning match reflectively.

“A million and three-quarters,” he repeated calmly, “is a lot of money.”

Old Reale chuckled softly.

“All made out of the confiding public, with the aid of me--and Connor and Massey----”

“Massey is a pig!” the old man interjected spitefully.

Jimmy puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“Wrung with sweat and sorrow from foolish young men who backed the tiger and played high at Reale’s Unrivaled Temple of Chance, Cairo, Egypt--with branches at Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez.”

The figure in the wadded gown writhed in a paroxysm of silent merriment.

“How many men have you ruined, Reale?” asked Jimmy.

“The Lord knows!” the old man answered cheerfully; “only three as I knows of--two of ’em’s dead, one of ’em’s dying. The two that’s dead left neither chick nor child; the dying one’s got a daughter.”

Jimmy eyed him through narrowed lids.

“Why this solicitude for the relatives--you’re not going----?”

As he spoke, as if anticipating a question, the old man was nodding his head with feverish energy, and all the while his grin broadened.

“What a one you are for long words, Jimmy! You always was. That’s how you managed to persuade your swell pals to come an’ try their luck. Solicitude! What’s that mean? Frettin’ about ’em, d’ye mean? Yes, that’s what I’m doin’--frettin’ about ’em. And I’m going to make, what d’ye call it--you had it on the tip of your tongue a minute or two ago?”

“Reparation?” suggested Jimmy.

Old Reale nodded delightedly.

“How?”

“Don’t you ask questions!” bullied the old man, his harsh voice rising. “I ain’t asked you why you broke into my house in the middle of the night, though I knew it was you who came the other day to check the electric meter. I saw you, an’ I’ve been waitin’ for you ever since.”

“I knew all about that,” said Jimmy calmly, and flicked the ash of his cigarette away with his little finger, “and I thought you would----”

Suddenly he stopped speaking and listened.

“Who’s in the house beside us?” he asked quickly, but the look on the old man’s face reassured him.

“Nobody,” said Reale testily. “I’ve got a special house for the servants, and they come in every morning after I’ve unfixed my--burglar-alarms.” He grinned, and then a look of alarm came into his face.

“The alarms!” he whispered; “you broke them when you came in, Jimmy. I heard the signal. If there’s some one in the house we shouldn’t know it now.”

They listened.

Down below in the hall something creaked, then the sound of a soft thud came up.

“He’s skipped the rug,” whispered Jimmy, and switched out the light.

The two men heard a stealthy footstep on the stair, and waited. There was the momentary glint of a light, and the sound of some one breathing heavily. Jimmy leant over and whispered in the old man’s ear.

Then, as the handle of the door was turned and the door pushed open, Jimmy switched on the light.

The newcomer was a short, thick-set man with a broad, red face. He wore a check suit of a particularly glaring pattern, and on the back of his head was stuck a bowler hat, the narrow brim of which seemed to emphasize the breadth of his face. A casual observer might have placed him for a coarse, good-natured man of rude but boisterous humor. The ethnological student would have known him at once for what he was--a cruel man-beast without capacity for pity.

He started back as the lights went on, blinking a little, but his hand held an automatic pistol that covered the occupants of the room.

“Put up your hands,” he growled. “Put ’em up!”

Neither man obeyed him. Jimmy was amused and looked it, stroking his short beard with his white tapering fingers. The old man was fury incarnate.

He it was that turned to Jimmy and croaked--

“What did I tell ye, Jimmy? What’ve I always said, Jimmy? Massey is a pig--he’s got the manners of a pig. Faugh!”

“Put up your hands!” hissed the man with the pistol. “Put ’em up, or I’ll put you both out!”

“If he’d come first, Jimmy!” Old Reale wrung his hands in his regret. “S’pose he’d jumped the rug--any sneak-thief could have done that--d’ye think he’d have spotted the man in armor? If you’d only get the man in armor ready again.”

“Put your pistol down, Massey,” said Jimmy coolly, “unless you want something to play with. Old man Reale’s too ill for the gymnastics you suggest, and I’m not inclined to oblige you.”

The man blustered.

“By God, if you try any of your monkey tricks with me, either of you----”

“Oh, I’m only a visitor like yourself,” said Jimmy, with a wave of his hand; “and as to monkey tricks, why, I could have shot you before you entered the room.”

Massey frowned, and stood twiddling his pistol.

“You will find a safety catch on the left side of the barrel,” continued Jimmy, pointing to the pistol; “snick it up--you can always push it down again with your thumb if you really mean business. You are not my idea of a burglar. You breathe too noisily, and you are built too clumsily; why, I heard you open the front door!”

The quiet contempt in the tone brought a deeper red into the man’s face.

“Oh, you are a clever ’un, we know!” he began, and the old man, who had recovered his self-command, motioned him to a chair.

“Sit down, Mister Massey,” he snapped; “sit down, my fine fellow, an’ tell us all the news. Jimmy an’ me was just speakin’ about you, me an’ Jimmy was. We was saying what a fine gentleman you was”--his voice grew shrill--“what a swine, what an overfed, lumbering fool of a pig you was, Mister Massey!”

He sank back into the depths of his chair exhausted.

“Look here, governor,” began Massey again--he had laid his pistol on a table by his side, and waved a large red hand to give point to his remarks--“we don’t want any unpleasantness. I’ve been a good friend to you, an’ so has Jimmy. We’ve done your dirty work for years, me an’ Jimmy have, and Jimmy knows it”--turning with an ingratiating smirk to the subject of his remarks--“and now we want a bit of our own--that is all it amounts to, our own.”

Old Reale looked under his shaggy eyebrows to where Jimmy sat with brooding eyes watching the fire.

“So it’s a plant, eh? You’re both in it. Jimmy comes first, he being the clever one, an’ puts the lay nice an’ snug for the other feller.”

Jimmy shook his head.

“Wrong,” he said. He turned his head and took a long scrutiny of the newcomer, and the amused contempt of his gaze was too apparent.

“Look at him!” he said at last. “Our dear Massey! Does he look the sort of person I am likely to share confidence with?”

A cold passion seemed suddenly to possess him.

“It’s a coincidence that brought us both together.”

He rose and walked to where Massey sat, and stared down at him. There was something in the look that sent Massey’s hand wandering to his pistol.

“Massey, you dog!” he began, then checked himself with a laugh and walked to the other end of the room. There was a tantalus with a soda siphon, and he poured himself a stiff portion and sent the soda fizzling into the tumbler. He held the glass to the light and looked at the old man. There was a look on the old man’s face that he remembered to have seen before. He drank his whisky and gave utterance to old Reale’s thoughts.

“It’s no good, Reale, you’ve got to settle with Massey, but not the way you’re thinking. We could put him away, but we should have to put ourselves away too.” He paused. “And there’s me,” he added.

“And Connor,” said Massey thickly, “and Connor’s worse than me. I’m reasonable, Reale; I’d take a fair share----”

“You would, would you?”

The old man was grinning again.

“Well, your share’s exactly a million an’ three-quarters in solid cash, an’ a bit over two millions--all in.”

He paused to notice the effect of his words.

Jimmy’s calm annoyed him; Massey’s indifference was outrageous.

“An’ it’s Jimmy’s share, an’ Connor’s share, an’ it’s Miss Kathleen Kent’s share.”

This time the effect was better. Into Jimmy’s inexpressive face had crept a gleam of interest.

“Kent?” he asked quickly. “Wasn’t that the name of the man----?”

Old Reale chuckled.

“The very feller, Jimmy--the man who came in to lose a tenner, an’ lost ten thousand; who came in next night to get it back, and left his lot. That’s the feller!”

He rubbed his lean hands, as at the memory of some pleasant happening.

“Open that cupboard, Jimmy.” He pointed to an old-fashioned walnut cabinet that stood near the door. “D’ye see anything--a thing that looks like a windmill?”

Jimmy drew out a cardboard structure that was apparently a toy working-model. He handled it carefully, and deposited it on the table by the old man’s side. Old Reale touched it caressingly. With his little finger he set a fly-wheel spinning, and tiny little pasteboard rods ran to and fro, and little wooden wheels spun easily.

“That’s what I did with _his_ money, invented a noo machine that went by itself--perpetual motion. You can grin, Massey, but that’s what I did with it. Five years’ work an’ a quarter of a million, that’s what that little model means. I never found the secret out. I could always make a machine that would go for hours with a little push, but it always wanted the push. I’ve been a chap that went in for inventions and puzzles. D’ye remember the table at Suez?”

He shot a sly glance at the men.

Massey was growing impatient as the reminiscences proceeded. He had come that night with an object; he had taken a big risk, and had not lost sight of the fact. Now he broke in--

“Damn your puzzles, Reale. What about me; never mind about Jimmy. What’s all this rotten talk about two millions for each of us, and this girl? When you broke up the place in Egypt you said we should stand in when the time came. Well, the time’s come!”

“Nearly, nearly,” said Reale, with his death’s-head grin. “It’s nearly come. You needn’t have troubled to see me. My lawyer’s got your addresses. I’m nearly through,” he went on cheerfully; “dead I’ll be in six months, as sure as--as death. Then you fellers will get the money”--he spoke slowly to give effect to his words--“you Jimmy, _or_ Massey or Connor _or_ the young lady. You say you don’t like puzzles, Massey? Well, it’s a bad look out for you. Jimmy’s the clever un, an’ most likely he’ll get it; Connor’s artful, and he might get it from Jimmy; but the young lady’s got the best chance, because women are good at puzzles.”

“What in hell!” roared Massey, springing to his feet.

“Sit down!” It was Jimmy that spoke, and Massey obeyed.

“There’s a puzzle about these two millions,” Reale went on, and his croaky voice, with its harsh cockney accent, grew raucous in his enjoyment of Massey’s perplexity and Jimmy’s knit brows. “An’ the one that finds the puzzle out, gets the money.”

Had he been less engrossed in his own amusement he would have seen a change in Massey’s brute face that would have warned him.

“It’s in my will,” he went on. “I’m goin’ to set the sharps against the flats; the touts of the gamblin’ hell--that’s you two fellers--against the pigeons. Two of the biggest pigeons is dead, an’ one’s dying. Well, he’s got a daughter; let’s see what _she_ can do. When I’m dead----”

“That’s now!” bellowed Massey, and leant over and struck the old man.

Jimmy, on his feet, saw the gush of blood and the knife in Massey’s hand, and reached for his pocket.

Massey’s pistol covered him, and the man’s face was a dreadful thing to look upon.

“Hands up! It’s God’s truth I’ll kill you if you don’t!”

Jimmy’s hands went up.

“He’s got the money here,” breathed Massey, “somewhere in this house.”

“You’re mad,” said the other contemptuously. “Why did you hit him?”

“He sat there makin’ a fool of me.” The murderer gave a vicious glance at the inert figure on the floor. “I want something more than his puzzle-talk. He asked for it.”

He backed to the table where the decanter stood, and drank a tumbler half-filled with raw spirit.

“We’re both in this, Jimmy,” he said, still keeping his man covered. “You can put down your hands; no monkey tricks. Give me your pistol.”

Jimmy slipped the weapon from his pocket, and handed it butt foremost to the man. Then Massey bent over the fallen man and searched his pockets.

“Here are the keys. You stay here,” said Massey, and went out, closing the door after him.

Jimmy heard the grate of the key, and knew he was a prisoner. He bent over the old man. He lay motionless. Jimmy tried the pulse, and felt a faint flutter. Through the clenched teeth he forced a little whisky, and after a minute the old man’s eyes opened.

“Jimmy!” he whispered; then remembering, “Where’s Massey?” he asked.

There was no need to inquire the whereabouts of Massey. His blundering footfalls sounded in the room above.

“Lookin’ for money?” gasped the old man, and something like a smile crossed his face. “Safe’s up there,” he whispered, and smiled again. “Got the keys?”

Jimmy nodded.

The old man’s eyes wandered round the room till they rested on what looked like a switchboard.

“See that handle marked ‘seven’?” he whispered.

Jimmy nodded again.

“Pull it down, Jimmy boy.” His voice was growing fainter. “This is a new one that I read in a book. Pull it down.”

“Why?”

“Do as I tell you,” the lips motioned, and Jimmy walked across the room and pulled over the insulated lever.

As he did there was a heavy thud overhead that shook the room, and then silence.

“What’s that?” he asked sharply.

The dying man smiled.

“That’s Massey!” said the lips.

* * * * *

Half an hour later Jimmy left the house with a soiled slip of paper in his waistcoat pocket, on which was written the most precious verse of doggerel that the world has known.

And the discovery of the two dead men in the upper chambers the next morning afforded the evening press the sensation of the year.

Chapter III

Angel Esquire

Nobody quite knows how Angel Esquire came to occupy the position he does at Scotland Yard. On his appointment, “An Officer of Twenty Years’ Standing” wrote to the _Police Review_ and characterized the whole thing as “a job.” Probably it was. For Angel Esquire had been many things in his short but useful career, but never a policeman. He had been a big game shot, a special correspondent, a “scratch” magistrate, and his nearest approach to occupying a responsible position in any police force in the world was when he was appointed a J.P. of Rhodesia, and, serving on the Tuli Commission, he hanged M’Linchwe and six of that black desperado’s companions.

His circle of acquaintances extended to the suburbs of London, and the suburbanites, who love you to make their flesh creep, would sit in shivering but pleasurable horror whilst Angel Esquire elaborated the story of the execution.

In Mayfair Angel Esquire was best known as a successful mediator.

“Who is that old-looking young man with the wicked eye?” asked the Dowager Duchess of Hoeburn; and her _vis-à-vis_ at the Honorable Mrs. Carter-Walker’s “sit-down tea”--it was in the days when Mayfair was aping suburbia--put up his altogether unnecessary eyeglass.

“Oh, that’s Angel Esquire!” he said carelessly.

“What is he?” asked the Duchess.

“A policeman.”

“India?”

“Oh, no, Scotland Yard.”

“Good Heavens!” said Her Grace in a shocked voice. “How very dreadful! What is he doing? Watching the guests, or keeping a friendly eye on the Carter woman’s spoons?”

The young man guffawed.

