THE MAN FROM MOROCCO - 1

THE MAN FROM MOROCCO

EDGAR WALLACE

( INSTALMENT 1 )

CHAPTER 1

THE BLACK

James Lexington Morlake, gentleman of leisure, Lord of the Manor of Wold and divers other titles which he rarely employed, unlocked the drawer of his elaborate Empire writing-table and gazed abstractedly into its depths. It was lined with steel and there were four distinct bolts. Slowly he put in his hand and took out first a folded square of black silk, then a businesslike automatic pistol, then a roll of fine leather. He unfastened a string that was tied about the middle and unrolled the leather on the writing-table. It was a hold-all of finely-grained sealskin, and in its innumerable pockets and loops was a bewildering variety of tools, grips, ratchets—each small, each of the finest tempered steel.

He examined the diamond-studded edge of a bore, no larger than a cheese tester, then replacing the tool, he rolled up the hold-all and sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed meditatively upon the articles he had exposed.

James Morlake's flat in Bond Street was, perhaps, the most luxurious apartment in that very exclusive thoroughfare. The room in which he sat, with its high ceiling fantastically carved into scrolls and arabesques by the most cunning of Moorish workmen, was wide and long and singular. The walls were of marble, the floor an amazing mosaic covered with the silky rugs of Ispahan. Four hanging lamps, delicate fabrics of silver and silk, shed a subdued light.

With the exception of the desk, incongruously gaudy in the severe and beautiful setting, there was little furniture. A low divan under the curtained window, a small stool, lacquered a vivid green, and another chair was all.

The man who sat at the writing-table might have been forty—he was four years less—or fifty. His was the face of a savant, eager, alive, mobile. There was a hint of laughter in his eyes, more than a hint of sadness. A picturesque and most presentable person was James Lexington Morlake, reputedly of New York City (though some doubted this) and now of 823 New Bond Street in the County of London and of Wold House in the County of Sussex. His evening coat fitted the broad shoulders perfectly; the white bow at his collar was valet-tied.

He looked up from the table and its sinister display and clapped his hands once. Through the silken curtain that veiled the far end of the room came a soft-footed little Moor, his spotless white fellap and crimson tarboosh giving him a certain vividness against the soft background.

"Mahmet, I shall be going away to-night—I will let you know when I am returning." He spoke in Moorish, which is the purest of the three Arabics. "When, by the favour of God, I return, I shall have work for you."

Mahmet raised his hand in salute, then, stepping forward lightly, kissed each lapel of James Morlake's dress coat before he kissed his own thumb, for Morlake was, by certain standards, holy to the little slave man he had bought in the marketplace of Rahbut.

"I am your servant, haj," he said. "You will wish to talk with your secretary?"

Morlake nodded, and, with a quick flutter of salaaming hands, Mahmet disappeared. He had never ceased to be amused by this description of Binger. "Secretary" was the delicate euphemism of the Moor who would not say "servant" of any white man.

Mr. Binger appeared, a short, stout man with a very red face and a very flaxen moustache, which he rapidly twirled in moments of embarrassment. Without the evidence of the neatly parted hair and the curl plastered over his forehead, he was obviously "old soldier."

He looked at his employer and then at the kit of tools on the table, and sighed.

"Goin' hout, sir?" he asked dolefully.

He was that unusual type of Cockney, the man who put aspirates where none were intended. Not one Londoner in ten thousand has this trick, ninety per cent. may drop an "h"—only the very few find it.

"I'm going out; I may be away for some days. You know where to find me."

"I hope so, sir," said the gloomy Binger. "I hope I shan't find you where I'm always expectin' to find you—in a hawful prison cell."

James Morlake laughed softly.

"You were never designed by providence to be a burglar's valet, Binger," he said, and Mr. Binger shivered.

"Don't use that word, sir, please! It makes me tremble with horrer! It's not for the likes of me to criticise, which I've never done. An' if you hadn't been a burglar I'd have been a corpse. You ran a risk for me and I'm not likely to forget it!"

Which was true. For one night, James Lexington Morlake, in the course of business, had broken into a warehouse of which Binger was caretaker. Morlake took the warehouse en route to a bigger objective—there was a bank at the end of the warehouse block—and he had found an almost lifeless Binger who had fallen through a trap and had broken a leg in the most complicated manner it is possible to break a leg. And Morlake had stopped and tended him; carried him to the hospital, though Binger guessed him for what he was, "The Black"—the terror of every bank manager in the kingdom. In this way both men, taking the most amazing risks, came into acquaintance. Not that it was, perhaps, any great risk for James Morlake, for he understood men.

He selected a cigarette from the gold case he took from his pocket, and lit it.

"One of these days, perhaps I'll become a respectable member of society, Binger," he said, a chuckle in his voice.

"I 'ope so, sir, I do most sincerely pray you will," said Binger earnestly. "It's not a nice profession—you're hout all hours of the night ... it's not healthy! Speaking as a hold soldier, sir, I tell you that honesty is the best policy."

"How the devil did you know that there was an 'h' in 'honesty?' " asked James Morlake admiringly.

"I pronounced it, sir," said Binger.

"That is what I mean—now, Binger, listen to me. I want the car at the corner of Albemarle Street at two o'clock. It is raining a little, so have the hood up. Don't be within a dozen yards of the car when I arrive. Have an Oxford number-plate behind and the Sussex plate under the seat. A vacuum flask with hot coffee and a packet of sandwiches—and that's all."

Binger, at the parting of the curtains, struggled to express what he felt was improper and even sinful to say.

"Good luck, sir," he said faintly.

"I wish you meant it," said James Morlake as he rose and, catching up the long black coat from the divan, slipped pistol and tools into his pocket....

At the Burlington Street Safe Deposit, the night watchman had a stool on which he might sit in the lone long watches. It was a stool with one leg in the centre, and had this great advantage, that, if its occupant dozed, he fell. Nature, however, evolves qualities to meet every human emergency, and in the course of the years the night watchman, by leaning his elbow on a projecting ledge and stiffening his body against the wall, could enjoy a comfortable condition of coma that approximated to sleep ....

"Sorry!" said a gentle voice.

The watchman woke with a start and stumbled to his feet, reaching for the revolver that should have been on the little wooden ledge.

"Your gun is in my pocket and the alarm is disconnected," said the man in black, and the eyes that showed through the taut silk mask that covered his face twinkled humorously. "March!"

The night man, dazed and already searching his mind for excuses that would relieve him of the charge of sleeping on duty, obeyed.

The vaults of the Burlington Street Safe Deposit are underground, and for the use of the watchman there is a small concrete apartment fitted with an electric stove and a folding table. There is also a small safe built into the wall.

"In here," said the man in black. "Face the wall and save my soul from the hideous crime of murder."

Standing with his nose to concrete, the watchman heard the snap of a lock and the jingle of keys. In the safe were kept the pass keys and duplicates, and normally it could not be opened except by the President or Secretary of the company. The stranger seemed to experience no difficulty in dispensing with the help of these officers.

There came the thud of the room door closing, and then the turn of the key. After that, silence, except for the shrill whistle of air through the overhead ventilator. In ten minutes the visitor was back again, and the watchman saw him replace the keys he had taken, close and lock the safe.

"That is all, I think," said the stranger. "I have stolen very little—just enough to pay for my vacation and a new car. One must live."

"I'll get fired over this!" groaned the watchman.

"It depends on the lie you tell," said the mask, standing in the doorway, twirling his automatic alarmingly. "If you say that you were drugged, as the night patrol at the Home Counties Bank said, you may find people sceptical...."

"What about the hall-man?" asked the watchman hopefully.

"He is in his box, asleep ... veritably doped by an ingenious method of my own," said the intruder.

He slammed the door, and again the key turned. It seemed to turn twice, and so it proved, for when the custodian tried the door it opened readily. But The Black had gone.

Three headquarters men were at the safe deposit within a few minutes of the alarm sounding. They found the hall-keeper slowly recovering his senses and the night watchman voluble and imaginative.

"Don't tell me that stuff about drugs," said Chief Inspector Wall irritably. "It may go in the case of the hall-man, but you were asleep, and as soon as he turned a gun on you, you played rabbit. That's your story, and I won't listen to any other."

The hall-man could offer no explanation. He was sitting in his little office drinking coffee that he had made, and that was all he remembered.

"Keep that coffee-cup for analysis," said Wall. "The man must have been on the premises—it was easy once he doped the hall-keeper."

The upper part of the safe deposit was let out in office suites, the ground floor and basement being the premises of the deposit. A broad passage led from the street to the vault entrance, and was barred half-way down with a heavy steel gate to which the hall-man sitting in his office on the inside alone had the key.

"The thing was simple," said Wall, when he had finished his cross- examination. "Peters left his office and went down to see the night man. In some manner The Black got through—he'll open any lock. After that he had only to watch and wait."

In the early hours of the morning the secretary of the Safe Deposit arrived, and accompanied the police in a more thorough search through the inner vaults.

One little safe was unlocked. It was that which stood in the name of James Morlake, and the safe was entirely empty.

CHAPTER 2

THE LADY OF CREITH

Stephens, the butler at Creith House, read of the robbery in the morning newspaper, and, being of a communicative nature, he carried the news to his master with his morning coffee. He might have created a greater sensation had he told the guest of the house, but he disliked Mr. Ralph Hamon for many reasons, and added to his dislike was a certain uneasiness of mind. A servant may find pleasure in his prejudices only so long as they are directed toward the uninfluential. So Mr. Ralph Hamon had appeared on his first few visits to the Earl of Creith. His attitude of deference toward the head of the house, his humility in the presence of the young lady, his eagerness to please, emphasised his inferiority. But his desire to stand well with the folk of Creith House did not extend to the servants. The tips he gave were paltry or were pointedly withheld, but for this Stephens and his staff were prepared, for Mr. Hamon's chauffeur had advertised his meanness in advance.

It was the change in the financier's attitude toward the family that worried Stephens and caused his plump, smooth face to wrinkle in uncomfortable thought.

In the early days he had addressed the Earl as "my lord"—and only servants and tenants and tradesmen "my lord nobility." And Lady Joan had been "your ladyship." Now it was "my dear Creith" and "my dear young lady," more often than not in a tone of good-natured contempt.

Stephens stood at the long window of the banqueting hall, staring across the broad expanse of shaven lawn to the river that traced the northern boundary of the Creith acres. It was a glorious morning in early autumn. The trees held to their deep green, but here and there the russet and gold of autumnal foliage showed on the wooded slopes of No Man's Hill. Sunlight sparkled on the sluggish Avon, the last wraith of mist was curling through the pines that crested the hill, and the tremendous silence of the countryside was broken only by the flurry of wings as a hen pheasant flew clumsily from covert to covert.

"Morning, Stephens."

Stephens turned guiltily as he heard the voice of the man about whom he was at that moment thinking so disrespectfully.

Ralph Hamon had come noiselessly into the panelled hall. He was a fair man of middle height, stockily built, inclined to stoutness. Stephens put his age at forty-five, being inclined, for personal reasons, to discount the visitor's slight baldness. Mr. Hamon's large face was sallow and usually expressionless. His high, bald forehead, his dark, deep-set eyes and the uncompromising line of his hard mouth suggested learning. Stephens was reminded of a hateful schoolmaster he had known in his youth. The baldness was emphasised by the floss-like wisp of hair that grew thinly on the crown, and was especially noticeable when he stooped to pick up a pin from the polished floor.