“Don’t despise old Angel, Duchess,” he said. “He’s a man to know. Great fellow for putting things right. If you have a row with your governor, or get into the hands of--er--undesirables, or generally, if you’re in a mess of any kind, Angel’s the chap to pull you out.”

Her Grace surveyed the admirable man with a new interest.

Angel Esquire, with a cup of tea in one hand and a thin grass sandwich in the other, was the center of a group of men, including the husband of the hostess. He was talking with some animation.

“I held three aces pat, and opened the pot light to let ’em in. Young Saville raised the opening to a tenner, and the dealer went ten better. George Manfred, who had passed, came in for a pony, and took one card. I took two, and drew another ace. Saville took one, and the dealer stood pat. I thought it was my money, and bet a pony. Saville raised it to fifty, the dealer made it a hundred, and George Manfred doubled the bet. It was up to me. I had four aces; I put Saville with a ‘full,’ and the dealer with a ‘flush.’ I had the beating of that lot; but what about Manfred? Manfred is a feller with all the sense going. He knew what the others had. If he bet, he had the goods, so I chucked my four aces into the discard. George had a straight flush.”

A chorus of approval came from the group.

If “An Officer of Twenty Years’ Standing” had been a listener, he might well have been further strengthened in his opinion that of all persons Mr. Angel was least fitted to fill the responsible position he did.

If the truth be told, nobody quite knew exactly what position Angel did hold. If you turn into New Scotland Yard and ask the janitor at the door for Mr. Christopher Angel--Angel Esquire by the way was a nickname affixed by a pert little girl--the constable, having satisfied himself as to your _bona-fides_, would take you up a flight of stairs and hand you over to yet another officer, who would conduct you through innumerable swing doors, and along uncounted corridors till he stopped before a portal inscribed “647.” Within, you would find Angel Esquire sitting at his desk, doing nothing, with the aid of a _Sporting Life_ and a small weekly guide to the Turf.

Once Mr. Commissioner himself walked into the room unannounced, and found Angel so immersed in an elaborate calculation, with big sheets of paper closely filled with figures, and open books on either hand, that he did not hear his visitor.

“What is the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner, and Angel looked up with his sweetest smile, and recognizing his visitor, rose.

“What’s the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner again.

“A serious flaw, sir,” said Angel, with all gravity. “Here’s Mimosa handicapped at seven stone nine in the Friary Nursery, when, according to my calculations, she can give the field a stone, and beat any one of ’em.”

The Commissioner gasped.

“My dear fellow,” he expostulated, “I thought you were working on the Lagos Bank business.”

Angel had a far-away look in his eyes when he answered--

“Oh, that is all finished. Old Carby was poisoned by a man named--forget his name now, but he was a Monrovian. I wired the Lagos police, and we caught the chap this morning at Liverpool--took him off an Elder, Dempster boat.”

The Police Commissioner beamed.

“My congratulations, Angel. By Jove, I thought we shouldn’t have a chance of helping the people in Africa. Is there a white man in it?”

“We don’t know,” said Angel absently; his eye was wandering up and down a column of figures on the paper before him.

“I am inclined to fancy there is--man named Connor, who used to be a croupier or something to old Reale.”

He frowned at the paper, and picking up a pencil from the desk, made a rapid little calculation. “Seven stone thirteen,” he muttered.

The Commissioner tapped the table impatiently. He had sunk into a seat opposite Angel.

“My dear man, who is old Reale? You forget that you are our tame foreign specialist. Lord, Angel, if you heard half the horrid things that people say about your appointment you would die of shame!”

Angel pushed aside the papers with a little laugh.

“I’m beyond shame,” he said lightheartedly; “and, besides, I’ve heard. You were asking about Reale. Reale is a character. For twenty years proprietor of one of the most delightful gambling plants in Egypt, Rome--goodness knows where. Education--none. Hobbies--invention. That’s the ‘bee in his bonnet’--invention. If he’s got another, it is the common or garden puzzle. Pigs in clover, missing words, all the fake competitions that cheap little papers run--he goes in for them all. Lives at 43 Terrington Square.”

“Where?” The Commissioner’s eyebrows rose. “Reale? 43 Terrington Square? Why, of course.” He looked at Angel queerly. “You know all about Reale?”

Angel shrugged his shoulders.

“As much as anybody knows,” he said.

The Commissioner nodded.

“Well, take a cab and get down at once to 43 Terrington Square. Your old Reale was murdered last night.”

It was peculiar of Angel Esquire that nothing surprised him. He received the most tremendous tidings with polite interest, and now he merely said, “Dear me!” Later, as a swift hansom carried him along Whitehall he permitted himself to be “blessed.”

Outside No. 43 Terrington Square a small crowd of morbid sightseers stood in gloomy anticipation of some gruesome experience or other. A policeman admitted him, and the local inspector stopped in his interrogation of a white-faced butler to bid him a curt “Good morning.”

Angel’s preliminary inspection did not take any time. He saw the bodies, which had not yet been removed. He examined the pockets of both men, and ran his eye through the scattered papers on the floor of the room in which the tragedy had occurred. Then he came back to the big drawing-room and saw the inspector, who was sitting at a table writing his report.

“The chap on the top floor committed the murder, of course,” said Angel.

“I know that,” said Inspector Boyden brusquely.

“And was electrocuted by a current passing through the handle of the safe.”

“I gathered that,” the inspector replied as before, and went on with his work.

“The murderer’s name is Massey,” continued Angel patiently--“George Charles Massey.”

The inspector turned in his seat with a sarcastic smile.

“I _also_,” he said pointedly, “have seen the envelopes addressed in that name, which were found in his pocket.”

Angel’s face was preternaturally solemn as he continued--

“The third man I am not so sure about.”

The inspector looked up suspiciously.

“Third man--which third man?”

Well-simulated astonishment sent Angel’s eyebrows to the shape of inverted V’s.

“There was another man in it. Didn’t you know _that_, Mr. Inspector?”

“I have found no evidence of the presence of a third party,” he said stiffly; “but I have not yet concluded my investigations.”

“Good!” said Angel cheerfully. “When you have, you will find the ends of three cigarettes--two in the room where the old man was killed, and one in the safe room. They are marked ‘Al Kam,’ and are a fairly expensive variety of Egyptian cigarettes. Massey smoked cigars; old Reale did not smoke at all. The question is”--he went on speaking aloud to himself, and ignoring the perplexed police official--“was it Connor or was it Jimmy?”

The inspector struggled with a desire to satisfy his curiosity at the expense of his dignity, and resolved to maintain an attitude of superior incredulity. He turned back to his work.

“It would be jolly difficult to implicate either of them,” Angel went on reflectively, addressing the back of the inspector. “They would produce fifty unimpeachable alibis, and bring an action for wrongful arrest in addition,” he added artfully.

“They can’t do that,” said the inspector gruffly.

“Can’t they?” asked the innocent Angel. “Well, at any rate, it’s not advisable to arrest them. Jimmy would----”

Inspector Boyden swung round in his chair.

“I don’t know whether you’re ‘pulling my leg,’ Mr. Angel. You are perhaps unused to the procedure in criminal cases in London, and I must now inform you that at present I am in charge of the case, and must request that if you have any information bearing upon this crime to give it to me at once.”

“With all the pleasure in life,” said Angel heartily. “In the first place, Jimmy----”

“Full name, please.” The inspector dipped his pen in ink.

“Haven’t the slightest idea,” said the other carelessly. “Everybody knows Jimmy. He was old Reale’s most successful decoy duck. Had the presence and the plumage and looked alive, so that all the other little ducks used to come flying down and settle about him, and long before they could discover that the beautiful bird that attracted them was only painted wood and feathers, ‘Bang! bang!’ went old Reale’s double-barrel, and roast duck was on the menu for days on end.”

Inspector Boyden threw down his pen with a grunt.

“I’m afraid,” he said in despair, “that I cannot include your parable in my report. When you have any definite information to give, I shall be pleased to receive it.”

Later, at Scotland Yard, Angel interviewed the Commissioner.

“What sort of a man is Boyden to work with?” asked Mr. Commissioner.

“A most excellent chap--good-natured, obliging, and as zealous as the best of ’em,” said Angel, which was his way.

“I shall leave him in charge of the case,” said the Chief.

“You couldn’t do better,” said Angel decisively.

Then he went home to his flat in Jermyn Street to dress for dinner.

It was an immaculate Angel Esquire who pushed through the plate-glass, turn-table door of the Heinz, and, walking into the magnificent old rose dining-room, selected a table near a window looking out on to Piccadilly.

The other occupant of the table looked up and nodded.

“Hullo, Angel!” he said easily.

“Hullo, Jimmy!” greeted the unconventional detective.

He took up the card and chose his dishes with elaborate care. A half-bottle of Beaujolais completed his order.

“The ridiculous thing is that one has got to pay 7s. 6d. for a small bottle of wine that any respectable grocer will sell you for tenpence ha’-penny net.”

“You must pay for the magnificence,” said the other, quietly amused. Then, after the briefest pause, “What do you want?”

“Not you, Jimmy,” said the amiable Angel, “though my young friend, Boyden, Inspector of Police, and a Past Chief Templar to boot, will be looking for you shortly.”

Jimmy carefully chose a toothpick and stripped it of its tissue covering.

“Of course,” he said quietly, “I wasn’t in it--the killing, I mean. I was there.”

“I know all about that,” said Angel; “saw your foolish cigarettes. I didn’t think you had any hand in the killing. You are a property criminal, not a personal criminal.”

“By which I gather you convey the nice distinction as between crimes against property and crimes against the person,” said the other.

“Exactly.”

A pause.

“Well?” said Jimmy.

“What I want to see you about is the verse,” said Angel, stirring his soup.

Jimmy laughed aloud.

“What a clever little devil you are, Angel,” he said admiringly; “and not so little either, in inches or devilishness.”

He relapsed into silence, and the wrinkled forehead was eloquent.

“Think hard,” taunted Angel.

“I’m thinking,” said Jimmy slowly. “I used a pencil, as there was no blotting paper. I only made one copy, just as the old man dictated it, and----”

“You used a block,” said Angel obligingly, “and only tore off the top sheet. And you pressed rather heavily on that, so that the next sheet bore a legible impression.”

Jimmy looked annoyed.

“What an ass I am!” he said, and was again silent.

“The verse?” said Angel. “Can you make head or tail of it?”

“No”--Jimmy shook his head--“can you?”

“Not a blessed thing,” Angel frankly confessed.

Through the next three courses neither man spoke. When coffee had been placed on the table, Jimmy broke the silence--

“You need not worry about the verse. I have only stolen a march of a few days. Then Connor will have it; and some girl or other will have it. Massey would have had it too.” He smiled grimly.

“What is it all about?”

Jimmy looked at his questioner with some suspicion.

“Don’t you know?” he demanded.

“Haven’t got the slightest notion. That is why I came to see you.”

“Curious!” mused Jimmy. “I thought of looking _you_ up for the very same purpose. We shall know in a day or two,” he went on, beckoning the waiter. “The old man said it was all in the will. He just told me the verse before he died. The ruling passion, don’t you know. ‘Learn it by heart, Jimmy,’ he croaked; ‘it’s two millions for you if you guess it’--and that’s how he died. My bill, waiter. Which way do you go?” he asked as they turned into Piccadilly.

“To the ‘Plait’ for an hour,” said Angel.

“Business?”

“Partly; I’m looking for a man who might be there.”

They crossed Piccadilly, and entered a side turning. The second on the left and the first on the right brought them opposite a brightly-lit hotel. From within came the sound of violins. At the little tables with which the spacious bar-room was set about sat laughing women and young men in evening dress. A haze of cigarette smoke clouded the atmosphere, and the music made itself heard above a babel of laughter and talk. They found a corner, and seated themselves.

“You seem to be fairly well known here,” said Jimmy.

“Yes,” replied Angel ruefully, “a jolly sight too well known. You’re not quite a stranger, Jimmy,” he added.

“No,” said the other a little bitterly; “but we’re on different sides of the House, Angel. You’re in the Cabinet, and I’m in the everlasting Opposition.”

“Muffled sobs!” said Angel flippantly. “Pity poor Ishmael who ‘ishes’ for his own pleasure! Pathos for a fallen brother! A silent tear for this magnificent wreck who’d rather be on the rocks than floating any day of the week. Don’t humbug yourself, Jimmy, or I shall be falling on your neck and appealing to your better nature. You’re a thief just as another man is a stamp collector or a hunter. It’s your blooming _forte_. Hi, Charles, do you ever intend serving me?”

“Yessir; d’reckly, sir.”

Charles bustled up.

“What is it to be, gentlemen? Good evening, Mr. Angel!”

“I’ll take what my friend Dooley calls a keg of obscenth; and you?”

Jimmy’s face struggled to preserve its gravity.

“Lemonade,” he said soberly.

The waiter brought him a whisky.

If you do not know the “Plait” you do not know your London. It is one of the queer hostels which in a Continental city would be noted as a place to which the “young person” might not be taken. Being in London, neither Baedeker nor any of the infallible guides to the metropolis so much as mention its name. For there is a law of libel.

“There’s ‘Snatch’ Walker,” said Angel idly. “Snatch isn’t wanted just now--in this country. There’s ‘Frisco Kate,’ who’ll get a lifer one of these days. D’ye know the boy in the mustard suit, Jimmy?”

Jimmy took a sidelong glance at the young man.

“No; he’s new.”

“Not so new either,” said Angel. “Budapest in the racing season, Jerusalem in the tourist season; a wealthy Hungarian nobleman traveling for his health all the time--that’s him.”

“Ambiguous, ungrammatical, but convincing,” murmured Jimmy.

“I want him, by the way!” Angel had suddenly become alert.

“If you’re going to have a row, I’m off,” said Jimmy, finishing his drink.

Angel caught his arm. A man had entered the saloon, and was looking round as though in search of somebody. He caught Jimmy’s eye and started. Then he threaded his way through the crowded room.

“Hullo, Jim----” He stopped dead as he saw Jimmy’s companion, and his hand went into his pocket.

“Hullo, Connor!”--Angel’s smile was particularly disarming--“you’re the man I want to see.”

“What’s the game?” the other snarled. He was a big, heavily-built man, with a drooping mustache.

“Nothing, nothing,” smiled Angel. “I want you for the Lagos job, but there’s not enough evidence to convict you. Make your mind easy.”

The man went white under his tan; his hand caught the edge of the table before him.

“Lagos!” he stammered. “What--what----”

“Oh, never mind about that.” Angel airily waved the matter aside. “Sit down here.”

The man hesitated, then obeyed, and dropped into a seat between the two.

Angel looked round. So far as any danger of being overheard went, they were as much alone as though they sat in the center of a desert.

“Jimmy”--Angel held him by the arm--“you said just now you’d got a march when you admitted you’d seen old Reale’s puzzle-verse. It wasn’t the march you thought it was, for I had seen the will--and so has Connor here.”

He looked the heavy man straight in the eye.

“There is somebody else that benefits under that will besides you two. It is a girl.” He did not take his eyes from Connor. “I was curious to see that young lady,” Angel went on, “and this afternoon I drove to Clapham to interview her.”

He stopped again. Connor made no reply, but kept his eyes fixed on the floor.

“I went to interview her, and found that she had mysteriously disappeared this very afternoon.”

Again he stopped.

“A gentleman called to see her, with a message from--who do you think, Connor?” he asked.

The easy, flippant manner was gone, and Connor, looking up, caught the steady stare of two cold blue eyes, and shivered.

“Why,” Angel went on slowly, “it was a message from Inspector Angel--which is a damned piece of impudence, Connor, for I’m not an inspector--and the young lady drove away to Scotland Yard. And now, Connor, I want to ask you, _What have you done with old Reale’s heiress?_”

Connor licked his lips and said nothing.

Angel beckoned to a waiter and paid his score, then rose to go.

“You will go at once and drive Miss Kathleen Kent back to the place you took her from. I shall call to-morrow and see her, and if one hair of her head is harmed, Connor----”

“Well?” said Connor defiantly.

“I’ll chance your alibis, and take you for the Lagos business,” and with a curt nod to Jimmy, he left the saloon.

Connor turned in a fret of fury to the man at his side.

“D’ye hear him, Jimmy? D’ye hear the dog----”

“My advice to you,” interrupted the other, “is--do as Angel tells you.”

“D’ye think I’m frightened by----”

“Oh, no,” was the quiet response, “you are not frightened at what Angel may do. What he does won’t matter very much. What I will do is the trouble.”

Chapter IV

The “Borough Lot”

It was not a bit like Scotland Yard as Kathleen Kent had pictured it. It was a kind of a yard certainly, for the grimy little street, flanked on either side with the blank faces of dirty little houses, ended abruptly in a high wall, over which were the gray hulls and fat scarlet funnels of ocean-going steamers.

The driver of the cab had pulled up before one of the houses near the wall, and a door had opened. Then the man who had sat with her in glum silence, answering her questions in mono-syllables, grasped her arm and hurried her into the house. The door slammed behind, and she realized her deadly peril. She had had a foreboding, an instinctive premonition that all was not well when the cab had turned from the broad thoroughfare that led to where she had imagined Scotland Yard would be, and had, taking short cuts through innumerable mean streets, moved at a sharp pace eastward. Ignorant of that London which begins at Trafalgar Square and runs eastward to Walthamstow, ignorant, indeed, of that practical suburb to which the modesty of an income produced by £4,000 worth of Consols had relegated her, she felt without knowing, that Scotland Yard did not lay at the eastern end of Commercial Road.

Then when the door of the little house slammed and a hand grasped her arm tightly, and a thick voice whispered in her ear that if she screamed the owner of the voice would “out” her, she gathered, without exactly knowing what an “outing” was, that it would be wiser for her not to scream, so she quietly accompanied her captor up the stairs. He stopped for a moment on the rickety landing, then pushed open a door.

Before the window that would in the ordinary course of events admit the light of day hung a heavy green curtain; behind this, though she did not know it, three army blankets, judiciously fixed, effectively excluded the sunlight, and as effectually veiled the rays of a swing-lamp from outside observation.

The girl made a pathetically incongruous figure, as she stood white but resolute before the occupants of the room.

Kathleen Kent was something more than pretty, something less than beautiful. An oval face with gray, steadfast eyes, a straight nose and the narrow upper lip of the aristocrat, her lips were, perhaps, too full and too human for your connoisseur of beauty.

She looked from face to face, and but for her pallor she exhibited no sign of fear.

Although she was unaware of the fact, she had been afforded an extraordinary privilege. By the merest accident, she had been ushered into the presence of the “Borough Lot.” Not a very heroic title for an organized band of criminals, but, then, organized criminals never take unto themselves generic and high-falutin’ titles. Our “Silver Hatchets” and “Red Knives” are boy hooligans who shoot off toy pistols. The police referred to them vaguely as the “Borough Lot.” Lesser lights in the criminal world have been known to boast that they were not unconnected with that combination; and when some desperate piece of villainy startled the world, the police investigating the crime started from this point: Was it committed by one of the Borough Lot, or was it not?

As Kathleen was pushed into the room by her captor, a hum of subdued conversation ended abruptly, and she was the focus of nine pairs of passionless eyes that looked at her unsmilingly.

When she had heard the voices, when she took her first swift glance at the room, and had seen the type of face that met hers, she had steeled herself for an outburst of coarse amusement. She feared--she did not know what she feared. Strangely enough, the dead silence that greeted her gave her courage, the cold stare of the men nerved her. Only one of the men lost his composure. The tall, heavy-looking man who sat at one end of the room with bowed, attentive head listening to a little clean-shaven man with side-whiskers, who looked for all the world like an old-fashioned jockey, started with a muttered oath.

“Upstairs!” he roared, and said something rapidly in a foreign tongue that sent the man who held the girl’s arm staggering back with a blanched face.

“I--I,” he stammered appealingly, “I didn’t understand.”

The tall man, his face flushed with rage, pointed to the door, and hastily opening the door, her captor half dragged the bewildered girl to the darkness of the landing.

“This way,” he muttered, and she could feel his hand trembling as he stumbled up yet another flight of stairs, never once relinquishing his hold of her. “Don’t you scream nor nothing, or you’ll get into trouble. You see what happened to me for takin’ you into the wrong room. Oh, he’s a devil is Connor--Smith, I mean. Smith’s his name, d’ye hear?” He shook her arm roughly. Evidently the man was beside himself with terror. What dreadful thing the tall man had said, Kathleen could only judge. She herself was half dead with fright. The sinister faces of these men, the mystery of this assembly in the shuttered room, her abduction, all combined to add terror to her position.

Her conductor unlocked a door and pushed her in. This had evidently been prepared for her reception, for a table had been laid, and food and drink stood ready.

The door was closed behind her, and a bolt was slipped. Like the chamber below, all daylight was kept out by a curtain. Her first thoughts were of escape. She waited till the footsteps on the rickety stairs had died away, then crossed the room swiftly. The drop from the window could not be very far; she would risk it. She drew aside the curtain. Where the window should have been was a sheet of steel plate. It was screwed to the joists. Somebody had anticipated her resolve to escape by the window. In chalk, written in an illiterate hand, was the sentence:--

“You wont be hert if your senserble. We want to know some questions then well let you go. Dont make a fuss or it will be bad for you. Keep quite and tell us these questions and well let you go.”

What had they to ask, or she to answer? She knew of nothing that she could inform them upon. Who were these men who were detaining her? During the next hours she asked herself these questions over and over again. She grew faint with hunger and thirst, but the viands spread upon the table she did not touch. The mystery of her capture bewildered her. Of what value was she to these men? All the time the murmur of voices in the room below was continuous. Once or twice she heard a voice raised in anger. Once a door slammed, and somebody went clattering down the stairs. There was a door-keeper, she could hear him speak with the outgoer.

Did she but know it, the question that perplexed her was an equal matter of perplexity with others in the house that evening.

The notorious men upon whom she had looked, all innocent of their claim to notoriety, were themselves puzzled.

Bat Sands, the man who looked so ill--he had the unhealthy appearance of one who had just come through a long sickness--was an inquirer. Vennis--nobody knew his Christian name--was another, and they were two men whose inquiries were not to be put off.

Vennis turned his dull fish eyes upon big Connor, and spoke with deliberation.

“Connor, what’s this girl business? Are we in it?”

Connor knew his men too well to temporize.

“You’re in it, if it’s worth anything,” he said slowly.

Bat’s close-cropped red head was thrust forward.

“Is there money in it?” he demanded.

Connor nodded his head.

“Much?”

Connor drew a deep breath. If the truth be told, that the “Lot” should share, was the last thing he had intended. But for the blundering of his agent, they would have remained in ignorance of the girl’s presence in the house. But the very suspicion of disloyalty was dangerous. He knew his men, and they knew him. There was not a man there who would hesitate to destroy him at the merest hint of treachery. Candor was the best and safest course.

“It’s pretty hard to give you any idea what I’ve got the girl here for, but there’s a million in it,” he began.

He knew they believed him. He did not expect to be disbelieved. Criminals of the class these men represented flew high. They were out of the ruck of petty, boasting sneak-thieves who lied to one another, knowing they lied, and knowing that their hearers knew they lied.

Only the strained, intent look on their faces gave any indication of how the news had been received.

“It’s old Reale’s money,” he continued; “he’s left the lot to four of us. Massey’s dead, so that makes three.”

There was no need to explain who was Reale, who Massey. A week ago Massey had himself sat in that room and discussed with Connor the cryptic verse that played so strange a part in the old man’s will. He had been, in a way, an honorary member of the “Borough Lot.”

Connor continued. He spoke slowly, waiting for inspiration. A judicious lie might save the situation. But no inspiration came, and he found his reluctant tongue speaking the truth.

“The money is stored in one safe. Oh, it’s no use looking like that, Tony, you might just as well try to crack the Bank of England as that crib. Yes, he converted every cent of a million and three-quarters into hard, solid cash--banknotes and gold. This he put into his damned safe, and locked. And he has left by the terms of his will a key.”

Connor was a man who did not find speaking an easy matter. Every word came slowly and hesitatingly, as though the speaker of the story were loth to part with it.

“The key is here,” he said slowly.

There was a rustle of eager anticipation as he dipped his hand in his waistcoat pocket. When he withdrew his fingers, they contained only a slip of paper carefully folded.

“The lock of the safe is one of Reale’s inventions; it opens to no key save this.” He shook the paper before them, then lapsed into silence.

“Well,” broke in Bat impatiently, “why don’t you open the safe? And what has the girl to do with it?”

“She also has a key, or will have to-morrow. And Jimmy----”

A laugh interrupted him. “Curt” Goyle had been an attentive listener till Jimmy’s name was mentioned, then his harsh, mirthless laugh broke the tense silence.

“Oh, Lord James is in it, is he? I’m one that’s for ruling Jimmy out.” He got up on his feet and stretched himself, keeping his eye fixed on Connor. “If you want to know why, I’ll tell ye. Jimmy’s a bit too finicking for my taste, too fond of the police for my taste. If we’re in this, Jimmy’s out of it,” and a mutter of approval broke from the men.

Connor’s mind was working quickly. He could do without Jimmy, he could not dispense with the help of the “Lot.” He was just a little afraid of Jimmy. The man was a type of criminal he could not understand. If he was a rival claimant for Reale’s millions, the gang would “out” Jimmy; so much the better. Massey’s removal had limited the legatees to three. Jimmy out of the way would narrow the chance of his losing the money still further; and the other legatee was in the room upstairs. Goyle’s declaration had set loose the tongues of the men, and he could hear no voice that spoke for Jimmy. And then a dozen voices demanded the rest of the story, and amid a dead silence Connor told the story of the will and the puzzle-verse, the solving of which meant fortune to every man.

“And the girl has got to stand in and take her share. She’s too dangerous to be let loose. There’s nigh on two millions at stake and I’m taking no risks. She shall remain here till the word is found. We’re not going to see her carry off the money under our very noses.”

“And Jimmy?” Goyle asked.

Connor fingered a lapel of his coat nervously. He knew what answer the gang had already framed to the question Goyle put. He knew he would be asked to acquiesce in the blackest piece of treachery that had ever disfigured his evil life; but he knew, too, that Jimmy was hated by the men who formed this strange fraternity. Jimmy worked alone; he shared neither risk nor reward. His cold cynicism was above their heads. They too feared him.

Connor cleared his throat

“Perhaps if we reasoned----”

Goyle and Bat exchanged swift glances.

“Ask him to come and talk it over to-night,” said Goyle carelessly.

* * * * *

“Connor is a long time gone.”

Sands turned his unhealthy face to the company as he spoke.

Three hours had passed since Connor had left the gang in his search for Jimmy.

“He’ll be back soon,” said Goyle confidently. He looked over the assembly of men. “Any of you fellers who don’t want to be in this business can go.” Then he added significantly, “We’re going to settle with Jimmy.”

Nobody moved; no man shuddered at the dreadful suggestion his words conveyed.

“A million an’ three-quarters--it’s worth hanging for!” he said callously. He walked to a tall, narrow cupboard that ran up by the side of the fireplace and pulled open the door. There was room for a man to stand inside. The scrutiny of the interior gave him some satisfaction.

“This is where some one stood”--he looked meaningly at Bat Sands--“when he koshed Ike Steen--Ike with the police money in his pocket, and ready to sell every man jack of you.”

“Who’s in the next house?” a voice asked suddenly.

Goyle laughed. He was the virtual landlord so far as the hiring of the house was concerned. He closed the cupboard door.

“Not counting old George, it’s empty,” he said. “Listen!”

In the deep silence there came the faint murmur of a voice through the thin walls.

“Talkin’ to himself,” said Goyle with a grin; “he’s daft, and he’s as good as a watchman for us, for he scares away the children and women who would come prying about here. He’s----”

They heard the front door shut quickly and the voices of two men in the passage below.

Goyle sprang to his feet, an evil look on his face.

“That’s Jimmy!” he whispered hurriedly.