"That is lucky," he said, as he pushed the pin into the lapel of his well-fitting morning coat. "There's no better way of starting the day than by getting something for nothing, Stephens."

"No, sir," said Stephens. He had a desire to point out that the pin was somebody's property, but he refrained. "There has been another Black robbery, sir," he said.

Hamon snatched the paper from his hand, frowning.

"A Black robbery—where?"

He read and his frown deepened.

"The Burlington this time," he said, speaking to himself. "I wonder— —?" He glared at Stephens, and the stout man wilted. "I wonder," said Mr. Hamon again, and then, abruptly: "Lord Creith is not down?"

"No, sir."

"And Lady Joan?"

"Her ladyship is in the park. She went riding an hour ago."

"Humph!"

Mr. Hamon's thick nose wrinkled as he threw down the newspaper. Overnight he had asked Joan Carston to ride with him, and she had made the excuse that her favourite hack had gone lame. Stephens was not a thought reader, but he remembered hastily certain instructions he had received.

"Her ladyship didn't think she would be able to ride, but her horse had got over his lameness this morning."

"Humph!" said Mr. Hamon again.

He took a quill toothpick from his pocket and nibbled at it.

"Lady Joan told me that she had put somebody in one of the cottages on the estate—at least, she didn't tell me, but I heard her mention the fact to Lord Creith. Who is it?"

"I don't know, sir," said Stephens truthfully. "I believe it is a lady and her daughter ... her ladyship met her in London and gave her the cottage for a holiday."

One corner of Hamon's mouth lifted.

"Being a philanthropist, eh?" he sneered.

Stephens could only wonder at the cool assurance of a man who, a year before, had almost grovelled to the girl about whom he could now speak with such insolent familiarity.

Hamon walked slowly through the stone-flagged entrance hall into the open. There was no sign of Joan, and he guessed that if he asked Stephens which way Joan had gone, the man would either plead ignorance or lie. Hamon had no illusions as to his popularity.

If the girl was invisible to him, she saw him plainly enough from No Man's Hill, a black against the green of the lawn. She sat astride the old hunter she rode, looking thoughtfully toward the big, rambling house, her young face troubled, the clear grey of her eyes clouded with doubt. A slim, gracious figure, almost boyish in its outlines, she watched the black speck as it moved back to the house, and for a second a faint smile trembled at the corners of the red lips.

"Up, Toby!" She jerked the rein, disturbing the grazing horse, and set his head to the top of the hill. No Man's Hill had been disputed territory for centuries, and its right to be included within the boundaries of the adjoining estates had impoverished at least three generations of two families. The Creiths had fought their claim in the courts since 1735. The Talmers had indulged in litigation for fifty years, and in the end had died embittered and ruined. The owners of Wold House had gone the same way. Would the new owner of the Wold continue the bad work, Joan wondered? Somehow she thought he was too sensible. He had been two years in occupation and had not issued a writ, though his title deeds undoubtedly gave him that disastrous right.

Presently she stopped and, dismounting and letting the horse graze at will, she climbed the last sheer slope and came to the top. Mechanically she looked at the watch on her wrist. It was exactly eight o'clock. And then her eyes sought the bridle path that skirted the foot of the hill.

She need not have examined her watch. The man she was overlooking had ridden out of the copse at exactly this moment, day after day, month after month. A tall man who sat his horse easily and smoked a pipe as he rode.

She took the glasses from the case she carried and focussed them. The scrutiny was inexcusable; Joan admitted the fault without hesitation. It was he; the lean, aesthetic face, the grey patch at the temples, the open-throated rough shirt. She could have drawn him, and had.

"Joan Carston, you are an unmaidenly and shameless woman," she said sternly. "Is this man anything to you? No! Are you enveloping him in a golden cloud of romance? Yes! Isn't it vulgar curiosity and the desire of youth for mystery that brings you here every morning to spy upon this middle-aged and harmless gentleman? Yes! And aren't you ashamed? No!"

The unconscious object of her interrogations was parallel with her now. In one hand he carried a thin, pliable riding whip with which he smoothed the horse's mane absently. Looking neither to left nor right, he passed on, and she watched him with a puzzled frown until he was out of sight.

Mr. James Lexington Morlake was as great a source of puzzlement to the people of the country as to himself. For two years he had been master of Wold House, and nothing was known of him except that he was apparently a rich man. He most certainly had no friends. The Vicar had called upon him soon after his arrival. He had been canvassed on behalf of local charities, and had responded handsomely, but he had declined every social invitation which would bring him into closer touch with his neighbours. He neither visited nor received. Judicious enquiries were set afoot; cook talked to cook, and parlourmaid to parlourmaid, and in the end he stood disappointingly revealed as a man whose life was exemplary, if a little erratic, for nobody could be certain whether he was at home at Wold or in London. Even to his servants he did not disclose his plan for the day or the week. This eccentricity was common property.

Joan Carston mounted her horse and rode down the hill toward the path the man had followed. When she came to the track she looked to her left in time to see the battered sombrero he wore disappearing in the dip that leads to the river.

"I'm a rash and indelicate female, Toby," she said, addressing the twitching ears of her horse. "I am without reserve or proper pride, but oh! Toby, I'd give two paper pounds sterling—which is all I have in the world—to talk with him and be disillusioned!"

She sent her audience cantering along the road, turning off through the dilapidated gate which led her back to her father's estate. Where the main road skirted Creith Park was a lime-washed barn-like cottage, and to this she rode. A woman standing in the garden waved her hand as the girl approached. She was of middle age, slim and pretty, and she carried herself with a dignity which almost disguised the poverty of her attire.

"Good morning, Lady Joan. We reached here last night and found everything ready for us. It was lovely of you to take such trouble."

"What is work?" said Joan swinging herself to the ground. "Especially when somebody else does it? How is the interesting invalid, Mrs. Cornford?"

Mrs. Cornford smiled.

"I don't know. He doesn't arrive until tonight. You don't mind my having a boarder?"

"No," Joan shook her head. "I wonder you don't stay here permanently. Father said you might. Who is your boarder?"

Mrs. Cornford hesitated.

"He is a young man I am interested in. I ought to tell you that he is, or was, a dipsomaniac."

"Good heavens!" said the startled girl.

"I have tried to help him, and I think I have. He is a gentleman—it is rather tragic to see these cases, but at the Mission, where I help when I can spare the time, we see many. You are sure you won't mind?"

"Not a bit," laughed Joan, and the woman looked at her admiringly.

"You look pretty in riding things," nodded Mrs. Cornford approvingly.

"I look pretty in anything," said Joan calmly. "There is no sense in blinking facts: I am pretty! I can't help it any more than you can. I'm going to breakfast with you!

"Yes, they are expecting me at Creith," said Joan, spreading marmalade thickly on her bread. "At least, our visitor expects me. Father expects nothing but a miracle that will bring him a million without any effort on his part. The miracle has partly materialised."

Mrs. Cornford's eyes spoke her surprise.

"No, we're not rich," said Joan, answering the unspoken question; "we are of the impoverished nobility. If I were a man I should go to America and marry somebody very wealthy and live a cat and dog life until I was well and truly divorced. As I am a girl, I must marry a home-bred millionaire. Which I shall not do."

"But surely...." began Mrs. Cornford.

"The house, the estate, our London house, are, or were until a week ago, mortgaged. We are the poorest people in the county."

Joan's cool confession took the other's breath away.

"I'm sorry," she said gently. "It is rather terrible for you."

"It isn't a bit," said Joan. "Besides, everybody here is at poverty's door. Everybody except the mysterious Mr. Morlake, who is popularly credited with being a millionaire. But that is only because he doesn't discuss his mortgages. Everybody else does. We sit round one another's tables and talk foreclosures and interests and the price of corn and cattle disease, but mostly we talk about the loss the country will sustain when the improvident nobility are replaced by the thrifty democracy."

Mrs. Cornford was silent, her grave eyes searching the girl's face. Joan had known her a year. It was an advertisement which Mrs. Cornford had inserted in a London newspaper asking for needlework that had brought Joan to the dingy little suburban street where the woman earned sufficient to keep herself and her daughter by her quick and clever fingers.

"It is not easy to be poor," she said quietly, and Joan looked up.

"You've been rich," she said, nodding her head sagely. "I knew that. One of these days I'm going to ask you to tell me the grisly story—no, I won't! Yes, it's horrible to be poor, but more horrible to be rich—on terms. Do you know Mr. Morlake?"

The elder woman smiled.

"He is a local celebrity, isn't he? I should hardly know him, but he seems to exercise the imagination of the people hereabouts. The girl from the village whom you so kindly sent here to tidy the cottage told me about him. Is he a friend of yours?"

"He is a friend of nobody's," said Joan. "In fact, he is so unfriendly that he must be rich. I used to think that he was going to be my prince charming," she sighed dolefully.

"I wonder if you are really sad?" smiled the woman. "I wonder."

Joan's face was inscrutable.

"You wouldn't imagine that I had a grisly past too, would you?" she asked. "Remember that I am quite old—nearly twenty-three."

"I shouldn't imagine so," said Mrs. Cornford, amusement in her fine eyes.

"Or a terrible secret?"

"No, I shouldn't think that either." Mrs. Cornford shook her head.

Joan sighed again.

"I'll go back to my burden," she said.

The "burden" was walking in the long chestnut avenue when she overtook him.

"I'm glad you've come, Lady Joan," he said with ill-assumed heartiness. "I'm starving!"

Joan Carston wished she had waited an hour or two.

CHAPTER 3

THE HEAD OF THE CREITHS

Ferdinand Carston, ninth Earl of Creith, was a thin, querulous man, whose dominant desire was a negative one. He did not want to be bothered. He had spent his life avoiding trouble, and his deviations had led him into strange places. His "paper" was held by half a score of moneylenders, his mortgages were on the books of as many banks. He did not wish to be bothered by farm bailiffs and factors, or by tenant farmers. He could not be worried with the choice of his agents, and most of them did not bother to render him accurate accounts. From time to time he attempted to recover his heavy liabilities by daring speculations, and as he could not be troubled with the business of investigating their soundness, he usually returned to the well-worn path that led to the little moneylenders' offices that infest Sackville and Jermyn streets.

And then there came into his orbit a most obliging financier who handsomely accepted the task of settling with troublesome banks and clamouring Shylocks. Lord Creith was grateful. Deuced grateful. He sold the reversionary rights in the Creith estates, and not only discharged at one sweep all his liabilities, but touched real money.

He was in his library, examining with interest Tattersall's Sale Catalogue, when his guest came in unannounced.

"Hullo, Hamon!" he said without any great geniality. "Had breakfast?"

"Joan had breakfast out," said Hamon curtly.

"Did she?" asked Creith, looking at him over his glasses and at a loss to continue, yet feeling that something was expected of him he added: "Did she?"

Hamon pulled up a chair and seated himself at the opposite side of the writing-table.

"Have you ever thought what will happen when you die?" he asked.

Lord Creith blinked quickly.

"Never thought of it, Hamon, never thought of it. I've been a good churchman, though the tithes are an infernal nuisance—I suppose I'll go up to heaven with the best of 'em."

"I'm not thinking about your spiritual future," said Mr. Hamon. "I'm thinking about Creith."