As the feet sounded on the stairs he walked to where his coat hung and took something from his pocket, then, almost as the newcomers entered the room, he slipped into the cupboard and drew the door close after him.

Jimmy, entering the room in Connor’s wake, felt the chill of his reception. He felt, too, some indefinable sensation of danger. There was an ominous quiet. Bat Sands was polite, even servile. Jimmy noticed that, and his every sense became alert. Bat thrust forward a chair and placed it with its back toward the cupboard.

“Sit down, Jimmy,” he said with forced heartiness. “We want a bit of a talk.”

Jimmy sat down.

“I also want a bit of a talk,” he said calmly. “There is a young lady in this house, brought here against her will. You’ve got to let her go.”

The angry mutter of protest that he had expected did not come, rather was his dictum received in complete silence. This was bad, and he looked round for the danger. Then he missed a face.

“Where is our friend Goyle, our dear landlord?” he asked with pleasant irony.

“He hasn’t been here to-day,” Bat hastened to say.

Jimmy looked at Connor standing by the door biting his nails, and Connor avoided his eye.

“Ah!” Jimmy’s unconcern was perfectly simulated.

“Jimmy wants us to send the girl back.” Connor was speaking hurriedly. “He thinks there’ll be trouble, and his friend the ’tec thinks there will be trouble too.”

Jimmy heard the artfully-worded indictment unmoved. Again he noticed, with some concern, that what was tantamount to a charge of treachery was received without a word.

“It isn’t what others think, it is what I think, Connor,” he said dryly. “The girl has got to go back. I want Reale’s money as much as you, but I have a fancy to play fair this journey.”

“Oh, you have, _have_ you,” sneered Connor. He had seen the cupboard door behind Jimmy move ever so slightly.

Jimmy sat with his legs crossed on the chair that had been placed for him. The light overcoat he had worn over his evening dress lay across his knees. Connor knew the moment was at hand, and concentrated his efforts to keep his former comrade’s attentions engaged. He had guessed the meaning of Goyle’s absence from the room and the moving cupboard door. In his present position Jimmy was helpless.

Connor had been nervous to a point of incoherence on the way to the house. Now his voice rose to a strident pitch.

“You’re too clever, Jimmy,” he said, “and there are too many ‘musts’ about you to please us. We say that the girl has got to stay, and by ---- we mean it!”

Jimmy’s wits were at work. The danger was very close at hand, he felt that. He must change his tactics. He had depended too implicitly upon Connor’s fear of him, and had reckoned without the “Borough Lot.” From which of these men did danger threaten? He took their faces in in one comprehensive glance. He knew them--he had their black histories at his finger-tips. Then he saw a coat hanging on the wall at the farther end of the room. He recognized the garment instantly. It was Goyle’s. Where was the owner? He temporized.

“I haven’t the slightest desire to upset anybody’s plans,” he drawled, and started drawing on a white glove, as though about to depart. “I am willing to hear your views, but I would point out that I have an equal interest in the young lady, Connor.”

He gazed reflectively into the palm of his gloved hand as if admiring the fit. There was something so peculiar in this apparently innocent action, that Connor started forward with an oath.

“Quick, Goyle!” he shouted; but Jimmy was out of his chair and was standing with his back against the cupboard, and in Jimmy’s ungloved hand was an ugly black weapon that was all butt and barrel.

He waved them back, and they shrank away from him.

“Let me see you all,” he commanded, “none of your getting behind one another. I want to see what you are doing. Get away from that coat of yours, Bat, or I’ll put a bullet in your stomach.”

He had braced himself against the door in anticipation of the thrust of the man, but it seemed as though the prisoner inside had accepted the situation, for he made no sign.

“So you are all wondering how I knew about the cupboard,” he jeered. He held up the gloved hand, and in the palm something flashed back the light of the lamp.

Connor knew. The tiny mirror sewn in the palm of the sharper’s glove was recognized equipment.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Jimmy with a mocking laugh, “I must insist on having my way. Connor, you will please bring to me the lady you abducted this afternoon.”

Connor hesitated; then he intercepted a glance from Bat Sands, and sullenly withdrew from the room.

Jimmy did not speak till Connor had returned ushering in the white-faced girl. He saw that she looked faint and ill, and motioned one of the men to place a chair for her. What she saw amidst that forbidding group was a young man with a little Vandyke beard, who looked at her with grave, thoughtful eyes. He was a gentleman, she could see that, and her heart leapt within her as she realized that the presence of this man in the fashionably-cut clothes and the most unfashionable pistol meant deliverance from this horrible place.

“Miss Kent,” he said kindly.

She nodded, she could not trust herself to speak. The experience of the past few hours had almost reduced her to a state of collapse.

Jimmy saw the girl was on the verge of a breakdown.

“I am going to take you home,” he said, and added whimsically, “and cannot but feel that you have underrated your opportunities. Not often will you see gathered together so splendid a collection of our profession.” He waved his hand in introduction. “Bat Sands, Miss Kent, a most lowly thief, possibly worse. George Collroy, coiner and a ferocious villain. Vennis, who follows the lowest of all grades of dishonest livelihood--blackmailer. Here,” Jimmy went on, as he stepped aside from the cupboard, “is the gem of the collection. I will show you our friend who has so coyly effaced himself.” He addressed the occupant of the cupboard.

“Come out, Goyle,” he said sharply.

There was no response.

Jimmy pointed to one of the ruffians in the room.

“Open that door,” he commanded.

The man slunk forward and pulled the door open.

“Come out, Goyle,” he growled, then stepped back with blank astonishment stamped upon his face. “Why--why,” he gasped, “there’s nobody there!”

With a cry, Jimmy started forward. One glance convinced him that the man spoke the truth, and then----

There were keen wits in that crowd--men used to crises and quick to act. Bat Sands saw Jimmy’s attention diverted for a moment, and Jimmy’s pistol hand momentarily lowered. To think with Bat Sands was to act. Jimmy, turning back upon the “Lot,” saw the life-preserver descending, and leapt on one side; then, as he recovered, somebody threw a coat at the lamp, and the room was in darkness.

Jimmy reached out his hand and caught the girl by the arm. “Into that cupboard,” he whispered, pushing her into the recess from which Goyle had so mysteriously vanished. Then, with one hand on the edge of the door, he groped around with his pistol for his assailants. He could hear their breathing and the creak of the floorboards as they came toward him. He crouched down by the door, judging that the “kosh” would be aimed in a line with his head. By and by he heard the swish of the descending stick, and “crash!” the preserver struck the wall above him.

He was confronted with a difficulty; to fire would be to invite trouble. He had no desire to attract the attention of the police for many reasons. Unless the life of the girl was in danger he resolved to hold his fire, and when Ike Josephs, feeling cautiously forward with his stick, blundered into Jimmy, Ike suddenly dropped to the floor without a cry, because he had been hit a fairly vicious blow in that portion of the anatomy which is dignified with the title “solar plexus.”

It was just after this that he heard a startled little cry from the girl behind him, and then a voice that sent his heart into his mouth.

“All right! All right! All right!”

There was only one man who used that tag, and Jimmy’s heart rose up to bless his name in thankfulness.

“This way, Miss Kent,” said the voice, “mind the little step. Don’t be afraid of the gentleman on the floor, he’s handcuffed and strapped and gagged, and is perfectly harmless.”

Jimmy chuckled. The mystery of Angel’s intimate knowledge of the “Lot’s” plans and of Connor’s movements, the disappearance of Goyle, were all explained. He did not know for certain that the occupant of the “empty” house next door had industriously cut through the thin party-walls that separated the two houses, and had rigged up a “back” to the cupboard that was really a door, but he guessed it.

Then a blinding ray of light shot into the room where the “Borough Lot” still groped for its enemy, and a gentle voice said--

“Gentlemen, you may make your choice which way you go--out by the front door, where my friend, Inspector Collyer, with quite a large number of men, is waiting; or by the back door, where Sergeant Murtle and exactly seven plain-clothes men are impatiently expecting you.”

Bat recognized the voice.

“Angel Esquire!” he cried in consternation.

From the darkness behind the dazzling electric lamp that threw a narrow lane of light into the apartment came an amused chuckle.

“What is it,” asked Angel’s persuasive voice, “a cop?”

“It’s a fair cop,” said Bat truthfully.

Chapter V

The Cryptogram

Mr. Spedding looked at his watch. He stood upon the marble-tiled floor of the Great Deposit. High above his head, suspended from the beautiful dome, blazed a hundred lights from an ornate electrolier. He paced before the great pedestal that towered up from the center of the building, and the floor was criss-crossed with the shadows of the steel framework that encased it. But for the dozen chairs that were placed in a semicircle before the great granite base, the big hall was bare and unfurnished.

Mr. Spedding walked up and down, and his footsteps rang hollow; when he spoke the misty space of the building caught up his voice and sent down droning echoes.

“There is only the lady to come,” he said, looking at his watch again.

He spoke to the two men who sat at either extreme of the crescent of chairs. The one was Jimmy, a brooding, thoughtful figure; the other was Connor, ill at ease and subdued. Behind the chairs, at some distance, stood two men who looked like artisans, as indeed they were: at their feet lay a bag of tools, and on a small board a heap that looked like sand. At the door a stolid-looking commissionaire waited, his breast glittering with medals.

Footsteps sounded in the vestibule, the rustle of a woman’s dress, and Kathleen Kent entered, closely followed by Angel Esquire. At him the lawyer looked questioningly as he walked forward to greet the girl.

“Mr. Angel has kindly offered me his help,” she said timidly--then, recognizing Connor, her face flushed--“and if necessary, his protection.”

Mr. Spedding bowed.

“I hope you will not find this part of the ceremony trying,” he said in a low voice, and led the girl to a chair. Then he made a signal to the commissionaire.

“What is going to happen?” Kathleen whispered to her companion, and Angel shook his head.

“I can only guess,” he replied in the same tone.

He was looking up at the great safe wherein he knew was stored the wealth of the dead gambler, and wondering at the freakish ingenuity that planned and foresaw this strange scene. The creak of footsteps in the doorway made him turn his head. He saw a white-robed figure, and behind him a black-coated man in attendance, holding on a cushion a golden casket. Then the dread, familiar words brought him to his feet with a shiver:--

“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

The clergyman’s solemn voice resounded through the building, and the detective realized that the ashes of the dead man were coming to their last abiding-place. The slow procession moved toward the silent party. Slowly it paced toward the column; then, as the clergyman’s feet rang on the steel stairway that wound upward, he began the Psalm which of all others perhaps most fitted the passing of old Reale:--

“Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness.... Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin.... Behold, I was shapen in wickedness.... Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God....”

Half-way up the column a small gap yawned in the unbroken granite face, and into this the golden cabinet was pushed; then the workman, who had formed one of the little party that wound upward, lifted a smooth cube of polished granite.

“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed....”

The mason’s trowel grated on the edges of the cavity, the block of stone was thrust in until it was flush with the surface of the pedestal. Carved on the end of the stone were four words:--

Pulvis Cinis et Nihil.

It was when the workmen had been dismissed, and the lawyer was at the door bidding adieu to the priest whose strange duty had been performed, that Angel crossed to where Jimmy sat.

He caught Jimmy’s grim smile, and raised his eyes to where all that was mortal of Reale had been placed.

“The Latin?” asked Angel.

“Surprising, isn’t it?” said the other quietly. “Reale had seen things, you know. A man who travels picks up information.” He nodded toward the epitaph. “He got that idea at Toledo, in the cathedral there. Do you know it? A slab of brass over a dead king-maker, Portocarrero, ‘Hic jacet pulvis cinis et nihil.’ I translated it for him; the conceit pleased him. Sitting here, watching his strange funeral, I wondered if ‘pulvis cinis et nihil’ would come into it.”

And now Spedding came creaking back. The workmen had disappeared, the outer door was closed, and the commissionaire had retired to his room leading from the vestibule. In Spedding’s hand was a bundle of papers. He took his place with his back to the granite pedestal and lost no time in preliminaries.

“I have here the will of the late James Ryan Reale,” he began. “The contents of this will are known to every person here except Miss Kent.” He had a dry humor of his own, this lawyer, as his next words proved. “A week ago a very clever burglary was committed in my office: the safe was opened, a private dispatch box forced, and my papers ransacked. I must do my visitor justice”--he bowed slightly, first in the direction of Connor, then toward Jimmy--“and say that nothing was taken and practically nothing disturbed. There was plenty of evidence that the object of the burglary was to secure a sight of this will.”

Jimmy was unperturbed at the scarcely-veiled charge, and if he moved it was only with the object of taking up an easier position in the chair. Not even the shocked eyes of the girl that looked appealingly toward him caused him any apparent uneasiness.

“Go on,” he said, as the lawyer paused as though waiting for an admission. He was quietly amused. He knew very well now who this considerate burglar was.

“By copying this will the burglar or burglars obtained an unfair advantage over the other legatee or legatees.”

The stiff paper crackled noisily as he unfolded the document in his hand.

“I will formally read the will and afterwards explain it to such of you as need the explanation,” Spedding resumed.

The girl listened as the lawyer began to read. Confused by the legal terminology, the endless repetitions, and the chaotic verbiage of the instrument, she yet realized as the reading went on that this last will and testament of old Reale was something extraordinary. There was mention of houses and estates, freeholds and bonds ... “... and all the residue of any property whatsoever and wheresoever absolutely” that went to somebody. To whom she could not gather. Once she thought it was to herself, “to Francis Corydon Kent, Esquire, or the heirs of his body;” once it sounded as though this huge fortune was to be inherited by “James Cavendish Fairfax Stannard, Baronet of the United Kingdom.” She wondered if this was Jimmy, and remembered in a vague way that she had heard that the ninth baronet of that name was a person of questionable character. Then again it seemed as if the legatee was to be “Patrick George Connor.” There was a doggerel verse in the will that the lawyer gabbled through, and something about the great safe, then the lawyer came to an end. In the conventional declaration of the witnesses lay a sting that sent a dull red flush to Connor’s cheek and again provoked Jimmy’s grim smile.