"The title goes to Joan—it descends that way in our family," said his lordship, biting the end of a pen-holder. "But why bother me about these details, my dear fellow? If Joan wants to preserve the estate she'll marry you, and I've no objection. We've had some devilish queer people in our family before, and I daresay we shall go on having devilish queer people. My great great grandmother had a wooden leg."

Mr. Ralph Hamon overlooked the uncomplimentary reference, and was not prepared to encourage a discussion on the deficiencies of Lord Creith's ancestors.

"If Joan doesn't want to marry me?" he said. "I suppose you've some influence?"

Lord Creith took off his glasses deliberately.

"With Joan? Bless your life, she doesn't take the slightest notice of anything I say! And very properly. I'm about the worst adviser that anybody could have. She'll do what she likes. Her dear and blessed mother was the same. Don't bother me now, my dear good fellow."

"But suppose Joan refuses me point blank?" persisted the other.

Lord Creith's smile was broad and bland.

"Then, my dear boy, you're finished!"

Hamon bit off the end of a cigar deliberately, as Lord Creith looked significantly at the door.

"You must have some influence, Creith," he said doggedly. "Talk to her."

The older man leaned back in his chair, obviously bored, as obviously resigned to boredom.

"I'll speak to her," he said. "Oh, by the way, that farm you wanted, you can't have. I find that the mortgage was foreclosed by the Midland Bank a month ago, and the property has been sold to that queer fish, James Lexington Morlake. Though why the dickens he wants it—"

"Morlake!"

Creith looked up in surprise. The sallow face of Mr. Ralph Hamon was puckered, his slit of a mouth was parted in amazement and anger.

"Morlake—no—James Lexington Morlake? Does he live near here? Is he the man you were talking about the other day—you said he was an American...."

He fired the questions in rapid succession, and Lord Creith closed his eyes wearily.

"I don't know who he is ... though I mentioned his name—what is the matter with you, Hamon?"

"Nothing," said the other harshly, "only—" He turned the subject. "Will you speak to Joan?" he asked curtly, and stalked out of the library.

Joan was in her room when the maid came for her, and short as was the space of time elapsing between the summons and the answering, Lord Creith was again absorbed in his catalogue.

"Oh, Joan ... yes, I wanted to see you about something. Yes, yes, I remember. Be as civil as you can to Hamon, my dear."

"Has he been complaining?"

"Good Lord, no!" said Lord Creith. "Only he has an idea that he would like to marry you. I don't know how you feel about it?"

"Do you wish me to tell you?" she asked, and his lordship shook his head vigorously.

"I don't think so—not if it's going to bother me. Of course, you know I've sold everything ... house, land and the place in London?"

"To Mr. Hamon?"

He nodded.

"Everything," he said. "If you don't marry him, there will only be the bit of money I have when I—er—step off, if you forgive the vulgarity."

"I gathered that," she said.

"Of course, your grandmother's money comes to you when you are twenty-four. Happily, I haven't been able to touch that, though I tried very hard—very hard! But those lawyers are cute fellows, deuced cute! Now what about marrying this fellow Hamon?"

She smiled.

"I thought you wouldn't," said her father with satisfaction. "That is all I wanted you for ... oh, yes, do you know this man Morlake?"

If he had been looking at her he would have been startled by the pink flush that came to her face. But his eyes were already on the catalogue.

"Why?"

"I mentioned his name to Hamon—never saw a man get more annoyed. What is Morlake?"

"A man," she said laconically.

"How interesting!" said his lordship, and returned to his sale list.

CHAPTER 4

A CALLER AT WOLD HOUSE

James Morlake sat in the shade of the big cedar that grew half way between his house and the river. His lame fox-terrier sprawled at his feet, and a newspaper lay open on his knees. He was not reading; his eyes were fixed on the glassy surface of the stream. A splash, a momentary vision of wet silver as a trout leapt at an incautious fly, brought his head round, and then he saw the man that stood surveying him from the drive.

One glance he gave, and then returned to the placid contemplation of the little river.

Hamon walked slowly forward, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"Well," he said, "it is a long time since I saw you. I didn't know that you were living around here."

Jim Morlake raised his eyes and yawned.

"I should have sent you a card," he said lazily. "One ought to have 'at home' days. If I had known you were coming this morning, I'd have hired the village band and put up a few flags."

Mr. Hamon pulled forward a chair and sat down squarely before the other, and when he spoke, it was with the greatest deliberation.

"I'll buy this house from you—Morlake—"

"Mister Morlake," murmured the other. "Let us remember that we are gentlemen."

"I'll buy this house from you and you can go abroad. I'll forgive your threats and your mad fool talk about ... well, you know—but you will get out of the country in a week."

Morlake laughed softly, and Hamon, who had never seen him laugh, was astounded at the transformation that laughter brought to the sombre face.

"You are a most amusing person," said the tall man. "You drop from the clouds, or spout out from the eternal fires after an absence of years, and immediately start in to rearrange my life! You're getting fat, Hamon, and those bags under your eyes aren't pretty. You ought to see a doctor."

Hamon leant forward.

"Suppose I tell your neighbours who you are!" he asked slowly. "Suppose I go to the police and tell them that Mister Morlake"—he laid a sneering emphasis on the title—"is a cheap Yankee crook!"

"Not cheap," murmured Morlake, his amused eyes watching the other.

"Suppose I tell them that I once caught you red-handed robbing the Prescott Bank, and that you blackmailed me into letting you go!"

Morlake's eyes never left the man's face.

"There has been a series of burglaries committed in London," Hamon went on. "They've been worked by a man called The Black—ever heard of him?"

Morlake smiled.

"I never read the newspapers," he drawled. "There is so much in them that is not fit for a country gentleman to read."

"A country gentleman!"

It was Mr. Hamon's turn to be amused. Putting his hand in his pocket, he withdrew a note-case, and, opening its worn flap, he pulled out a tight wad of banknotes.

"That is for your travelling expenses," he said, as Morlake took the money from his hand. "As for your little house and estate, I'll make you an offer to-morrow. Your price—"

"Is a hundred thousand," said Morlake. "I'd take this paltry sum on account if it wasn't for the fact that you've got the number of every note in your pocket-book and a busy detective waiting at the gate to pull me as soon as I pocketed the swag! A hundred thousand is my price, Hamon. Pay me that, in the way I want it paid, and I'll leave you alone. One hundred thousand sterling is the price you pay for a month of quietness!"

He threw the money on to the grass.

"A month—what do you mean, a month?"

Again the big man raised his quiet eyes.

"I mean the month that elapses in this country between trial and execution," he said.

CHAPTER 5

THE MONKEY AND THE GOURD

Ralph Hamon leapt to his feet as if he had been shot. His face was livid, his thick lips bloodless.

"You're a liar ... a damned Yankee crook! Hang me? I'll settle with you, Morlake! I know enough about you ..."

Morlake raised a hand in mock alarm.

"Don't frighten me! My nerves are not what they were. And be a sensible man. Tell me all about yourself. I hear that you cleared half a million in Varoni Diamonds. Honestly too; which is queer. If you had only waited, Hamon! You wouldn't be going about in fear of your life. Do you know how the natives catch monkeys? They put a plum or a date at the bottom of a narrow-necked gourd. And the monkey puts in his hand and grips the date but can't get his clenched first through the narrow neck. He is too greedy to loose hold of the date and hasn't the strength to smash the gourd. And so he's caught. You're a monkey man, Hamon!"

Hamon had mastered his rage, but his face was deadly white.

"I don't understand you," he said. "You're one of these clever Alecs who like to hear themselves talk. I've warned you. Maybe you're the gourd that is going to get smashed."

"That occurred to me," nodded the other, "but I shall be broken in a good cause. In the meantime, I shall stay at Wold House, rejoicing in my mystery and in the interest I inspire in the country bosom."

"I'll settle that mystery!" roared Hamon. He paused at the edge of the gravel path and raised an admonitory finger. "I give you seven days to clear," he said.

"Shut the gate as you go out," said James Morlake, not troubling to turn his head.

Hamon sprang into the car that he had left on the road and drove homeward in a savage mood; but the shocks of the day were not at an end.

He had to follow the main road before he reached the uneven lane that bordered the Creith estate. It was the Hamon estate now, he reflected with satisfaction. He was master of these broad acres and sleepy farms that nestled in the folds of the downs. But his mastership was incomplete unless there went with his holding the slim, straight girl whose antagonism he sensed, whose unspoken contempt cut like the lash of a whip.

To tame her, humble her, punish her for her insolence, would be a sport more satisfying than any he had followed in his chequered life. As for the man called James Morlake ... he winced as he thought of that almost exact counterpart to Joan Carston.

He had turned the bonnet of his car into the lane when his eyes rested upon the whitewashed cottage behind the wooden fence, and he stopped the machine. He remembered that a friend of Joan's had been installed here—a woman.

Ralph Hamon was an opportunist. A friend of Joan's might become a friend of his, and if, as he guessed, she was not too well blessed with the goods of this world, he might find a subterranean method of sapping the girl's prejudice against him.

He got down from the machine and walked back to the road and through the gateway. A red brick path flanked by tall dahlias led to the cottage door. He glanced left and right. The occupant was not in the garden, and he knocked. Almost immediately the door opened and the tall figure of a woman confronted him.

Their eyes met, and neither spoke. He was staring at her as if she were a visitant from another world, and she met his gaze unflinchingly.

He tried to speak, but nothing came from his throat but a slurred growl; and then, turning violently, he almost ran down the path; the perspiration rolling down his face, his mouth dry with fear; for Elsa Cornford had that half of his secret which the master of Wold House did not guess.

CHAPTER 6

HAMON TELLS HIS NEWS

"Wasn't that thunder?" asked Lord Creith, and raised his hand to hide a yawn.

Joan sympathised with his boredom, for the dinner had seemed interminable.

"Sounds like it," said Hamon, rousing himself with a start from an unpleasant reverie.

The three people had scarcely spoken through the meal. Once Lord Creith had made a pointed reference to the dullness of the country and the fun that a man of Ralph Hamon's quality could find in town, but the financier had ignored his opportunity.

"It is thunder," said Creith with satisfaction. "October is rather late for storms. I remember when I was a boy ..."

He made a feeble effort to galvanise the little party into an interest which they did not feel, and ended his reminiscence almost before it had begun. And then, unconsciously, he turned the conversation to a channel which made two pairs of eyes turn instantly to his.

"I've been asking Stephens about this fellow Morlake. Queer fish— very queer. Nobody knows the least thing about him. He came from nowhere three years ago, bought up Wold House and settled himself as a country gentleman. He doesn't hunt or dance, refuses every invitation that has been sent to him, and apparently has no friends. A queer devil."

"I should say he was!"

Joan heard Mr. Hamon's loud chuckle of laughter, and looked across at him in surprise.

"Do you know him?"

Mr. Hamon selected a cigarette from the box on the table before he answered.

"Yes, I know him. He is an American crook."

"What!"

Joan tried to suppress the indignation in her voice, but failed, and apparently the man did not notice the implied defence of the master of Wold House.

"Yes," said Mr. Hamon, enjoying the sensation he had created, "he's a crook. What his real name is, I don't know. He is one of the big men of the underworld, a cracksman and a blackmailer!"

"But surely the police know all about him?" said the amazed Creith.

"They may. But a man like Morlake, who has made a lot of money, would be able to keep the police 'straight.'"

Joan had listened speechless.

"How do you know?" she found her voice to demand. Hamon shrugged his shoulders.