The lawyer read:--

“Signed by the above James Ryan Reale as his last will and testament (the word ‘thief’ after ‘James Cavendish Fairfax Stannard, Baronet of the United Kingdom,’ and the word ‘thief’ after ‘Patrick George Connor,’ in the twentieth and twenty-third lines from the top hereof, having been deleted), in the presence of us....”

The lawyer folded the will perversely and put it in his pocket. Then he took four slips of paper from an envelope.

“It is quite clear to you gentlemen.” He did not wait for the men’s reply, but went on addressing the bewildered girl.

“To you, Miss Kent, I am afraid the will is not so clear. I will explain it in a few words. My late client was the owner of a gambling establishment. Thus he amassed a huge fortune, which he has left to form, if I may so put it, a large prize fund. The competitors are yourselves. Frankly, it is a competition between the dupes, or the heirs of the dupes, who were ruined by my late client, and the men who helped in the fleecing.”

The lawyer spoke dispassionately, as though expounding some hypothesis, but there was that in his tone which made Connor wince.

“Your father, my dear young lady, was one of these dupes many years ago--you must have been at school at the time. He became suddenly a poor man.”

The girl’s face grew hard.

“So that was how it happened,” she said slowly.

“That is how it happened,” the lawyer repeated gravely. “Your father’s fortune was one of four great fortunes that went into the coffers of my late client.” The formal description of Reale seemed to lend him an air of respectability. “The other three have long since died, neither of them leaving issue. You are the sole representative of the victims. These gentlemen are--let us say--in opposition. This safe,” he waved his hand toward the great steel room that crowned the granite column, “contains the fortune. The safe itself is the invention of my late client. Where the lock should be are six dials, on each of which are the letters of the alphabet. The dials are ranged one inside the other, and on one side is a steel pointer. A word of six letters opens the safe. By turning the dials so that the letters come opposite the pointer, and form this word, the door is opened.”

He stopped to wipe his forehead, for in the energy of his explanation he had become hot. Then he resumed--

“What that word is, is for you to discover. My late client, who had a passion for acrostics and puzzles and inventions of every kind, has left a doggerel verse which he most earnestly assured me contained the solution.”

He handed a slip first to the girl and then to the others. For a moment the world swam before Kathleen’s eyes. All that hinged upon that little verse came home to her. Carefully conning each word, as if in fear of its significance escaping her, she read:--

“Here’s a puzzle in language old, Find my meaning and get my gold. Take one Bolt--just one, no more-- Fix it on behind a Door. Place it at a river’s Mouth East or west or north or south. Take some Leaves and put them whole In some water in a Bowl. I found this puzzle in a book From which some mighty truths were took.”

She read again and yet again, the others watching her. With every reading she seemed to get further from the solution of the mystery, and she turned in despair to Angel.

“I can make nothing of it,” she cried helplessly, “nothing, nothing, nothing.”

“It is, with due respect to my late client, the veriest doggerel,” said the lawyer frankly, “and yet upon that the inheritance of the whole of his fortune depends.”

He had noticed that neither Connor nor Jimmy had read the slips he had handed to them.

“The paper I have given you is a facsimile reproduction of the original copy, and that may be inspected at any time at my office.”

The girl was scanning the rhyme in an agony of perplexity.

“I shall never do it,” she said in despair.

Angel took the paper gently from her hand.

“Don’t attempt it,” he said kindly. “There is plenty of time. I do not think that either of your rival competitors have gained anything by the advantage they have secured. I also have had in my possession a copy of the rhyme for the past week.”

The girl’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“You?” she said.

Angel’s explanation was arrested by a singular occurrence.

Connor sat at one end of the row of chairs moodily eying the paper. Jimmy, thoughtfully stroking his beard at the other end, suddenly rose and walked to where his brooding confederate sat. The man shrunk back as he approached, and Jimmy, seating himself by his side, bent forward and said something in a low voice. He spoke rapidly, and Angel, watching them closely, saw a look of incredulous surprise come into Connor’s face. Then wrath and incredulity mingled, and Connor sprang up, striking the back of the chair with his fist.

“What?” he roared. “Give up a chance of a fortune? I’ll see you----”

Jimmy’s voice never rose, but he gripped Connor’s arm and pulled him down into his chair.

“I won’t! I won’t! D’ye think I’m going to throw away----”

Jimmy released the man’s arm and rose with a shrug of his shoulders.

He walked to where Kathleen was standing.

“Miss Kent,” he said, and hesitated. “It is difficult for me to say what I have to say; but I want to tell you that so far as I am concerned the fortune is yours. I shall make no claim to it, and I will afford you every assistance that lies in my power to discover the word that is hidden in the verse.”

The girl made no reply. Her lips were set tight, and the hard look that Angel had noticed when the lawyer had referred to her father came back again.

Jimmy waited a moment for her to speak, but she made no sign, and with a slight bow he walked toward the door.

“Stop!”

It was Kathleen that spoke, and Jimmy turned and waited.

“As I understand this will,” she said slowly, “you are one of the men to whom my father owed his ruin.”

His eyes met hers unfalteringly.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“One of the men that I have to thank for years of misery and sorrow,” she continued. “When I saw my father slowly sinking, a broken-hearted man, weighed down with the knowledge of the folly that had brought his wife and child to comparative poverty; when I saw my father die, crushed in spirit by his misfortunes, I never thought I should meet the man who brought his ruin about.”

Still Jimmy’s gaze did not waver. Impassive, calm and imperturbable, he listened unmoved to the bitter indictment.

“This will says you were a man of my father’s own class, one who knew the tricks by which a gentle, simple man, with a childish faith in such men as you, might be lured into temptation.”

Jimmy made no reply, and the girl went on in biting tones--

“A few days ago you helped me to escape from men whom you introduced with an air of superiority as thieves and blackmailers. That it was you who rendered me this service I shall regret to the end of my days. You! You! You!” She flung out her hand scornfully. “If they were thieves, what are you? A gambler’s tout? A decoy? A harpy preying on the weakness of your unfortunate fellows?”

She turned to Connor.

“Had this man offered me his help I might have accepted it. Had he offered to forego his claim to this fortune I might have been impressed by his generosity. From you, whom God gave advantages of birth and education, and who utilized them to bring ruin and disaster on such men as my father, the offer is an insult!”

Jimmy’s face was deadly pale, but he made no sign. Only his eyes shone brighter, and the hand that twisted the point of his beard twitched nervously.

The girl turned to Angel wearily. Her outburst and the tension of the evening had exhausted her.

“Will you take me home, Mr. Angel?” she said.

She offered her hand to the lawyer, who had been an interested observer of the scene, and ignoring the two men, she turned to go.

Then Jimmy spoke.

“I do not attempt to excuse myself, Miss Kent,” he said evenly; “for my life and my acts I am unaccountable to man or woman. Your condemnation makes it neither easier nor harder to live my life. Your charity might have made a difference.”

He held out a detaining hand, for Kathleen had gathered up her skirts to move away.

“I have considered your question fairly. I am one of the men to whom your father owed his ruin, insomuch as I was one of Reale’s associates. I am _not_ one of the men, insomuch as I used my every endeavor to dissuade your father from taking the risks he took.”

The humor of some recollection took hold of him, and a grim little smile came into his face.

“You say I betrayed your father,” he said in the same quiet tone. “As a fact I betrayed Reale. I was at trouble to explain to your father the secret of Reale’s electric roulette table; I demonstrated the futility of risking another farthing.” He laughed. “I have said I would not excuse myself, and here I am pleading like a small boy, ‘If you please, it wasn’t me,’” he said a little impatiently; and then he added abruptly, “I will not detain you,” and walked away.

He knew instinctively that she waited a moment hesitating for a reply, then he heard the rustle of her dress and knew she had gone. He stood looking upward to where the graven granite set marked the ashes of Reale, until her footsteps had died away and the lawyer’s voice broke the silence.

“Now, Sir James----” he began, and Jimmy spun round with an oath, his face white with passion.

“Jimmy,” he said in a harsh voice, “Jimmy is my name, and I want to hear no other, if you please.”

Mr. Spedding, used as he was to the wayward phases of men, was a little startled at the effect of his words, and hastened to atone for his blunder.

“I--I beg your pardon,” he said quickly. “I merely wished to say----”

Jimmy did not wait to hear what he said, but turned upon Connor.

“I’ve got a few words to say to you,” he said. His voice had gone back to its calm level, but there was a menace in its quietness.

“When I persuaded Angel to give you a chance to get away on the night the ‘Borough Lot’ was arrested, I hoped I could get you to agree with me that the money should be handed to Miss Kent when the word was found. I knew in my inmost heart that this was a forlorn hope,” he went on, “that there is no gold in the quartz of your composition. You are just beast all through.”

He paced the floor of the hall for a minute or two, then he stopped.

“Connor,” he said suddenly, “you tried to take my life the other night. I have a mind to retaliate. You may go ahead and puzzle out the word that unlocks that safe. Get it by any means that suggest themselves to you. Steal it, buy it--do anything you wish. The day you secure the key to Reale’s treasure I shall kill you.”

He talked like a man propounding a simple business proposition, and the lawyer, who in his early youth had written a heavy little paper on “The Congenital Criminal,” listened and watched, and, in quite a respectable way, gloated.

Jimmy picked up his hat and coat from a chair, and nodding to the lawyer, strolled out of the hall.

In the vestibule where the one commissionaire had been were six. Every man was a non-commissioned officer, and, as was apparent from his medals, had seen war service. Jimmy noted the belt about each man and the dangling revolver holster, and approved of the lawyer’s precaution.

“Night guard, sergeant-major?” he asked, addressing one whose crowned sleeve showed his rank.

“Day and night guard, sir,” replied the officer quietly.

“Good,” said Jimmy, and passed out into the street.

And now only the lawyer and Connor remained, and as Jimmy left, they too prepared for departure.

The lawyer was mildly interested in the big, heavy criminal who walked by his side. He was a fairly familiar type of the bull-headed desperado.

“There is nothing I can explain?” asked Spedding, as they stood together in the vestibule.

Connor’s eyes were on the guard, and he frowned a little.

“You don’t trust us very much,” he said.

“I don’t trust you at all,” said the lawyer.

Chapter VI

The Red Envelope

Mr. Spedding, the admirable lawyer, lived on Clapham Common, where he owned the freehold of that desirable residence, “High Holly Lodge.”

He was a bachelor, with a taste for bridge parties and Madeira. Curious neighbors would have been mystified if they had known that Mr. Spedding’s repair bill during the first two years of his residence was something well over three thousand pounds. What they _did_ know was that Mr. Spedding “had the builders in” for an unconscionable time, that they were men who spoke in a language entirely foreign to Clapham, and that they were housed during the period of renovation in a little galvanized iron bungalow erected for the purpose in the grounds.

A neighbor on visiting terms expressed his opinion that for all the workmen had done he could discern no material difference in the structure of the house, and from his point of view the house presented the same appearance after the foreign builders left, as it did before their advent. Mr. Spedding met all carelessly-applied questions concerning the extent of the structural alterations with supreme discretion. He spoke vaguely about a new system of ventilation, and hinted at warmth by radiation.

Suburbia loves to show off its privately conceived improvements to property, but Mr. Spedding met veiled hints of a desire to inspect his work with that comfortable smile which was so valuable an asset of his business.

It was a few evenings after the scene in the Lombard Street Deposit that Mr. Spedding sat in solitude before his modest dinner at Clapham.

An evening newspaper lay by the side of his chair, and he picked it up at intervals to read again the paragraph which told of the release of the “Borough Lot.” The paragraph read:--

“The men arrested in connection with the gambling raid at Poplar were discharged to-day, the police, it is understood, failing to secure sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution.”

The lawyer shook his head doubtfully.

“I rather like Angel Esquire’s definition,” he said with a wry smile. “It is a neat method of saving the face of the police, but I could wish that the ‘Borough Lot’ were out of the way.”

Later he had occasion to change his opinion.

A tap at the door preceded the entry of a sedate butler. The lawyer looked at the card on the tray, and hesitated; then, “Show him in,” he said.

Jimmy came into the room, and bowed slightly to the elder man, who rose at his entrance.

They waited in silence till the servant had closed the door behind him.

“To what am I indebted?” began the lawyer, and motioned his visitor to a seat.

“May I smoke?” asked Jimmy, and Mr. Spedding nodded.

“It is in the matter of Reale’s millions,” said Jimmy, and allowed his eyes to follow the cloud of smoke he blew.

“I thought it was understood that this was a subject which might only be discussed at my office and in business hours?” said the lawyer sharply, and Jimmy nodded again.

“You will confess, Mr. Spedding,” he said easily, “that the Reale will is sufficiently unconventional to justify any departure from established custom on the part of the fortunate or unfortunate legatees.”

Mr. Spedding made an impatient movement of his hand.

“I do not inquire into your business,” Jimmy went on smoothly enough, “and I am wholly incurious as to in what strange manner you became acquainted with your late client, or what fees you received to undertake so extraordinary a commission; but I am satisfied that you are recompensed for such trifling inconveniences as--say an after-dinner visit from myself.”

Jimmy had a way of choosing his words, hesitating for the exact expression that would best convey every shade of his meaning. The lawyer, too, recognized the logic of the speech, and contented himself with a shrug which meant nothing.

“I do not inquire into your motives,” Jimmy resumed; “it pleases me to believe that they are entirely disinterested, that your attitude is the ideal one as between client and agent.”

His pause was longer this time, and the lawyer was piqued into interjecting an impatient--

“Well?”

“Well,” said Jimmy slowly, “believing all this, let us say, I am at a loss to know why at the reading of the will you gave us no indication of the existence of a key to this mysterious verse.”

“There is no key,” said the lawyer quickly, and added, “so far as I know.”

“That you did not tell us,” Jimmy went on, as though unconscious of any interruption, “of the big red envelope----”

Spedding sprang to his feet white as death.

“The envelope,” he stammered angrily, “what do you know--what envelope?”

Jimmy’s hand waved him to his seat.

“Let us have no emotions, no flights, no outraged honor, I beg of you, dear Mr. Spedding. I do not suggest that you have any sinister reasons for withholding information concerning what my friend Angel would call the ‘surprise packet.’ In good time I do not doubt you would have disclosed its existence.”

“I know of no red envelope,” said the lawyer doggedly.

“I rather fancied you would say that,” said Jimmy, with a touch of admiration in his tone. “You are not the sort of fox to curl up and howl at the first bay of the hound--if you will permit the simile--indeed, you would have disappointed me if you had.”

The lawyer paced the room.

“Look here,” he said, coming to a halt before the semi-recumbent form that lay behind a haze of cigarette smoke in the arm-chair, “you’ve spent a great deal of your time telling me what I am, describing my many doubtful qualities, and hinting more or less broadly that I am a fairly representative scoundrel. May I ask what is your ultimate object? Is it blackmail?” he demanded harshly.

“No,” said Jimmy, by no means disconcerted by the brutality of the question.

“Are you begging, or borrowing, or----”

“Stealing?” murmured Jimmy lazily.

“All that I have to say to you is, finish your business and go. Furthermore, you are at liberty to come with me to-morrow morning and search my office and question my clerks. I will accompany you to my banks, and to the strong-room I rent at the deposit. Search for this red envelope you speak about, and if you find it, you are at liberty to draw the worst deductions you will.”

Jimmy pulled gently at his cigarette with reflective eyes cast upward to the ceiling.

“Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.

“No,” said the other impatiently.

“It’s a pity,” said Jimmy, with a note of genuine regret. “Spanish is a very useful language--especially in the Argentine, for which delightful country, I understand, lawyers who betray their trust have an especial predilection. My Spanish needs a little furbishing, and only the other day I was practising with a man whose name, I believe, is Murrello. Do you know him?”

“If you have completed your business, I will ring for the servant,” said the lawyer.

“He told me--my Spaniard, I mean--a curious story. He comes from Barcelona, and by way of being a mason or something of the sort, was brought to England with some other of his fellow-countrymen to make some curious alterations to the house of a Señor in--er--Clapham of all places in the world.”

The lawyer’s breath came short and fast.

“From what I was able to gather,” Jimmy went on languidly, “and my Spanish is Andalusian rather than Catalonian, so that I missed some of his interesting narrative, these alterations partook of the nature of wonderfully concealed strong-rooms--steel doors artfully covered with cheap wood carving, vaults cunningly constructed beneath innocent basement kitchens, little stairways in apparently solid walls and the like.”

The levity went out of his voice, and he straightened himself in his chair.

“I have no desire to search your office,” he said quietly, “or perhaps I should say no further desire, for I have already methodically examined every hole and corner. No,” he checked the words on Spedding’s lips, “no, it was not I who committed the blundering burglary you spoke of. You never found traces of me, I’ll swear. You may keep the keys of your strong-room, and I shall not trouble your bankers.”

“What do you want?” demanded the lawyer shortly.

“I want to see what you have got downstairs,” was the reply, and there was no doubting its earnestness, “and more especially do I want to see the red envelope.”

The lawyer bent his brows in thought. His eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Jimmy’s.

“Suppose,” he said slowly, “suppose that such an envelope did exist, suppose for the sake of argument these mysterious vaults and secret chambers are, as you suggest, in existence, what right have you, more than any other one of the beneficiaries under the will, to demand a private examination? Why should I give you an unfair advantage over them?”

Jimmy rose to his feet and stretched himself before replying.

“There is only one legatee whom I recognize,” he said briefly, “that is the girl. The money is hers. I do not want a farthing. I am equally determined that nobody else shall touch a penny--neither my young friend Connor”--he stopped to give emphasis to the next two words--“nor yourself.”

“Sir!” said the outraged Mr. Spedding.

“Nor yourself, Mr. Spedding,” repeated Jimmy with conviction. “Let us understand each other thoroughly. You are, as I read you, a fairly respectable citizen. I would trust you with ten or a hundred thousand pounds without experiencing the slightest anxiety. I would not trust you with two millions in solid cash, nor would I trust any man. The magnitude of the sum is calculated to overwhelm your moral sense. The sooner the red envelope is in the possession of Angel Esquire the better for us all.”

Spedding stood with bent head, his fingers nervously stroking his jaw, thinking.

“An agile mind this,” thought Jimmy; “if I am not careful there will be trouble here.”

He watched the lawyer’s face, and noticed the lines suddenly disappear from the troubled face, and the placid smile returning.

“Conciliation and partial confession,” judged Jimmy, and his diagnosis was correct.

“Well, Mr. Jimmy,” said Spedding, with some show of heartiness, “since you know so much, it may be as well to tell you more. As you have so cleverly discovered, my house to a great extent is a strong-room. There are many valuable documents that I could not with any confidence leave deposited at my office. They are safer here under my eye, so to speak. The papers of the late Mr. Reale are, I confess, in this house; but--now mark me--whether the red envelope you speak of is amongst these I do not know. There is a multitude of documents in connection with the case, all of which I have had no time to go through. The hour is late, but----”

He paused irresolutely.

“----If you would care to inspect the mysteries of the basement”--he smiled benevolently, and was his old self--“I shall be happy to have your assistance in a cursory search.”

Jimmy was alert and watchful and to the point.

“Lead the way,” he said shortly, and Spedding, after a moment’s hesitation, opened the door and Jimmy followed him into the hall.

Contrary to his expectations, the lawyer led him upstairs, and through a plainly furnished bedroom to a small dressing-room that opened off. There was a conventional wardrobe against the wall, and this Spedding opened. A dozen suits hung from hooks and stretchers, and the lawyer groped amongst these for a moment. Then there was a soft click, and the back of the wardrobe swung back.

Spedding turned to his visitor with a quizzical smile.

“Your friend Angel’s method of gaining admittance to the haunt of the ‘Borough Lot’ was not original. Come.”

Jimmy stepped gingerly through into the darkness. He heard the snap of a button, and a soft glow of light revealed a tiny chamber, in which two men might comfortably stand upright. The back of the wardrobe closed, and they were alone in a little room about as large as an average cupboard.

There was a steel lever on one side of the walls, and this the lawyer pulled cautiously. Jimmy felt a sinking sensation, and heard a faint, far-off buzzing of machinery.

“An electric lift, I take it,” he said quietly.

“An electric lift,” repeated the lawyer.

Down, down, down they sank, till Jimmy calculated that they must be at least twenty feet below the street level. Then the lift slowed down and stopped at a door. Spedding opened this with a key he took from his pocket, and they stepped out into a chill, earthy darkness.

“There’s a light here,” said the lawyer, and groped for the switch.

They were in a large vaulted apartment lit from the roof. At one end a steel door faced them, and ranged about the vault on iron racks a number of black japanned boxes.

Jimmy noted the inscriptions, and was a little surprised at the extent and importance of the solicitor’s practice. Spedding must have read his thoughts, for he turned with a smile.

“Not particularly suggestive of a defaulting solicitor,” he said ironically.

“Two million pounds,” replied Jimmy immediately, “that is my answer to you, Mr. Spedding. An enormous fortune for the reaching. I wouldn’t trust the Governors of the Bank of England.”

Spedding may have been annoyed as he walked to the door in the wall and opened it, but he effectively concealed his annoyance.

As the door fell backward, Jimmy saw a little apartment, four feet by six feet, with a roof he could touch with his hand. There was a fresh current of air, but from whence it came he could not discover. The only articles of furniture in the little cell were a writing table and a swing chair placed exactly beneath the electric lamp in the roof.

Spedding pulled open a drawer in the desk.

“I do not keep my desks locked here,” he said pleasantly enough.

It was characteristic of him that he indulged in no preamble, no apologetic preliminaries, and that he showed no sign of embarrassment as he slipped his hand into the drawer, and drawing forth a bulky red envelope, threw it on to the desk.

You might have forgotten that his last words were denials that the red envelope had existed. Jimmy looked at him curiously, and the lawyer returned his gaze.

“A new type?” he asked.

“Hardly,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “I once knew a man like you in the Argentine--he was hanged eventually.”

“Curious,” mused the lawyer, “I have often thought I might be hanged, but have never quite seen why----” He nearly added something else, but checked himself.

Jimmy had the red envelope in his hand and was examining it closely. It was heavily sealed with the lawyer’s own seal, and bore the inscription in Reale’s crabbed, illiterate handwriting, “Puzzle Ideas.” He weighed it and pinched it. There was a little compact packet inside.

“I shall open this,” said Jimmy decisively. “You, of course, have already examined it.”

The lawyer made no reply.

Jimmy broke the seal of the envelope. Half his mind was busy in speculation as to its contents, the other half was engaged with the lawyer’s plans. Jimmy was too experienced a man to be deceived by the complaisance of the smooth Mr. Spedding. He watched his every move. All the while he was engaged in what appeared to be a concentrated examination of the packet his eyes never left the lawyer. That Spedding made no sign was a further proof in Jimmy’s eyes that the coup was to come.

“We might as well examine the envelope upstairs as here,” said the lawyer. The other man nodded, and followed him from the cell. Spedding closed the steel door and locked it, then turned to Jimmy.

“Do you notice,” he said with some satisfaction, “how skilfully this chamber is constructed?” He waved his hand round the larger vault, at the iron racks and the shiny black boxes.

Jimmy was alert now. The lawyer’s geniality was too gratuitous, his remarks a trifle inapropos. It was like the lame introduction to a story which the teller was anxious to drag in at all hazards.

“Here, for instance,” said the lawyer, tapping one of the boxes, “is what appears to be an ordinary deed box. As a matter of fact, it is an ingenious device for trapping burglars, if they should by any chance reach the vault. It is not opened by an ordinary key, but by the pressure of a button, either in my room or here.”

He walked leisurely to the end of the vault, Jimmy following.

For a man of his build Spedding was a remarkably agile man. Jimmy had underrated his agility.

He realized this when suddenly the lights went out. Jimmy sprang for the lawyer, and struck the rough stone wall of the vault. He groped quickly left and right, and grasped only the air.

“Keep quiet,” commanded Spedding’s calm voice from the other end of the chamber, “and keep cool. I am going to show you my burglar catcher.”

Jimmy’s fingers were feeling along the wall for the switch that controlled the lights. As if divining his intention, the lawyer’s voice said--

“The lights are out of control, Jimmy, and I am fairly well out of your reach.”

“We shall see,” was Jimmy’s even reply.

“And if you start shooting you will only make the atmosphere of this place a little more unbreathable than it is at present,” Spedding went on.

Jimmy smiled in the darkness, and the lawyer heard the snap of a Colt pistol as his captive loaded.

“Did you notice the little ventilator?” asked the lawyer’s voice again. “Well, I am behind that. Between my unworthy body and your nickel bullets there are two feet of solid masonry.”

Jimmy made no reply, his pistol went back to his hip again. He had his electric lamp in his pocket, but prudently kept it there.

“Before we go any further,” he said slowly, “will you be good enough to inform me as to your intentions?”

He wanted three minutes, he wanted them very badly; perhaps two minutes would be enough. All the time the lawyer was speaking he was actively employed. He had kicked off his shoes when the lights went out, and now he stole round the room, his sensitive hands flying over the stony walls.

“As to my intentions,” the lawyer was saying, “it must be fairly obvious to you that I am not going to hand you over to the police. Rather, my young friend, in the vulgar parlance of the criminal classes, I am going to ‘do you in,’ meaning thereby, if you will forgive the legal terminology, that I shall assist you to another and, I hope, though I am not sanguine, a better world.”

He heard Jimmy’s insolent laugh in the blackness.

“You are a man after my own heart, Jimmy,” he went on regretfully. “I could have wished that I might have been spared this painful duty; but it is a duty, one that I owe to society and myself.”

“You are an amusing person,” said Jimmy’s voice.

“I am glad you think so. Jimmy, my young friend, I am afraid our conversation must end here. Do you know anything of chemistry?”

“A little.”

“Then you will appreciate my burglar catcher,” said Spedding, with uncanny satisfaction. “You, perhaps, noticed the japanned box with the perforated lid? You did? Good! There are two compartments, and two chemicals in certain quantities kept apart. My hand is on the key now that will combine them. When cyanide of potassium is combined with sulphuric acid, do you know what gas is formed?”

Jimmy did not reply. He had found what he had been searching for. His talk with the Spanish builder had been to some purpose. It was a little stony projection from the wall. He pressed it downward, and was sensible of a sensation of coldness. He reached out his hand, and found where solid wall had been a blank space.

“Do you hear, Jimmy?” asked the lawyer’s voice.

“I hear,” replied Jimmy, and felt for the edge of the secret door. His fingers sliding down the smooth surface of the flange encountered the two catches.

“It is hydrocyanic acid,” said the lawyer’s smooth voice, and Jimmy heard the snap of the button.

“Good-by,” said the lawyer’s voice again, and Jimmy reeled back through the open doorway swinging the door behind him, and carrying with him a whiff of air heavily laden with the scent of almonds.

Chapter VII

What The Red Envelope Held

“My dear Angel,” wrote Jimmy, “I commend to you one Mr. Spedding, an ingenious man. If by chance you ever wish to visit him, do so in business hours. If you desire to examine his most secret possession, effect an entrance into a dreary-looking house at the corner of Cley’s Road, a stone’s-throw from ‘High Holly Lodge.’ It is marked in plain characters ‘To Let.’ In the basement you will find a coal-cellar. Searching the coal-cellar diligently, you will discover a flight of stone steps leading to a subterranean passage, which burrows under the ground until it arrives at friend Spedding’s particular private vault. If this reads like a leaf torn from Dumas or dear Harrison Ainsworth it is not my fault. I visited our legal adviser last night, and had quite a thrilling evening. That I am alive this morning is a tribute to my caution and foreseeing wisdom. The result of my visit is this: I have the key of the ‘safe-word’ in my hands. Come and get it.”

Angel found the message awaiting him when he reached Scotland Yard that morning. He too had spent sleepless hours in a futile attempt to unravel the mystery of old Reale’s doggerel verse.

A telegram brought Kathleen Kent to town. Angel met her at a quiet restaurant in Rupert Street, and was struck by the delicate beauty of this slim girl with the calm, gray eyes.

She greeted him with a sad little smile.