"I had an encounter with him a few years ago. He thought that he had found something about me which gave him a pull. He tried to blackmail me, and he had a narrow escape. He won't be so fortunate next time, and the next time"—he opened and closed his hand suggestively—"is near at hand! I've got him like this!"

Joan sat stunned by the news. Why this revelation should so affect her she could not explain, even to herself. She hated Ralph Hamon at that moment—hated him with an intensity out of all proportion to his offence, real or imaginary. It required the exercise of every scrap of self-control to prevent her anger bursting forth, but that she exercised and listened, biting her lip.

"His real name I don't know," Mr. Hamon went on. "The police have had him under observation for years, but they have never been able to collect evidence to convict him."

"But I never knew of this," interrupted Lord Creith, "and I am a magistrate. The county police invariably speak well of him."

"When I said 'police' I meant headquarters," corrected Hamon. "Anyway, they are not the kind of people who would talk."

"I don't believe it!" Joan's pent-up indignation came forth in a rush. "It is an absurd story! Really, Mr. Hamon, I am beginning to suspect you of reading sensational stories!"

Hamon smiled.

"I admit that it sounds unreal," he said, "but there is the truth. I saw the man this morning."

"Mr. Morlake?" asked Joan in surprise, and he nodded.

"He was pretty uncomfortable when he saw me, I can tell you, and to know that he had been recognised. He begged me not to tell anybody—"

"That isn't true. Of course, it isn't true," said Joan scornfully, and Hamon went a dull red. "Mr. Morlake is the last man in the world who would beg anything from you or anybody else. I don't believe he's a thief."

"A friend of yours?" asked Hamon loudly.

"I've never met him," said Joan shortly. "I have seen him ... at a distance, and that is all."

There was an awkward silence, but Ralph Hamon was blessed with a thick skin, and although he had been given the lie direct, he was not particularly disconcerted, not even when, attempting to resume the discussion of Morlake's past, Joan brusquely turned the talk into another direction. When Lord Creith had gone to his room, she walked out of the house to the lawn, to watch the lightning flickering in the southern sky, and to think free of Hamon's stifling presence, but he followed her.

"It looks as though it will be a stormy night," he said, by way of making conversation, and she agreed, and was turning back to the house when he stopped her. "Where did you find that woman who's living in the gardener's cottage?" he asked.

She raised her brows in astonishment. It was the last question in the world she expected from him.

"You mean Mrs. Cornford? Why—is she a criminal too?" she asked.

He smiled indulgently at the sarcasm.

"Not exactly; only I am interested. I have an idea that I met her years ago. I suppose she knows me, doesn't she?" he asked carelessly.

"She has never mentioned your name, possibly because I have never spoken about you," she said, a little surprised and her curiosity piqued.

"I seem to remember that she was a little wrong in the head. She was in a lunatic asylum for twelve months."

The girl was surprised into laughing.

"Really, Mr. Hamon," she said dryly, "I begin to suspect you of trying to frighten me. Such of my friends as aren't criminals must be lunatics!"

"I didn't know he was a friend of yours," said Hamon quickly.

He went toward her in the darkness.

"I have already told you that Mr. Morlake is not a friend. He's a neighbour, and neighbours, by our convention, are friends until we discover they are otherwise. Shall we go in?"

"One moment."

He caught her by the arm, and gently she freed herself.

"That isn't necessary, Mr. Hamon. What do you want to tell me?"

"Has your father spoken to you?" he asked.

"My father frequently speaks to me," said the girl. "Do you mean about you?"

He nodded.

"About your wanting to marry me?"

"That's it," he said a little huskily.

"Yes, he did speak about it to me," said Joan steadily, "and I told him that, whilst I was very sensible of the compliment you paid me, I have no desire to marry you."

Hamon cleared his voice.

"Did he also mention the fact that I am virtually the owner of Creith?"

"He also mentioned that," said the girl bravely.

"I suppose Creith is very dear to you? Your ancestors have had it for hundreds of years?"

"Very dear, indeed," said Joan, stifling her anger, "but not so dear that I am prepared to sacrifice my life's happiness to retain the title of mistress of Creith. There are worse things than being homeless, Mr. Hamon."

She made a move to go, but again he restrained her.

"Wait," he said. His voice was low and vibrant. "Joan, I am twenty years older than you, but you're the sort of woman I have dreamt about since I was a boy. There isn't a thing I wouldn't do for you, there isn't a service I wouldn't render you. I want you!"

Before she realised what he was doing he had caught her in his arms. She struggled to escape, but he held her in a grip that could not be broken.

"Let me go—how dare you!"

"Listen!" He almost hissed the word. "I love you, Joan! I love you, although you hurt me with your damned contempt. I love your face, your eyes, your dear, slim body...."

She twisted her head aside to avoid his greedy lips. And then, from the hallway, she heard, with a gasp of relief, the voice of her father calling:

"Where are you, Joan?"

Hamon's arms dropped, and she staggered back, breathless and shaken, horror and disgust in her soul.

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

She could not speak; she could only point to the door, and he went in. She herself did not follow for some minutes, and Lord Creith peered at her short-sightedly.

"Anything wrong?" he asked, as he saw her pale face.

"Nothing, Daddy."

He looked round. Hamon had disappeared through the open door of the drawing-room.

"A primitive fellow. I'll kick him out if you say the word, my dear."

Again she shook her head.

"It's not necessary. Yes, he is a little primitive. If he doesn't go to-morrow, will you take me to London?"

"I'm going to London anyway," said his lordship with satisfaction. "Do you wish me to talk to Hamon?" he asked anxiously.

"It isn't necessary," said Joan, and Lord Creith went back to his study relieved, for he hated any kind of bother.

CHAPTER 7

INTO THE STORM

She went straight up to her room, resolved not to risk a further interview with the man in whose eyes, even in the failing light, she had read the very deeps of human passion. She felt physically sick as she recalled those horrible seconds on the lawn, and she searched the drawer of her bureau for the key of the bedroom door, and, finding it, turned the lock—a thing she had never done before in her life. Then she sat down before her mirror, calmly to review a disturbing evening.

Predominant of the emotions which the night had called forth was the shock of the discovery about James Morlake. It could not be true; and yet Hamon would not have framed such an accusation unless it was well based.

She got up from her chair, opened one of the long windows and stepped out on to the stone balcony above the porch. The lightning was flickering whitely in the sky; there came to her ears the low roll and sustained rumble of thunder; but it was not at the sable skies she was looking. Across the park one faint yellow light showed the position of Wold House.

If all that Hamon said were true, did this strangely isolated man know that he was suspected? Ought he to be told? She uttered a little exclamation of impatience. It was madness on her part, sheer, stark lunacy to think about him. She knew him only as a figure that had often come within the focus of her field-glasses, a remarkable, an attractive face around which she had woven all manner of dreams. Nearer at hand, she would be disillusioned; and just at that moment she particularly desired that, even though she hated Hamon for sowing the first seeds of disenchantment.

She had never spoken to Morlake, never been within fifty yards of him, knew no more than servants' gossip could tell her, or than she could imagine for herself. If Hamon had spoken the truth, then he was in danger. If it were not true, then, for his own purpose, the financier was hatching some plot which would lead to Morlake's undoing.

She came back to the room and stared at herself in the mirror.

"I must be disillusioned," she said slowly and deliberately, and knew, as she spoke, that she was deceiving herself.

She went to her bureau, took out a long raincoat and a little hat, and laid them on her bed.

Creith House retired early, but it was not till half-past ten that she heard the front door being locked by Stephens, and the surly voice of Mr. Hamon bid the servant good-night as he came up the stairs on the way to his own room. She listened and heard the thud of Hamon's bedroom door as it closed. A quarter-of-an-hour passed and the house was silent.

Once more she returned to the balcony. The light was burning at Wold House, and she made her sudden resolve. With the coat over her arm, and holding her hat in her hand, she unlocked the door and stole fearfully down the broad stairway to the hall, where a night-light burnt. Stephens had retired; she could hear only the ticking of the big clock in the hall.

The key of the front door hung on the wall, a big and ungainly article, and she put this into her bag before she pulled back the bolts gently, unlocked the door and closed it behind her.

There would be no difficulty in finding her way. The lightning snickered and flashed almost incessantly. With a wildly beating heart she passed down the drive under the shadow of the rustling chestnut trees, through the lodge gates on to the main road.

She was being a fool, a sentimental idiot ... she was behaving like a romantic school-girl. Reason put out a hundred hands to hold her back. Something which was neither reason nor sentiment, some great instinct more potent than any controlling force of mind or heart, sent her forward eagerly to her strange quest.

Once she shrank into the shelter of a hedge as a car flashed past, and she wondered what the neighbours would think if they had seen Lady Joan Carston hiding from observation at that hour of the night. At any rate, they would never dream that she was on her way to warn an American crook whom she did not know, and had never met, that his arrest was imminent. She reflected on this with a certain amount of grim amusement.

Presently she was walking in the shelter of the high redbrick wall that surrounded Wold House. The wrought-iron gates were closed, and she had to fumble for some time before she found the latch that admitted her. The light she had seen had disappeared; the house was in darkness, and she stood in the shadow of a tree, trying to summon up sufficient courage to go on with her self-appointed mission.

She had taken a step forward when unexpectedly the door of the house opened. A bright light glowed in the passage, and in its rays she saw silhouetted in the doorway the figure of a man, and she drew back again to the cover of the shadow. Behind the man she saw James Morlake. He was talking in a low voice, and, even from where she stood, she felt a little thrill of satisfaction that it was the voice of a gentleman.

But who was the other? In some indefinite way the figure was strangely familiar to Joan. And then:

"Feeling better now?"

"Yes, thanks." She had to guess what the mumbled reply was.

"You will find the cottage on the road. I don't know Mrs. Cornford, but I believe there is a lady staying there."

"Awfully foolish of me to come here, but I went to the station bar ... and time passed ... and then this beastly storm came on. I'm afraid I'm rather drunk."

"I'm afraid you are," said Jim Morlake's voice.

Mrs. Cornford's lodger! The dipsomaniac. They came down the steps together, the younger man reeling a little till Jim put out his hand and steadied him.

"Awfully obliged to you, I'm sure—my name is Farringdon—Ferdie Farringdon ..."

And then a flicker of lightning showed his face, white, haggard, unshaven. The girl shrank back, wild-eyed, biting her lip to arrest her scream. Gripping a bough of the laurel bush to hold herself erect, she watched them pass into the gloom. She was still standing motionless, frozen, when Jim returned alone.

She watched him go into the house, saw the door close, and still she waited. Great drops of rain were splashing down; the thunder was louder, the lightning more vivid.

She had no longer any thought of warning him. She was absorbed, transfixed by the ghost that had risen from the night. With an effort she stirred herself and ran down the drive.

She tried to open the gate, but to her horror it was steadfast. Morlake must have locked it after he had seen the other on his way. What should she do?

She moved stealthily across the lawn, but here the river barred her further movement. She could get over the wall if she knew where a ladder was to be found.

And then the front door opened again and she drew swiftly into the shadows as somebody came out. It was Morlake: she could not mistake him. He walked quickly down the path, and she heard the clang of the gate as it closed behind him. As soon as the sound of his footsteps had died down, she ran to the gate—it was unlocked, and, with a sigh of thankfulness, she passed through.