“I was afraid you would never see me again after my outburst of the other night,” she said. “This--this--person is a friend of yours?”

“Jimmy?” asked the detective cheerily. “Oh, yes, Jimmy’s by way of being a friend; but he deserved all you said, and he knows it, Miss Kent.”

The girl’s face darkened momentarily as she thought of Jimmy.

“I shall never understand,” she said slowly, “how a man of his gifts allowed himself to become----”

“But,” protested the detective, “he told you he took no part in the decoying of your father.”

The girl turned with open-eyed astonishment.

“Surely you do not expect me to believe his excuses,” she cried.

Angel Esquire looked grave.

“That is just what I should ask you to believe,” he said quietly. “Jimmy makes no excuses, and he would certainly tell no lie in extenuation of his faults.”

“But--but,” said Kathleen, bewildered, “he is a thief by his own showing--a bad man.”

“A thief,” said Angel soberly, “but not a bad man. Jimmy is a puzzle to most people. To me he is perfectly understandable; that is because I have too much of the criminal in my own composition, perhaps.”

“I wish, oh, how I wish I had your faith in him! Then I could absolve him from suspicion of having helped ruin my poor father.”

“I think you can do that,” said the detective almost eagerly. “Believe me, Jimmy is not to be judged by conventional standards. If you ask me to describe him, I would say that he is a genius who works in an eccentric circle that sometimes overlaps, sometimes underreaches the rigid circle of the law. If you asked me as a policeman, and if I was his bitterest enemy, what I could do with Jimmy, I should say, ‘Nothing.’ I know of no crime with which I could charge him, save at times with associating with doubtful characters. As a matter of fact, that equally applies to me. Listen, Miss Kent. The first big international case I figured in was a gigantic fraud on the Egyptian Bank. Some four hundred thousand pounds were involved, and whilst from the outsider’s point of view Jimmy was beyond suspicion, yet we who were working at the case suspected him, and pretty strongly. The men who owned the bank were rich Egyptians, and the head of all was a Somebody-or-other Pasha, as great a scoundrel as ever drew breath. It is impossible to tell a lady exactly how big a scoundrel he was, but you may guess. Well, the Pasha knew it was Jimmy who had done the trick, and we knew, but we dare not say so. The arrest of Jimmy would have automatically ruined the banker. That was where I realized the kind of man I had to deal with, and I am always prepared when Jimmy’s name is mentioned in connection with a big crime to discover that his victim deserved all he got, and a little more.”

The girl gave a little shiver.

“It sounds dreadful. Cannot such a man as that employ his talents to a greater advantage?”

Angel shrugged his shoulders despairingly.

“I’ve given up worrying about misapplied talents; it is a subject that touches me too closely,” he said. “But as to Jimmy, I’m rather glad you started the conversation in that direction, because I’m going to ask you to meet him to-day.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t,” she began.

“You are thinking of what happened on the night the will was read? Well, you must forget that. Jimmy has the key to the verse, and it is absolutely imperative that you should be present this afternoon.”

With some demur, she consented.

* * * * *

In the sitting-room of Jimmy’s flat the three sat round a table littered with odds and ends of papers.

The girl had met him with some trepidation, and his distant bow had done more to assure her than had he displayed a desire to rehabilitate himself in her good opinion.

Without any preliminaries, Jimmy showed the contents of the packet. He did not explain to the girl by what means he had come into possession of them.

“Of all these papers,” began Jimmy, tapping the letter before him, “only one is of any service, and even that makes confusion worse confounded. Reale had evidently had this cursed cryptogram in his mind for a long time. He had made many experiments, and rejected many. Here is one.”

He pushed over a card, which bore a few words in Reale’s characteristic hand.

Angel read:--

“The word of five letters I will use, namely:

1. White every 24 sec. 2. Fixed white and red. 3. White group two every 30 sec. 4. Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec. 5. Fixed white and red.”

Underneath was written: “No good; too easy.”

The detective’s brows were bent in perplexity.

“I’m blessed if I can see where the easiness comes in,” he said. “To me it seems so much gibberish, and as difficult as the other.”

Jimmy noted the detective’s bewilderment with a quiet smile of satisfaction. He did not look directly at the girl, but out of the corner of his eyes he could see her eager young face bent over the card, her pretty forehead wrinkled in a despairing attempt to decipher the curious document.

“Yet it was easy,” he said, “and if Reale had stuck to that word, the safe would have been opened by now.”

Angel pored over the mysterious clue.

“The word, as far as I can gather,” said Jimmy, “is ‘smock,’ but it may be----”

“How on earth----” began Angel in amazement.

“Oh, it’s easy,” said Jimmy cheerfully, “and I am surprised that an old traveler like yourself should have missed it.”

“Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec.,” read Angel.

Jimmy laughed.

It was the first time the girl had seen this strange man throw aside his habitual restraint, and she noted with an unaccountable satisfaction that he was decidedly handsome when amused.

“Let me translate it for you,” said Jimmy. “Let me expand it into, ‘Group occulting White with Red Sectors every Thirty Seconds.’ Now do you understand?”

Angel shook his head.

“You may think I am shockingly dense,” he said frankly, “but even with your lucid explanation I am still in the dark.”

Jimmy chuckled.

“Suppose you went to Dover to-night, and sat at the end of the Admiralty Pier. It is a beautiful night, with stars in the sky, and you are looking toward France, and you see----?”

“Nothing,” said Angel slowly; “a few ships’ lights, perhaps, and the flash of the Calais Lighthouse----”

“The occulting flash?” suggested Jimmy.

“The occ.! By Jove!”

“Glad you see it,” said Jimmy briskly. “What old Reale did was to take the names of five famous lights--any nautical almanac will give you them:

Sanda. Milford Haven. Orkneys. Caldy Island. Kinnaird Head.

They form an acrostic, and the initial letters form the work ‘smock’; but it was too easy--and too hard, because there are two or three lights, particularly the fixed lights, that are exactly the same, so he dropped _that_ idea.”

Angel breathed an admiring sigh.

“Jimmy, you’re a wonder,” he said simply.

Jimmy, busying himself amongst the papers, stole a glance at the girl.

“I am very human,” he thought, and was annoyed at the discovery.

“Now we come to the more important clue,” he said, and smoothed a crumpled paper on the table.

“This, I believe, to have a direct bearing on the verse.”

Then three heads came close together over the scrawled sheet.

“A picture of a duck, which means T,” spelt Angel, “and that’s erased; and then it is a snake that means T----”

Jimmy nodded.

“In Reale’s verse,” he said deliberately, “there are six words; outside of those six words I am convinced the verse has no meaning. Six words strung together, and each word in capitals. Listen.”

He took from his pocketbook the familiar slip on which the verse was written:--

“Here’s a puzzle in language old, Find my meaning and get my gold. Take one BOLT--just one, no more-- Fix it on behind a DOOR. Place it at a river’s MOUTH East or west or north or south. Take some LEAVES and put them whole In some WATER in a BOWL. I found this puzzle in a book From which some mighty truths were took.”

“There are six words,” said Jimmy, and scribbled them down as he spoke:--

“Bolt (or Bolts). Leave (or Leaves). Door. Water. Mouth. Bowl.

Each one stands for a letter--but what letter?”

“It’s rather hopeless if the old man has searched round for all sorts of out-of-the-way objects, and allowed them to stand for letters of the alphabet,” said Angel.

The girl murmured something, and met Jimmy’s inquiring eyes.

“I was only saying,” she said hesitatingly, “that there seems to be a method in all this.”

“Except,” said Jimmy, “for this,” and he pointed to the crossed-out duck. “By that it would seem that Reale chose his symbols haphazard, and that the duck not pleasing him, he substituted the snake.”

“But,” said Kathleen, addressing Angel, “doesn’t it seem strange that an illiterate man like Mr. Reale should make even these rough sketches unless he had a model to draw from?”

“Miss Kent is right,” said Jimmy quickly.

“And,” she went on, gaining confidence as she spoke, “is there not something about these drawings that reminds you of something?”

“Of what?” asked Angel.

“I cannot tell,” she replied, shaking her head; “and yet they remind me of something, and worry me, just as a bar of music that I cannot play worries me. I feel sure that I have seen them before, that they form a part of some system----” She stopped suddenly.

“I know,” she continued in a lower voice; “they are associated in my mind--with--with the Bible.”

The two men stared at her in blank astonishment. Then Jimmy sprang to his feet, alight with excitement.

“Yes, yes,” he cried. “Angel, don’t you see? The last two lines of Reale’s doggerel--

“‘I found this puzzle in a book From which some mighty truths were took.’”

“Go on, go on, Miss Kent,” cried Angel eagerly. “You are on the right track. Try to think----”

Kathleen hesitated, then turned to Jimmy to address the first remark she had directed to him personally that day.

“You haven’t got----?”

Jimmy’s smile was a little hard.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Kent, but I _have_ got a copy,” he said, with a touch of bitterness in his tone. He walked to the bookcase at one end of the room and reached down the book--a well-worn volume--and placed it before her.

The rebuke in his voice was deserved, she felt that.

She turned the leaves over quickly, but inspiration seemed to have died, for there was nothing in the sacred volume that marshaled her struggling thoughts.

“Is it a text?” asked Angel.

She shook her head.

“It is--something,” she said. “That sounds vague, doesn’t it? I thought if I had the book in my hand, it would recall everything.”

Angel was intently studying the rebus.

“Here’s one letter, anyway. You said that, Jimmy?”

“The door?” said Jimmy. “Yes, that’s fairly evident. Whatever the word is, its second letter is ‘P.’ You see Reale’s scribbled notes? All these are no good, the other letters are best, I suppose it means; so we can cut out ‘T,’ ‘O,’ and ‘K.’”

“The best clue of all,” he went on, “is the notes about the ‘professor.’ You see them:

“‘Mem.: To get the professor’s new book on it. Mem.: To do what the professor thinks right. Mem.: To write to professor about----’

Now the questions are: Who is the professor, what is his book, and what did he advise? Reale was in correspondence with him, that is certain; in his desire for accuracy, Reale sought his advice. In all these papers there is no trace of a letter, and if any book exists it is still in Sped--it is still in the place from whence this red envelope came.”

The two men exchanged a swift glance.

“Yes,” said Angel, as if answering the other’s unspoken thought, “it might be done.”

The girl looked from one to the other in doubt.

“Does this mean an extra risk?” she asked quietly. “I have not questioned you as to how this red envelope came into your possession, but I have a feeling that it was not obtained without danger.”

Angel disregarded Jimmy’s warning frown. He was determined that the better side of his strange friend’s character should be made evident to the girl.

“Jimmy faced death in a particularly unpleasant form to secure the packet, Miss Kent,” he said.

“Then I forbid any further risk,” she said spiritedly. “I thought I had made it clear that I would not accept favors at your friend’s hands; least of all do I want the favor of his life.”

Jimmy heard her unmoved. He had a bitter tongue when he so willed, and he chose that moment.

“I do not think you can too strongly impress upon Miss Kent the fact that I am an interested party in this matter,” he said acidly. “As she refused my offer to forego my claim to a share of the fortune, she might remember that my interest in the legacy is at least as great as hers. I am risking what I risk, not so much from the beautifully quixotic motives with which she doubtless credits me, as from a natural desire to help myself.”

She winced a little at the bluntness of his speech; then recognizing she was in the wrong, she grew angry with herself at her indiscretion.

“If the book is--where these papers were, it can be secured,” Jimmy continued, regaining his suavity. “If the professor is still alive he will be found, and by to-morrow I shall have in my possession a list of every book that has ever been written by a professor of anything.”

Some thought tickled him, and he laughed for the second time that afternoon.

“There’s a fine course of reading for us all,” he said with a little chuckle. “Heaven knows into what mysterious regions the literary professor will lead us. I know one professor who has written a treatise on Sociology that runs into ten volumes, and another who has spoken his mind on Inductive Logic to the extent of twelve hundred closely-printed pages. I have in my mind’s eye a vision of three people sitting amidst a chaos of thoughtful literature, searching ponderous tomes for esoteric references to bolts, door, mouth, et cetera.”

The picture he drew was too much for the gravity of the girl, and her friendship with the man who was professedly a thief, and by inference something worse, began with a ripple of laughter that greeted his sally.

Jimmy gathered up the papers, and carefully replaced them in the envelope. This he handed to Angel.

“Place this amongst the archives,” he said flippantly.

“Why not keep it here?” asked Angel in surprise.

Jimmy walked to one of the three French windows that opened on to a small balcony. He took a rapid survey of the street, then beckoned to Angel.

“Do you see that man?” He pointed to a lounger sauntering along on the opposite sidewalk.

“Yes.”

Jimmy walked back to the center of the room.

“That’s why,” he said simply. “There will be a burglary here to-night or to-morrow night. People aren’t going to let a fortune slip through their fingers without making some kind of effort to save it.”

“What people?” demanded the girl. “You mean those dreadful men who took me away?”

“That is very possible,” said Jimmy, “although I was thinking of somebody else.”

The girl had put on her wrap, and stood irresolutely near the door, and Angel was waiting.

“Good-by,” she said hesitatingly. “I--I am afraid I have done you an injustice, and--and I want to thank you for all you have undergone for me. I know--I feel that I have been ungracious, and----”

“You have done me no injustice,” said Jimmy in a low voice. “I am all that you thought I was--and worse.”

She held out her hand to him, and he raised it to his lips, which was unlike Jimmy.

Chapter VIII

Old George

A stranger making a call in that portion of North Kensington which lies in the vicinity of Ladbroke Grove by some mischance lost his way. He wandered through many prosperous crescents and quiet squares redolent of the opulence of the upper middle classes, through broad avenues where neat broughams stood waiting in small carriage-drives, and once he blundered into a tidy mews, where horsy men with great hissings made ready the chariots of the Notting Hill plutocracy. It may be that he was in no particular hurry to arrive at his destination, this stranger--who has nothing to do with the story--but certainly he did not avail himself of opportunity in the shape of a passing policeman, and continued his aimless wanderings. He found Kensington Park Road, a broad thoroughfare of huge gardens and walled forecourts, then turned into a side street. He walked about twenty paces, and found himself in the heart of slum-land.