Which way had he gone, she wondered. Probably toward the village. It was hardly likely that any business would take him in the direction of Creith House, unless he was going to the cottage to make sure that Farringdon had returned.

She had not gone a dozen yards before she was wet through, for the rain was hissing down with torrential fury. The roar and crash of thunder deafened her, the everlasting flutter of blue lightning brought intervals of blindness between each flash. Up to this moment she had not been afraid, but now the terror of the storm came on her and she broke into a run, and at last came in sight of the lodge gates. She felt in her sodden bag for the key—Yes, it was there.

Quickly she passed up the avenue and had reached the end, when she stopped dead, her eyes wide open in fear. Ahead of her, not a dozen yards away, the lightning revealed the figure of a man in black, standing motionless and in her path. She could not see the face under the brim of the wide sombrero he wore.

"Who are you?" she asked shakily.

Before he could reply, there was a blinding burst of flame, a crash as though giant hands had torn a sheet of steel apart; something lifted her from her feet and flung her violently to the earth.

The man in the path stood paralysed for a second, then, with a cry, he leapt forward, and, lifting the prostrate figure, dragged her from the burning tree. A light had appeared in one of the windows of Creith House, another followed. The household was awake, and the blazing chestnut would bring them into the open.

He looked round and saw a clump of rhododendrons, and lifting the unconscious girl he carried her into the shadow of the cover just as the butler came out of the house to the porch.

Who she was the stranger did not know. Possibly some belated servant returning from the village. He did not trouble to examine his burden, and might have been no wiser if he had, for Joan's face was smeared with the soft loam mud into which she had mercifully fallen.

Evidently nobody intended coming out to fight the flames. He heard a voice from one of the windows demanding that the fire brigade be sent for.

"'Phone, my dear man, 'phone! And don't bother me till the beastly fire is out."

It was at that moment that Joan recovered consciousness. She opened her eyes and stared wildly round. Somebody was supporting her head on his knee. Her face was wet with falling rain; above her were the swaying branches of bushes. How did she get there?

"I think you'll be O.K. now," said a voice, strangely muffled.

She stared up at him, recognising instantly the voice of James Morlake.

"What has happened?" she asked, and then she smelt the pungent perfume of burnt wood and shivered.

The tree under which she had stood had been struck, and by some miracle she had escaped.

"Thank you ever so much—" she began, and at that moment the lawn was made radiant with a sustained glare of lightning.

She was looking into a face that was covered from brow to chin with a black silk mask!

CHAPTER 8

THE ROBBER

"It is true—true!" she grasped, and he heard the pain in her voice and peered down.

"What is true?—please don't shout or they will hear you."

Trembling helplessly, she tried to regain control of her voice.

"You are a burglar!" she said, and heard his smothered exclamation.

"You mean ... the mask? I'm afraid you saw it. One mask doesn't make a burglar, you know, any more than one swallow makes a summer! On a wet night like this a man who wishes to keep that school-girl complexion would naturally protect—"

"Please don't be absurd!"

She realised, so keen was her sense of humour, that the dignity of her tone did not exactly accord with her own deplorable situation. She was lying uncomfortably on wet grass, her face.... She hoped he could not see her face, and furtively wiped some of the mud away with the slimy corner of her raincoat, which, for some extraordinary reason, she had carried over her arm through the storm.

"Will you help me up, please?"

For answer he stooped and lifted her to her feet without any apparent effort.

"Are you staying at the Hall?" he asked, and there was something so formal and so suggestive of polite small talk about the question that her lips trembled.

"Yes—I am. Are you ... were you thinking of burgling the Hall?"

She felt rather than heard him laugh.

"You won't believe that I am not a burglar—"

"Are you?"

There was a challenge in the voice.

"Really," said James Morlake after a while, "this situation is verging on the grotesque ..."

"Are you?" she asked again, and as she expected, so he replied.

"I am."

She would have been bitterly disappointed if he had said anything else. A burglar he might be, a liar he could not be.

"Well, we've nothing to burgle, Mr.—" She stopped suddenly. Did he know that she had recognised him?

"Mr.—?" he suggested. "You said just now 'It is true'—meaning it was true that I am a burglar. Were you expecting a visitation to-night?"

"Yes," she said, having none of his scruples. "Mr. Hamon said that we might be robbed."

It was the lamest of inventions, but the effect upon the man was unexpected.

"Oh! You're a visitor at the Hall. I beg your pardon, I thought you were ... er ... well, I didn't exactly know what you were—would you mind looking straight at the house?"

"Why?"

"Please—"

She obeyed naturally and turned her back on him. Somebody was coming out to the smouldering tree. A storm lantern was swaying and the gait of the newcomer suggested a reluctance to investigate at close hand the phenomena of nature.

"It is Peters," she said, and looked round.

She was alone; the masked man was gone.

It was easy to avoid Peters, but as she reached the corridor leading to her room, she suddenly confronted her father.

"Good God! Joan ... where on earth have you been ... you gave me a fright."

"I went out to see the tree," she said (she had never lied so easily in her life).

"What the deuce do you want to go out into the beastly rain to see trees for?" grumbled Lord Creith. "Let Peters see it! Your face is all muddy...."

She bolted into her room as the door of Hamon's chamber opened and his pyjamaed figure showed.

"Something struck?" asked Hamon.

Lord Creith turned his head.

"One of your trees, my dear fellow," he said with satisfaction. "By Jove! I only just realised that it wasn't my tree!"

And, consoled by the knowledge that there really was nothing to justify any personal worry, his lordship went back to bed, undisturbed by the cannon of the heavens or the lightning which lit up his room at irregular intervals.

Joan's was the only room in Creith Hall that possessed the luxury of an adjoining bathroom, and she was sufficiently feminine, as she stripped off her wet clothes, to be absorbed for the moment in the thoroughness of her soaking to the partial exclusion of all thoughts of her adventure.

She came back to the problem of Mr. Morlake as she sat in bed nursing her knees and watching through the open window the passage of the storm. The chestnut tree was smoking and the lightning gave her a glimpse of two brass-helmetted men gazing impotently at the ruin. The village fire brigade was, in point of costume, an exact replica of its great metropolitan model. It was only on the minor point of efficiency that it fell short.

Had Morlake recognised her? It was very doubtful. She had never met him, and she guessed that he was so incurious as to the identities of the people of Creith House that he was genuine when he mistook her for a visitor. Who did he think she was? A servant, perhaps.

"Now I think you are thoroughly and completely disillusioned, Joan Carston," she said soberly. "Your wonder-man is a burglar! And you can only be interested in burglars if your mind is morbid and unwholesome and your outlook is hopelessly decadent. Let this be a lesson to you, young woman! Concentrate upon the normalities of life."

So saying, she got out of bed, and, craning her neck, looked across the park toward Wold House. The tiny light was burning. Mr. Morlake had returned home.

Sighing thankfully, she returned to bed, and she was sleeping soundly when James Morlake stepped from the concealment of the rhododendrons and, crossing the lawn, slipped the edge of a small jemmy under the bottom of a window that looked into the dark entrance hall.

CHAPTER 9

MR. HAMON LOSES MONEY

Joan came down early, intending to breakfast before Mr. Hamon was up. She had nearly finished her healthy repast when Hamon burst into the room, and he was not pretty to see. He wore his socks, a pair of trousers from which the braces were hanging, and a vividly striped pyjama coat. His unshaven face was dark with anger as he glared round.

"Where's Stephens?" he roared, and then, realising that neither his tone nor appearance was in harmony with the requirements of good breeding, he said in a more subdued voice: "Excuse me, Lady Joan, but I've been robbed."

She had risen to her feet and was looking at him, wide-eyed.

"Has somebody stolen your shoes and coat?" she asked, and he flushed.

"I only just discovered it—the robbery, I mean. Somebody broke into my room last night and took a wallet with three thousand pounds! It was that dog Morlake. I'll fix him! I've given the swine his chance—"

"It is a pity that the robber did not also steal your vocabulary, Mr. Hamon," said the girl coldly.

She was far from feeling the indifference she displayed. Then Morlake had come back after all! She felt a sense of grievance against him- -he had deceived her. She examined her mind, after the spluttering Hamon had disappeared, in search of a more sympathetic audience, for some intelligent reason for her grievance. The deception lay in the light which showed in the window of Wold House, she decided, though James Morlake might not have been responsible for its appearance. From the confusing evidence offered by the victim, by Peters, and reflected by Lord Creith, it appeared that, at some hour in the early morning, a person unknown had forced an entrance through one of the windows which flanked the hall door; that he had entered at least two rooms (Joan gasped as the possibility flashed across her mind that hers might have been one, and was unaccountably piqued to learn that the second room was an empty room next to Mr. Hamon's); that he had taken, from underneath the pillow which supported the unconscious head of Ralph Hamon, a leather wallet containing between £3,000 and £4,000 in banknotes, and added the indignity of unloading the revolver which lay on a table by the side of Mr. Hamon's bed; the cartridges were discovered in the grounds.

"My dear good man," said Lord Creith, visibly bored by the fourth recital of Ralph Hamon's loss, "it is a simple matter to convey to the bovine constabulary which is at present tramping over my flower beds that you suspect this Morlake person. As a magistrate, I shall be happy to issue a warrant for his arrest, or, what is more important, the search of his house. If he has stolen your money, it will be discovered in his possession."

"I don't want to do that," said Hamon, sourly. "There is no proof other than my word."

"But I thought you said that the police had him under observation?" Joan ventured to say, though at the thought that she was assisting in the arrest of her burglar she went hot and cold.

"Not exactly under observation," admitted Hamon; "but there are men who know about him—men at headquarters, I mean. My friend, Inspector Marborne, has been shadowing him for years. No, I'm not going to hand the case over to the local police—they'd only bungle it. Besides, a man of Morlake's character is too clever to have the stuff in the house. I'll go over and talk to him."

He looked savagely across at the girl as the sound of her soft laughter came to him.

"I'm so sorry," she said apologetically, "but it does sound silly, doesn't it, for the robbed to argue with the robber? I know such things happen in books, but you don't seriously mean that you will go to him and tell him you suspect him?"

"I think all this talk about our neighbour is romantic nonsense," said Lord Creith, energising himself to take an interest in the matter. "The whole thing is so simple: if he's a burglar, and you know he's a burglar, have him arrested. If he doesn't happen to be a burglar, but is an innocent country gentleman, as we are all agreed he seems to be, then, of course, you're liable to very severe damages in any action at law which he may bring. Anyway, it was foolish of you to carry so much money about with you, my dear man! Three thousand pounds! Great heavens! What are banks for?" he looked at his watch. "I am going up to town in half-an- hour. I won't offer you a lift, because my machine can only hold two people comfortably in ordinary circumstances and one person, uncomfortably, when Joan is travelling. My dear, will you try to keep your baggage down to half-a-dozen trunks and as few hat-boxes as possible?"

"You're going to town?" said the other, disappointed. "I thought you were staying for the rest of the week."

"I told you on Monday I was going to town," said his lordship, who had done nothing of the sort. "There is a sale at Tattersall's to-morrow which I must attend; and Joan has an appointment with her dentist. You may stay on if you wish; don't let me interfere with your plans."

"When will you be back?" asked Hamon.

"In about a month," said Lore Creith.

Ralph Hamon decided that he also would go to the metropolis, and hinted that his own car was big enough to take the whole party. The hint was neither seen nor heeded.

"That's over," said Lord Creith, with a sigh of relief, as the car turned out of the lodge gates to the post road. "Hamon is a very admirable person, but he's inclined to get on one's nerves."

He screwed an eyeglass in his eye as they approached Wold House.

"That is the home of our maligned neighbour, isn't it, Joan? Never seen the fellow: what is he like?"

"Oh, just an ordinary, inoffensive-looking man," said Joan lamely.

"Is he now?" said his lordship, interested. "That is very suspicious. I never like inoffensive-looking men."

At that moment the chauffeur jammed on his brakes. A car was coming out through the gates of Wold House, a long, black machine, the sole occupant of which was Mr. James Morlake. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the danger and brought his machine perilously close to the ditch on his left as Lord Creith's car shot past.

"Narrow squeak, that," said his lordship comfortably. "Our man was, of course, in the wrong: he should have sounded his horn. So that is Mr. Morlake, eh? I don't agree with your description, my dear. A more offensive-looking person I have never seen. From the scowl on his face he might have been a murderer."

"I was talking of him as a man," said Joan calmly, "not as a motorist."

A savage howl from a siren behind brought the Creith car to the near side of the road, and the snaky black machine shot past them, its driver looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Joan knew the type of car: it was a high-powered Italian machine, and one of the costliest in Europe. Evidently Mr. James Morlake spared no expense in the pursuit of his nefarious calling.

CHAPTER 10

THE FRAME-UP

Divisional Inspector Marborne came from his chief's office, closed the door behind him gently, and was whistling to himself as he walked down the stone stairs of police headquarters. Even his friend and associate, a detective sergeant of many years' standing, was deceived.

He followed his superior into the street, and in the comparative quietude of the Thames Embankment, asked eagerly:

"Was it O. K.?"

"It was not O. K.," said the other carefully. "It was as near O. K. as makes no difference. In fact, Barney, the Pure Police movement has spread so thoroughly that I was as near to being asked to turn in my coat as ever I've been. The old man said that he had proof that I'd been taking 'quieteners' from Bolson's gambling house in Upper Gloucester Place, and gave me the number of the notes that Big Bennett paid me for tipping off his brother that he was going to be 'pulled in.' I'm booked for retirement, and so are you—the old man said he knew that you were in it."

Sergeant Barney Slone winced, for he had tastes which would make living on a pension a painful proceeding.

"There is one chance, and only one, and I'm going to take it," said the inspector. "I hate depending upon men like Lieber and Colley, but they are our long suits. Bring them up to my apartment for a bit of dinner to- night."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get The Black," said Inspector Marborne, and his subordinate stopped in his walk and stared at him.

"Get him—how?" he asked incredulously.

But the inspector was not prepared to explain.

"I know him—at least, I think I know him—if I don't, a friend of mine does. It will be the biggest thing I've ever done, Barney."

For more than five years The Black, so called because he wore clothing of funereal hue, had been the bugbear of London. No strong room was invulnerable to the attack of this skilful and single-handed burglar. Banks and safe deposits had been the sole objects of his attention—a fact which had added considerably to the difficulties of the police.

Curiously enough, the extent of The Black's depredations was never known. His hobby was to rifle private boxes and safes where respectable men hid up the items that would seriously challenge their respectability if they were dragged to the light of day. Some men hid money that way, forgoing the interest that might accrue for the sake of having at hand a nest egg against a stormy day when their worst fears were realised. Naturally, these were vague about their losses, often denying that they had lost anything of value. The Black was obviously a student of human nature, and robbed well, and it was a fact that, in the course of five years, though twenty-three burglaries stood to his discredit, there was no definite charge of stealing a definite sum which might pass the scrutiny of a Grand Jury.

At five o'clock that afternoon, Mr. Marborne called at 307 Grosvenor Place, where Ralph Hamon had his London residence. Marborne was a type of policeman to be found in every city of the civilised world. Graft is not the canker of any particular police force: it is a disease which makes its appearance, and will continue to appear, wherever lowly and unscrupulous men rise to positions of authority. Wherever easy money is available, there will be found men ready and willing to take the tempting prizes of dishonesty without any thought of their responsibilities or their treachery to the causes they represent.

Hamon was writing letters when the detective was shown into the drawing-room. He rose and greeted the visitor effusively.

"Come right in, Marborne. I'm glad to see you. You got my letter?"

"Yes, I had it this morning," said Marborne, depositing his hat on the floor and seating himself carefully. "Three thousand pounds you lost, eh? I suppose you've got the numbers of the notes?"

"Yes, I have the numbers, but that won't worry him. You know how easy it is to pass stolen money; and when you're dealing with an expert like The Black, I don't think it's worth while building any hope of catching him through the notes."

Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the servant with a large silver tray and the refreshment which was essential to Marborne's comfort.

"You're sure it was The Black?" asked the detective, when his host had carefully closed and locked the door behind the servant.

"Certain."

"Why didn't you report it to the local police?" asked Marborne curiously. "It would have been a simple matter to have got a search- warrant—you were staying with Lord Creith, and he's Chairman of the Quarter Sessions."

Hamon shook his head.

"That isn't the way. I had no evidence but my suspicion. You don't suppose for one minute that we should have found the stuff in Morlake's house, do you? No, that course was suggested by Lord Creith himself, but I didn't proceed with it, because"—he leant forward, and lowered his voice— "that would have spoilt the scheme I spoke to you about a month ago."

The detective pursed his lips dubiously.

"It's going to be a pretty hard job to frame up a charge, and it'll cost you a bit of money, Mr. Hamon. I have been thinking it out, and though I know the very men for the work, it will mean spending money freely."

"Spend to the limit," said Hamon violently, "but get him! He's in London—I suppose you know that?"

The detective nodded.

"Yes, I've 'tailed him up' as far as it's possible. I've got a friend of mine, Sergeant Slone, on the job, but it hasn't been easy. Our code doesn't allow a man to be 'tailed' unless an official report has been made against him to the police, and I've had to get Slone to work in his spare time."

"Any work done for me will be paid for," said Hamon a little impatiently. "Have you got the scheme worked out?"

The inspector nodded.

"There is a house on Blackheath," he said, "owned by a retired Colonial officer. He is a rich man, and has a wonderful collection of antique jewellery. There are only his wife, his daughter and three servants in the house, and I've got a man who could crack it in about five minutes. It wouldn't be so easy to get the jewellery, because that is kept in a safe, but there's no need to worry about touching the stuff. The thing is to get him to the house, and to leave enough evidence to catch your man. The real difficulty is going to be to break down any alibi that he may have. It is useless pulling him in for a burglary at Blackheath if he can prove that at the time he was in his club."

"Can you bring him to Blackheath by any means?" asked the interested Mr. Hamon.

The detective nodded.

"That is what I'm working for," he said, "but it will require a whole lot of manoeuvring. Morlake lives in a sort of Oriental flat in Bond Street and has two servants—a Moor named Mahmet—he's travelling a lot in Morocco—and a valet named Binger, who is a pensioner of the 14th Hussars. Binger doesn't live on the premises: he lives with his wife and family in the Blackheath Road—that's why I chose Blackheath. Usually, when Morlake's in town, Binger comes down to Blackheath by one of the all-night cars that run on the southern route. Sergeant Slone has become friendly with Binger, who doesn't know, of course, that Slone is a police officer. Every attempt he has made to get Binger to talk about his boss has been useless so far. I'm perfectly sure he knows a lot more about Morlake than he tells. But he's as dumb as an oyster the moment the conversation turns round to James Morlake."

"How is this going to help you?" asked Hamon.

"It's going to help me a lot," said the inspector deliberately. "Morlake is fond of this man, and when he was ill, about two years ago, he used to go down every day in his car to Blackheath Road and bring him fruit and books, and had his own doctor attending him. Sometimes Binger comes home early, and the next night this happens we'll work the frame-up. Can you get anything of Morlake's—a handkerchief, a pocket- book—?"

Hamon shook his head.

"No," he said shortly. "I have never been into his house."

"That is unfortunate, but it isn't absolutely necessary. I'll have his initials engraved on a pocket-knife—it's easier to prove that you own an article than it is to prove you never owned it! It'll cost a bit—as I say, it's going to be a costly business."

Mr. Hamon took his note-case out, and passed across the table a sum considerably in excess of Marborne's wildest anticipations.

With this money in his pocket, and a corresponding sense of elation in his soul, the detective strolled out to join the waiting Slone. He had reason for gratification, since the plan, if successful, would not only make him a comparatively rich man (supposing Hamon kept his promise), but would wipe out the memory of a number of very ugly incidents that had disfigured his official career, and would inevitably qualify him for promotion if The Black were convicted.

Slone was waiting for him on the corner of the street.

"Did he drop?" he asked, and Inspector Marborne frowned.

"I wish you'd get out of that vulgar way of talking, Slone," he said severely. "My friend gave me a little money for expenses, but I don't want you to think that he's the Bank of England. I've got a hundred for you on account, which I'll give you when we get to my flat. You told Colley to be there?"

"He's been waiting all the afternoon," said Slone. "Lieber hasn't turned up—but he's slow, being Dutch. What is the big idea?"

"You'll hear about it," said the other cryptically.

Colley proved to be an undersized, wizened man whose face had been not the least of his misfortunes. For, to the evidence which had been produced against him from time to time in various courts of law, there was added the unflattering testimony of a face in which "criminal" was written so unmistakably that the most sentimental of jury-women was ready to convict him before the evidence was through.

He was waiting on the pavement opposite the detective's lodgings, and followed the two men through the door. In Mr. Marborne's snug sitting- room he took the cigar that was offered him with an ingratiating smile.

"The sergeant said you wanted to see me, Mr. Marborne," he said. "I got a bit of a fright at first, because I thought you wanted me for that Mill Hill job. If I never move out of this room alive, I'm as innocent— "

"Shut up about the Mill Hill job. I know who did it," said Marborne. "I've got some work for you, Colley."

The face of the thief fell.

"I don't mean honest work," said the detective, "so don't get alarmed! Now listen to this, and listen very carefully. There's a friend of mine who wants to have a little joke with somebody. You needn't worry about the joke being on you, because it won't be."

He explained carefully in detail just what was required of Colley, and as he listened, the man, who at first was alarmed, began to see daylight.

"You want me to get in and get out again quick: is that it?"

"Not too quick," corrected Marborne. "I shall want you to make a bit of a fuss. Let 'em see you, you understand?"

Colley pulled a wry face.

"If this fellow's a Colonial, maybe he's got a gun, and if he sees me before I see him, there'll be some one-sided shooting. It's a fine joke, Mr. Marborne, but it don't amuse me as much as a good Chaplin film."

It took an hour of solid talking to persuade Colley that the danger was negligible and the reward so munificent that he need not work again for a year. In the end he was persuaded, and it was arranged that he should be within call for the next week. When the interview was over, Mr. Marborne went forth to what he knew would be the most difficult of his tasks, and with him went a Mr. Lieber, a belated arrival on the scene.

"I may not want you, Lieber, but you can wait around in case I do. You know Morlake?"

Mr. Lieber, who was stout, shook his head, for he needed all his breath to keep pace with the long-striding detective.

"You can't mistake him, and anyway, I'll be with you to point him out."

"Is he a crook?" wheezed Lieber.

"He's a crook, and I want an identification—the same as you got for me in the Crewe case. A handkerchief, a pocket-book, papers—anything. But I may not need you. Here we are—wait on the corner and follow me when I come out."