It is no ordinary slum this little patch of property that lies between Westbourne Grove and Kensington Park Road. There are no tumbled-down hovels or noisome passages; there are streets of houses dignified with flights of steps that rise to pretentious street doors and areas where long dead menials served the need of the lower middle classes of other days. The streets are given over to an army of squalling children in varying styles of dirtiness, and the halls of these houses are bare of carpet or covering, and in some the responsibility of leasehold is shared by eight or nine families, all pigging together.

They are streets of slatternly women, who live at their front doors, arms rolled under discolored aprons, and on Saturday nights one street at least deserves the pithy but profane appellation which the police have given it--“Little Hell.”

In this particular thoroughfare it is held that of all sins the greatest is that which is associated with “spying.” A “spy” is a fairly comprehensive phrase in Cawdor Street. It may mean policeman, detective, school-board official, rent collector, or the gentleman appointed by the gas company to extract pennies from the slot-meters.

To Cawdor Street came a man who rented one of the larger houses. To the surprise of the agent, he offered his rent monthly in advance; to the surprise of the street, he took no lodgers. It was the only detached house in that salubrious road, and was No. 49. The furniture came by night, which is customary amongst people who concentrate their last fluttering rag of pride upon the respectability of their household goods. Cawdor Street, on the _qui vive_ for the lady of the house, learns with genuine astonishment that there was none, and that the newcomer was a bachelor.

Years ago No. 49 had been the abode of a jobbing builder, hence the little yard gate that flanked one side; and it was with satisfaction that the Cawdor Streeters discovered that the new occupant intended reviving the ancient splendor of the establishment. At any rate, a board was prominently displayed, bearing the inscription:

J. Jones, Builder And Contractor.

and the inquisitive Mr. Lane (of 76), who caught a momentary vision of the yard through the gate, observed “Office” printed in fairly large letters over the side door.

At stated hours, mostly in the evening, roughly-dressed men called at the “Office,” stayed awhile, and went away. Two dilapidated ladders made their appearance in the yard, conspicuously lifting their perished rungs above the gate level.

“I tried to buy an old builder’s cart and a wheelbarrow to-day,” said “Mr. Jones” to a workman. “I’ll probably get it to-morrow at my own price, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a few sacks of lime and a couple of cartloads of sand and bricks in, also a few road pitchers to give it a finishing touch.”

The workman grinned.

“You’ve got this place ready in time, Connor,” he said.

Mr. Connor--for such “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor” was--nodded and picked his teeth meditatively with a match stick.

“I’ve seen for a long time the other place was useless,” he said with a curse.

“It was bad luck that Angel found us there last week. I’ve been fixing up this house for a couple of months. It’s a nice neighborhood, where people don’t go nosing around, and the boys can meet here without anybody being the wiser.”

“And old George?”

“We’ll settle him to-night,” said the other with a frown. “Bat is bringing him over, and I want to know how he came to let Angel get at us.”

Old George had always been a problem to the “Borough Lot.” He held the position of trust that many contended no demented old man should hold. Was it safe or sane to trust him with the plate that had been so laboriously acquired from Roebury House, and the jewels of Lady Ivy Task-Hender, for the purloining of which one “Hog” Stander was at that very moment doing seven stretch? Was it wise to install him as custodian of the empty house at Blackwall, through which Angel Esquire gained admittance to the meeting-place of the “Borough Lot”?

Some there were who said “Yes,” and these included the powerful faction that numbered “Bat” Sands, “Curt” Goyle, and Connor amongst them. They contended that suspicion would never rest on this half-witted old gentleman, with his stuffed birds, his goldfish, caged rabbits and mice, a view that was supported by the fact that Lady Ivy’s priceless diamonds lay concealed for months in the false bottom of a hutch devoted to guinea pigs in old George’s strange menagerie, what time the police were turning London inside out in their quest for the property.

But now old George was under a cloud. Notwithstanding the fact that he had been found amongst his live stock securely bound to a chair, with a handkerchief over his mouth, suspicion attached to him. How had Angel worked away in the upper room without old George’s knowledge?

Angel might have easily explained. Indeed, Angel might have relieved their minds to a very large extent in regard to old George, for in marking down the haunt of the “Borough Lot” he had been entirely deceived as to the part played by the old man who acted as “caretaker” to the “empty” house.

In a fourwheeled cab old George, smiling foolishly and passing his hand from time to time over his tremulous mouth, listened to the admonitions of Mr. Bat Sands.

“Connor wants to know all about it,” said Bat menacingly; “and if you have been playing tricks, old man, the Lord help you.”

“The Lord help me,” smiled old George complacently.

He ran his dirty fingers through his few scanty white locks, and the smile died out of his face, and his loose mouth dropped pathetically.

“Mr. Sands,” he said, then stopped; then he repeated the name to himself a dozen times; then he rubbed his head again.

Bat, leaning forward to catch what might be a confession, sank back again in his seat and swore softly.

In the house of “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor,” were gathered in strength the men who composed the “Borough Lot.”

“Suppose he gave us away,” asked Goyle, “what shall we do with him?”

There was little doubt as to the feeling of the meeting. A low animal growl, startling in its ferocity, ran through the gathering.

“If he’s given us away”--it was Vinnis with his dull fishlike eyes turned upon Connor who was talking--“why, we must ‘out’ him.”

“You’re talking like a fool,” said Connor contemptuously. “If he has given us away, you may rest assured that he is no sooner in this house than the whole place will be surrounded by police. If Angel knows old George is one of us, he’ll be watched day and night, and the cab that brings him will be followed by another bringing Angel. No, I’ll stake my life on the old man. But I want to know how Mr. Cursed Angel got into the house next door.”

They had not long to wait, for Bat’s knock came almost as Connor finished speaking.

Half led, half dragged into the room, old George stood, fumbling his hat in his hand, smiling helplessly at the dark faces that met his. He muttered something under his breath.

“What’s that?” asked Connor sharply.

“I said, a gentleman----” began old George, then lapsed into silence.

“What gentleman?” asked Connor roughly.

“I am speaking of myself,” said the old man, and there came into his face a curious expression of dignity. “I say, and I maintain, that a gentleman is a gentleman whatever company he affects. At my old college I once reproved an undergraduate.” He was speaking with stately, almost pompous distinctness. “I said, ‘There is an axiom to which I would refer you, _De gustibus non est disputandum_, and--and----’”

His shaking fingers went up again to the tell-tale mouth, and the vacant smile came back.

“Look here,” said Connor, shaking his arm, “we don’t want to know anything about your damned college; we want to know how Angel got into our crib.”

The old man looked puzzled.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered; “of course, Mr. Connor, you have been most kind--the crib--ah!--the young man who wanted to rent or hire the room upstairs.”

“Yes, yes,” said Connor eagerly.

“A most admirable young man,” old George rambled on, “but very inquisitive. I remember once, when I was addressing a large congregation of young men at Cheltenham--or it may have been young ladies--I----”

“Curse the man!” cried Goyle in a fury. “Make him answer, or stop his mouth.”

Connor warned him back.

“Let him talk in his own way,” he said.

“This admirable person,” the old man went on, happily striking on the subject again, “desired information that I was not disposed to give, Mr. Connor, remembering your many kindnesses, particularly in respect to one Mr. Vinnis.”

“Yes, go on,” urged Connor, and the face of Vinnis was tense.

“I fear there are times when my usually active mind takes on a sluggishness which is foreign to my character--my normal character”--old George was again the pedant--“when the unobservant stranger might be deceived into regarding me as a negligible quantity. The admirable young man so far treated me as such as to remark to his companion that there was a rope--yes, distinctly a rope--for the said Mr. Vinnis.”

The face of Vinnis was livid.

“And,” asked Connor, “what happened next? There were two of them, were there?”

The old man nodded gravely; he nodded a number of times, as though the exercise pleased him.

“The other young man--not the amiable one, but another--upon finding that I could not rent or hire the rooms--as indeed I could not, Mr. Connor, without your permission--engaged me in conversation--very loudly he spoke, too--on the relative values of cabbage and carrot as food for herbaceous mammals. Where the amiable gentleman was at that moment I cannot say----”

“I can guess,” thought Connor.

“I can remember the occasion well,” old George continued, “because that night I was alarmed and startled by strange noises from the empty rooms upstairs, which I very naturally and properly concluded were caused----”

He stopped, and glancing fearfully about the room, went on in a lower tone.

“By certain spirits,” he whispered mysteriously, and pointed and leered first at one and then another of the occupants of the room.

There was something very eerie in the performance of the strange old man with the queerly-working face, and more than one hardened criminal present shivered a little.

Connor broke the silence that fell on the room.

“So that’s how it was done, eh? One held you in conversation while the other got upstairs and hid himself? Well, boys, you’ve heard the old man. What d’ye say?”

Vinnis shifted in his seat and turned his great unemotional face to where the old man stood, still fumbling with his hat and muttering to himself beneath his breath; in some strange region whither his poor wandering mind had taken him he was holding a conversation with an imaginary person. Connor could see his eyebrows working, and caught scraps of sentences, now in some strange dead tongue, now in the stilted English of the schoolmaster.

It was Vinnis who spoke for the assembled company.

“The old man knows a darned sight too much,” he said in his level tone. “I’m for----”

He did not finish his sentence. Connor took a swift survey of the men.

“If there is any man here,” he said slowly, “who wants to wake up at seven o’clock in the morning and meet a gentleman who will strap his hands behind him and a person who will pray over him--if there’s any man here that wants a short walk after breakfast between two lines of warders to a little shed where a brand new rope is hanging from the roof, he’s at liberty to do what he likes with old George, but not in this house.”

He fixed his eyes on Vinnis.

“And if there’s any man here,” he went on, “who’s already in the shadow of the rope, so that one or two murders more won’t make much difference one way or the other, he can do as he likes--outside this house.”

Vinnis shrank back.

“There’s nothing against me,” he growled.

“The rope,” muttered the old man, “Vinnis for the rope,” he chuckled to himself. “I fear they counted too implicitly upon the fact that I am not always quite myself--Vinnis----”

The man he spoke of sprang to his feet with a snarl like a trapped beast.

“Sit down--you.”

Bat Sands, with his red head close-cropped, thrust his chair in the direction of the infuriated Vinnis.

“What Connor says is true--we’re not going to croak the old man, and we’re not going to croak ourselves. If we hang, it will be something worth hanging for. As to the old man, he’s soft, an’ that’s all you can say. He’s got to be kept close----”

A rap at the door cut him short.

“Who’s that?” he whispered.

Connor tiptoed to the locked door.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

A familiar voice reassured him, and he opened the door and held a conversation in a low voice with somebody outside.

“There’s a man who wants to see me,” he said in explanation. “Lock the door after I leave, Bat,” and he went out quickly.

Not a word was spoken, but each after his own fashion of reasoning drew some conclusion from Connor’s hasty departure.

“A full meetin’,” croaked a voice from the back of the room. “We’re all asked here by Connor. Is it a plant?”

That was Bat’s thought too.

“No,” he said; “there’s nothin’ against us. Why, Angel let us off only last week because there wasn’t evidence, an’ Connor’s straight.”

“I don’t trust him, by God!” said Vinnis.

“I trust nobody,” said Bat doggedly, “but Connor’s straight----”

There was a rap on the door.

“Who’s there?”

“All right!” said the muffled voice.

Bat unlocked the door, and Connor came in. What he had seen or what he had heard had brought about a marvelous change in his appearance--his cheeks were a dull red, and his eyes blazed with triumph.

“Boys,” he said, and they caught the infectious thrill in his voice, “I’ve got the biggest thing for you--a million pounds, share and share alike.”

He felt rather than heard the excitement his words caused. He stood with his back to the half-opened door.

“I’m going to introduce a new pal,” he rattled on breathlessly. “I’ll vouch for him.”

“Who is he?” asked Bat. “Do we know him?”

“No,” said Connor, “and you’re not expected to know him. But he’s putting up the money, and that’s good enough for you, Bat--a hundred pounds a man, and it will be paid to-night.”

Bat Sands spat on his hand.

“Bring him in. He’s good enough,” and there was a murmur of approval.

Connor disappeared for a moment, and returned followed by a well-dressed stranger, who met the questioning glances of his audience with a quiet smile. His eyes swept over every face. They rested for a moment on Vinnis, they looked doubtfully at old George, who, seated on a chair with crossed legs and his head bent, was talking with great rapidity in an undertone to himself.

“Gentlemen,” said the stranger, “I have come with the object of gaining your help. Mr. Connor has told me that he has already informed you about Reale’s millions. Briefly, I have decided to forestall other people, and secure the money for myself. I offer you a half share of the money, to be equally divided amongst you, and as an earnest of my intention, I am paying each man who is willing to help me a hundred pounds down.”

He drew from one of his pockets a thick package of notes, and from two other pockets similar bundles. He handed them to Connor, and the hungry eyes of the “Borough Lot” focused upon the crinkling paper.

“What I shall ask you to do,” the stranger proceeded, “I shall tell you later----”

“Wait a bit,” interrupted Bat. “Who else is in this?”

“We alone,” replied the man.

“Is Jimmy in it?”

“No.”

“Is Angel in it?”

“No” (impatiently).

“Go on,” said Bat, satisfied.

“The money is in a safe that can only be opened by a word. That word nobody knows--so far. The clue to the word was stolen a few nights ago from the lawyer in charge of the case by--Jimmy.”

He paused to note the effect of his words.

“Jimmy has passed the clue on to Scotland Yard, and we cannot hope to get it.”

“Well?” demanded Bat.

“What we can do,” the other went on, “is to open the safe with something more powerful than a word.”

“But the guard!” said Bat. “There’s an armed guard kept there by the lawyer.”

“We can arrange about the guard,” said the other.

“Why not get at the lawyer?” It was Curt Goyle who made the suggestion.

The stranger frowned.

“The lawyer cannot be got at,” he said shortly. “Now, are you with me?”

There was no need to ask. Connor was sorting the notes into little bundles on the table, and the men came up one by one, took their money, and after a few words with Connor took their