Binger opened the door to the caller and eyed him suspiciously, for, although Marborne was unknown to the valet, there was a something "official" in his manner which the old soldier instantly recognised.

"I don't know whether Mr. Morlake is hin or whether he's hout," he said. "If you wait a bit I'll see."

He closed the door in his visitor's face and went into the big Oriental room where James Morlake was reading.

"He says his name is Kelly, sir, and maybe it his and maybe it hain't."

"What did he say his business was?" asked Morlake, closing his book.

"He said he'd met you in Morocco some years ago, and had only just found your address."

"Show him in, will you?" said James Morlake after a moment's thought, and Mr. Marborne, strolling into the big room, took in its beauty with an admiring glance.

"Sit down, Mr. Kelly. I have no chairs, because I have no visitors— perhaps you will sit on the divan."

Marborne seated himself with a little smirk.

"It is a long time since I met you, Mr. Morlake. I suppose you don't remember me dining at your table at the Cecil, in Tangier, some ten years ago?"

"I have a dim recollection," said Morlake, eyeing his visitor carelessly.

"I was travelling for a hardware firm," said Marborne glibly, and all the time he was speaking he was casting his eyes around, trying to find some little article by which his man might be identified on some future and vital occasion. "I don't know whether you trouble to keep chance acquaintances in your mind, but I have a very pleasant recollection of our meeting."

"I remember you now," said Jim Morlake; "though you have altered a little since I saw you last."

Mr. Marborne looked up at the carved ceiling.

"Beautiful bit of work there; they couldn't do it in this country, or any other," he said. "You've got a lovely place. Nobody would imagine, walking on Bond Street, that there was a real Moorish room within half-a- dozen paces."

He had found what he needed: it lay in the shadow at the back of the stationery rack—a small leather folder on which he could see, even at that distance, three initials. It was too small for a pocket-book, and he guessed it to be a little stamp case until, nearer at hand, he saw that it held a clip of flat matches.

Rising from the divan, he strolled across the room until he stood opposite the watchful man, his hands resting on the desk. Presently:

"I have no business whatever to interrupt a busy person like you," he said, "but I thought, as I was in London for a day, I'd give you a call. It was not inconvenient, I hope?"

His fingers had touched the match case and closed over it. To slip the little leather folder into his pocket was unnecessary: it was so small that he could palm it.

"I'm always glad to see my old Moroccan friends," said Jim. "Won't you have a drink, Mr. Kelly?"

"No, thank you," said Kelly. "I won't occupy any more of your time. I was told that you didn't live in town—that you had a house somewhere in Sussex."

"Yes, I have a house in Sussex," said Jim quietly.

By this time the match case was in the detective's pocket.

"If you're ever in Liverpool, look me up—John L. Kelly," said Marborne, as he put out his hand. "You'll find me in the telephone directory—943 Lime Street. I'm very glad indeed to have met you again, Mr. Morlake."

Jim took the hand and watched his visitor as he strolled towards the curtained hallway.

"Oh, by the way," he said, as the man reached the curtain, "you might be good enough to leave my matches behind—I may want them."

Marborne stared and started.

"Your—your matches?" he stammered.

"Yes, they're in your right-hand trousers pocket, Inspector," said Jim, hardly looking up from the book he had opened.

"I have no matches," said Marborne loudly.

"Then you have used them, and I will take the case," said Jim. "And, Inspector, if you give me any trouble, I shall call up headquarters and tell your chief something about the gentleman who runs a receiver's business in Marylebone Lane. You get a rake-off of ten per cent., I am told—I am sure the excellent Commissioner does not know that."

Marborne's face twitched and he changed colour. He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it, then, taking the case from his pocket, he flung it on the ground.

"Thank you," said Jim gently.

The man's face was dark with rage, as, stung by the cool contempt of the other, he turned.

"I'll get you one of these days, Morlake," he quavered in his fury. "You'll not get away with it all the time!"

"And you won't get away with my matches any time," said Jim, and, to Binger, who had appeared in the opening between the curtains: "Show this gentleman out, and see that he doesn't take my umbrella from the hall-stand."

CHAPTER 11

JANE SMITH

When the door had closed upon the infuriated policeman, Binger hastened back to his employer.

"That man was a detective," he whispered hoarsely.

"I know that," said Jim, stifling a yawn. "He stole my matches—what other proof was needed, Binger?"

"What did he come here for, sir?" asked Binger in agitation.

"To find out all about me, and apparently to get a light for his cigar. He knows all he'll ever know. Don't worry your head about him, Binger."

"Them fellows are as hartful as monkeys," said the valet.

"Hartfuller," agreed Jim, "but not much. A monkey isn't clever at all: get that into your nut, Binger. He's the most stupid of all the lower animals."

"Are you going out to-night, sir?" after a pause.

"No, I'm staying in to-night. You may go home early to your wife and family—I suppose you have a family?"

"Yes, sir, I've two boys in the Harmy," said Binger proudly.

Jim Morlake nodded.

"I don't think I shall want you for anything more. Tell Mahmet to bring me coffee: I shall be working late to-night."

When the man had gone, he laid down his book and began slowly to pace the big room, his hands clasped behind him, a far-away look in his eyes and a frown upon his handsome face. He heard the thud of the door as Binger went home, and a few seconds later the little Moorish servant came in, bearing a tray with the paraphernalia for coffee-making.

Jim watched him idly, and when the man's task was finished and he had salaamed his way out of the room, he walked to the divan, and stooping, lifted the top that came up like the lid of a box. In the cavity beneath was a small steel safe lying on its back. He fitted a key in the lock and, pulling up the door, took out a large bundle of banknotes. For half an hour he was sorting them into their various denominations. When he had finished, he counted the bundles carefully, enclosed them in various envelopes, on each of which he wrote a different name and address, which he took from a pocket diary which he carried in his waistcoat pocket. This done, he replaced all the envelopes in the safe, closed and locked it and replaced the "lid" of the divan.

He looked at his watch: it was half-past eleven. He did not feel tired; the book he had been reading was very dull, yet no outside amusement attracted him.

He sat down again to consider the problem of Marborne's visit. Marborne, in his simplicity, had imagined that he was unknown, but in truth there was not a detective holding any rank in the headquarters police whose face James Morlake did not know.

Why had he come? Why had he been guilty of so paltry a theft? Jim had not seen the matches go, but he had known they were on the desk and when the detective had walked to the table he had observed the palming. What was the object, he wondered—he could supply half-a-dozen solutions, none of which was wholly convincing to himself.

He got up and passed through a narrow arched doorway into a smaller room, furnished with a bed and a wardrobe. He would go out, he decided, and changed his shoes. He was opening the door of the flat when he saw a letter on the floor. It had evidently been pushed through the slot, and, picking it up, he saw that it had been delivered by hand. It was addressed in pencilled writing to "Mr. Morelake," and it was marked "Urgent."

Tearing open the envelope, he read the few scrawled lines it contained, and reading, he frowned. Presently he folded the letter, put it back in its envelope and slipped it into his pocket.

"Mahmet, did you hear anybody outside?" he asked when the servant had come in response to his signal.

"No, effendi—not since the secretary went. I was in the hall then."

Morlake took the letter from his pocket.

"This was not here when you let Binger out?"

"No—there was nothing."

The letter must have been delivered while he was changing his shoes.

Restoring the scrawled warning to his pocket, he went out on the stone landing. His flat was the only residential apartment in the building, the lower floors being offices, the ground floor a couturière'sestablishment. Usually at this hour of the night the caretaker, the only other person in the building at night, was to be found smoking in the small entrance hall, but to-night he was absent.

As Morlake came into the street, Inspector Marborne, standing in the shadow of a door, tapped his companion on the shoulder.

"There's your man, Lieber," he said.

The pickpocket nodded and walked across the road, following the tall man, who was moving at a leisurely pace toward Piccadilly. As he reached the corner, Morlake stopped and looked left and right irresolutely as though he were undecided which way he should go. At that moment a stout little man, walking rapidly, came into violent collision with him.

"Steady, my friend," said James Morlake, recovering from the shock.

"Excuse me," mumbled the little man, and went on his way at the same furious rate, Jim Morlake looking after him with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

Inspector Marborne was waiting for the thief at the corner of Air Street, and as the little man turned into that deserted thoroughfare, Marborne fell in at his side.

"Well?" he demanded.

"I got something," said Lieber, putting his hand in his pocket. "There's no handkerchief or case in his pocket, but I got a letter."

Impatiently the inspector tore it from his hand and, halting beneath a street standard, examined the prize.

"It is addressed to him all right," he said. "Now, Mr. Morlake, I think I've got you."

He pulled out the letter and read it. Lieber watching him, saw his mouth open in horrified amazement.

Dear Mr. Morlake [the message ran], Ralph Hamon employs a police officer named Marborne, who is laying a trap for you.

It was signed "Jane Smith."

"Who the devil is Jane Smith?" gasped Marborne.

This was the identical question that James Morlake was asking himself at that moment.

CHAPTER 12

MISS LYDIA HAMON

The detective turned from his examination of the letter to glower at his companion.

"You're a fine thief, Lieber!" he snarled. "Is this all you could get?"

Lieber's puffy face fell.

"Ain't it enough, Mr. Marborne?" he asked, aggrieved. "You said 'Get a letter,' and I got it."

"You got it all right," said the other grimly. "Oh, yes, you got it!"

He stuffed the letter into his pocket and left his gaping agent staring after him.

Little things amuse, but they also distress little minds. The discovery that his association with Hamon was known to "Jane Smith" worried him horribly—it worried him more because he was so deeply committed to the plot that it was impossible to go back. The scheme must be carried through, but first he must make sure of his ground. He hailed a taxi and drove to Grosvenor Place. The servant who admitted him, and who knew him, said that Mr. Hamon was out.

"Will you see Miss Hamon?" asked the man.

"Miss Hamon?—I didn't know there was a Miss Hamon," said Marborne in surprise.

The butler might have explained that the visits of Miss Hamon to London were few and far between, and he could have supplemented the information that, rare as they were, the household of 307 Grosvenor Place would have been delighted if they were even rarer. For Lydia Hamon was that type of young woman (and the type was not exclusively confined to the young) who, having risen to affluence from the borderland of poverty, lived in a state of perpetual fear that their superiority to the rest of the world was not being duly recognised.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hamon has a sister—she lives in Paris."

Lydia certainly lived in Paris. She had a small apartment on the Bois and a very highly-polished coupé that was driven by a Japanese chauffeur in a rose-red livery. She studied art in a genteel way, knew many old Royalist families and spoke French to her own satisfaction.

Leaving Marborne in the hall, the servant went into the drawing- room, closing the door behind him. It was a little time before he reappeared to beckon the visitor forward.

Lydia Hamon was pretty and thin. Her hair, a dull red, was bobbed in the French manner and bound by a filet of bronze-coloured ribbon. Her arms, otherwise bare, were encircled by bracelets that flashed and glittered in the light of shaded wall brackets. She turned her dark eyes languidly in the direction of the detective as he entered, and the thin eyebrows arched inquiringly. Otherwise, she made no attempt to greet the visitor, nor did she rise from the couch on which she was lying.

Marborne, a susceptible man, was struck dumb by what he regarded as her unearthly beauty. The green evening gown, the dull gold of dainty shoes and silken stockings, the delicate hands that shaded her eyes as though his coming had introduced a new brilliancy into the room, were all parts of the charm which momentarily overwhelmed him.

"You want to see my brother?" she drawled (she actually said "brothah," and the gentility of the intonation took his breath away).

"Yes, miss, I have a little business with him."

She looked at the diamond-studded watch on her wrist.

"He will be back very soon," she said. "I know nothing about business, so I'm afraid I can't help you. Won't you sit down, Mr. Marlow?"

"Marborne," murmured the detective, seating himself gingerly on the edge of a chair. "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you before, Miss Hamon."

She inclined her head, signifying her regret that this pleasure had not been his.

"I live mostly abroad, in my dear Paris," she said. "Life there is so different, so real! London, with its commercialism and absence of soul, frightens me."

Inspector Marborne, who was not a classy talker, felt it was a moment to suggest that the efficiency of the London police force was such that nobody need be frightened, but happily, before she could lead him again out of his depth, Hamon came in.

"Hullo, Marborne!" he said anxiously. "What is wrong?" He glanced at the reclining figure on the sofa. "You've met my sister? Lydia, this is Mr. Marborne, a friend of mine and an officer of the Metropolitan Police."

"Really?" She raised her eyebrows again, but, to Marborne's disappointment, did not seem particularly impressed.

"We'll go up to my den," said Hamon, and he hustled the detective from the room before the impressionable Marborne could begin taking leave.

Behind the closed doors of Hamon's room, the inspector told his story.

"Let me see the letter," said Hamon.

He studied it under the light of the table lamp, his lips pursed, his eyebrows gathered in a frown.

"Jane Smith? Who the dickens is Jane Smith?" he muttered.

"Is there anybody who knows about—about this matter?" asked Marborne.

"Nobody. I mentioned it to my sister, but to no other soul."

At first astonished, Marborne was a little perturbed.

"I wish you hadn't mentioned it to anybody, Mr. Hamon," he said.

"I haven't," said the other impatiently. "I did no more than tell Lydia that I'd got a scheme for settling with Morlake. One thing I'll swear—that the writing isn't Lydia's, and anyway, she doesn't know the man, and would not write to him if she did. Is this all you've got?"

"It is all that is necessary," said Marborne airily. "I've got the scheme so well fixed that it isn't necessary we should have anything of Morlake's. The envelope will be found—any clue that leads us to Morlake is sufficient."

He did not tell of the visit he had paid, feeling that it was hardly the moment to confess a fresh failure.

"When are you going to do the job?" asked Hamon.

Marborne shrugged.

"It depends entirely upon circumstances. I hope to fix it this week," he said. "You need have no fear. I can get enough evidence to convict him, and once he's pinched, it will be easy to search his flat and his house in Sussex. Why didn't you have him arrested in the country? It would have been an easy matter to have got a search-warrant—"

"Don't ask dam' fool questions," said the other impatiently. "Let me know when you're taking him, and I'll be on hand to furnish the etceteras."

When the detective had gone, Hamon went down to his sister.

"Who is that man?" she asked, yawning undisguisedly. "You always seem to have such queer people at your house, Ralph."

"Why did you come over?" he asked.

"Because I'm short of money. I've bought the loveliest little statuette—a genuine Demetri; and I've been losing a terrible lot at cards. One must keep one's end up, Ralph."

He looked at her without speaking.

"Besides, I've promised to spend a week-end with dear Lady Darlew. She has an awfully nice boy at Eton—"

"Now listen to me, Lydia," interrupted Hamon. "When I started making money, you were serving in a West End bar, earning enough to keep body and soul together, and I'd like you to remember that fact. I'm not made of money, and I'm not going to increase your allowance. You forget these friends of yours who have sons at Eton, and remember that you were serving bad drinks at Lembo's Dive." He saw the fury in her eyes, but went on.

"The time is rapidly approaching when you are going to earn your keep, my girl."

"What do you mean?" she asked. She was no longer the languid child of fashion, but stood before him, her hands on her hips, her voice harsh with anger. "Do you expect me to go back serving drinks whilst you're making tens of thousands? I've helped you, Ralph, and don't forget it! You haven't forgotten Johnny Cornford, I hope, and what I did for you there?"

His face went a shade paler.

"You needn't talk about Johnny Cornford or anybody else," he said roughly; "and don't go up in the air, because I'm talking to you for your good. I shall want your help, I tell you. Marborne's got a big idea of catching Morlake, and if we can't catch him one way he's got to be caught another, and you've got to do it."

"Oh, I have, have I?" she sneered. "And what do I get for it? The same as I got out of the Cornford business—nothing!"

"I got nothing, either," he said quickly.

"That is a lie! Oh, you needn't scowl at me, Ralph: I'm not afraid of you! I heard that tale about Cornford before. Nothing!"

"I got nothing, I tell you," he said loudly. "It was the biggest disappointment I ever had. If the luck hadn't run for me, I'd have been down and out. I never had a penny of Cornford's money."

There was a brief but ominous silence, and then she asked:

"What am I to do with this Morlake? Is he to be jollied along? Has he any money?"

"Stacks of it," said the other tersely, "but it isn't his money I want."

She raised her thin eyebrows.

"You must be pretty well off not to worry about his money," she said, and asked again: "What am I to do?"

"It depends entirely on how well Marborne's plan goes," said her brother. "We needn't discuss it till then."

"What is he like?" she asked. "This Morlake?"

He went out of the room and came back with a photograph, which he handed to her, and she looked at the picture with a calculating eye.

"He's rather nice-looking," she said. "Who is he?"

"I'd give a lot of money to know," snapped Hamon. "Don't ask questions, Lydia. All I want to know from you is: is he the type of man that you could make up to if it paid you good money?"

She looked from the picture to her brother.

"That type, and any type," she said briefly.

CHAPTER 13

AT BLACKHEATH

It was on a Friday night, and a thin film of fog lay over the City, the forerunner of those dense mists which in a month's time would make the town uninhabitable.

Jim Morlake had finished the light dinner which the Moor had served, and was reading the evening newspaper with the air of one who hoped to find something amusing in its pages, but had very little expectation of his hopes being realised. Binger had gone home earlier than usual, with instructions not to return for three days, for that night Morlake intended returning to Wold House, and his suitcase awaited him in the hall. He could have gone earlier, but the fog had been unusually thick that afternoon, and he was waiting for it to disperse. The car was at the door, and, putting down the newspaper, he walked to the window, pulled aside the heavy curtains and looked out.

"I think I will go now, Mahmet," he said, and at that moment the telephone bell rang sharply.

He took up the instrument, and a strange and excited voice called him by name.

"Is that Mr. Morlake?... I am speaking from Blackheath. Binger has been knocked down by a motor-bus and has been taken to 12 Cranfield Gardens. Can you come at once?"

"Is he badly hurt?" asked Morlake quickly.

"He is not expected to live," was the answer. "I am Dr. Grainger."

Jim only waited long enough to discover the exact location of Cranfield Gardens, and a few minutes later he was driving at full speed in the direction of Blackheath. The fog in the south of London was thicker than he had anticipated, and progress was slow, but it cleared at New Cross and presently disappeared altogether, and he looked up into an unclouded sky, in which the stars were twinkling frostily.

Lieber, watching the flat, saw the car depart, and, hastening to a public telephone booth, gave a number. It was Marborne who answered him.

"He's gone," said Lieber breathlessly. "Went away at five minutes past ten."

"Is he alone?"

"Yes, driving his own car. And he looked to be in a hurry."

Marborne hung up the telephone receiver, paid the proprietor of the little Greenwich restaurant, in which he had been waiting for an hour for the news, and hurried out to where Slone and Colley were waiting for him.

"There is no time to be lost, Colley. Get into that house just as quickly as you can."

"It's early yet, Mr. Marborne. They won't be in bed," protested Colley.

"The whole house goes to bed at nine," said the other impatiently. "Do you think I haven't made sure of that?"

The car that had been hired for the night carried them to Blackheath, and at the corner of Cranfield Gardens Colley received his instructions.

"You'll get through the pantry window and up to the first floor. If you like to smash one of the glass cases where the jewellery is kept, you can. Now there will be no risk, Colley. As soon as you've done your work and got the family aroused, get out. You haven't any time to spare."

The burglar slunk away into the darkness, and the uncomfortable Slone interrogated his superior.

"It's crude, inspector. He'll never fall into a trap as open as that," he said. "He'll go straight to his servant's house and he'll find him at home."

"I tell you he will come straight here. I could tell by his voice, when I called him up, that he is worried about Binger."

The two men walked rapidly down Cranfield Gardens and turned into a gateway.

"I can hear the sound of a car coming up the hill," said Marborne suddenly. "Get into the shadow of the steps."

"I don't like it," growled Slone. "It's too easy, I tell you. It can't go right—"

"Shut up!" hissed the other. "Here is the car."

Turning from Blackheath Hill, Jim Morlake stopped the machine and alighted. No. 12 was the fourth house from that end of the street he had entered, a high-fronted, sombre house, showing no sign of light. He had unlatched and passed through the wooden gate before the absence of the red light which usually advertises a doctor's house occurred to him, and he walked back to inspect the gate posts to make sure. Yes, it was No. 12. Hesitating no longer, he walked up the path and mounted the stone steps. As he did so, he heard, from inside the house, a shot and the thump of heavy feet in the hall, and drew back.

And then there came to him instinctively an understanding of his danger, and he flew down the steps. Two strides he took in the direction of the gate, and something struck him. He half turned, dazed and semi- conscious, and again the blow fell and everything went dark.

When he recovered consciousness, he was lying on a hard wooden form, and a man was doing something to his head. He opened his eyes, and in the dim light of the cell in which he lay he saw a bearded figure fixing a bandage.

"Lie down," said the doctor authoritatively, and Jim obeyed.

It was a cell: he had recognised the character of the apartment the moment he had opened his eyes. How had he got there, and what had happened? Then he remembered the blow that had struck him down. His head was throbbing painfully; he had an uncomfortable feeling of restriction about his hands, and, looking at them, he saw that they were clipped together with handcuffs.

"Why am I here?" he asked.

"I daresay the inspector will tell you all about it," said the doctor as he pinned the ends of the bandage and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"Oh, he will, will he?" said Jim dully. "Well, I should very much like him to come and give his explanation. How is Binger?" He smiled faintly. "I suppose the Binger story was a fake? The inspector to whom you refer is Inspector Marborne?"

"You'd better ask him," said the diplomatic doctor. "He will be here in a few minutes."

He went out, and the cell door clanged on James Morlake. With some difficulty he raised himself to a sitting position and took stock of his unhappy state. Mechanically he put his hand in his pocket: it was empty. He tried another with a similar result. His watch and chain had gone, his cigarette-case, everything he had possessed had been taken from him.

He was very much alert now; he even forgot the physical pain he suffered.

There was a click of a lock, the cell door opened, and Marborne came in with a smile of triumph on his face.

"Well, Morlake, we've got you at last!"

"I ought to have given you those matches," said Jim coolly; "and really, if I'd known that you had taken such a fancy to them, Marborne, that you would waylay and rob me, I'd have saved you the trouble."

"I don't know what you mean about matches," said Marborne brusquely. "All I know is that we've caught you with the goods. You know my name?"

"I know your name," nodded Jim. "You're Inspector Marborne."

"I am Inspector Marborne," said the man in his best official manner, "and I shall charge you with burglariously entering No. 12 Cranfield Gardens last night. I shall further charge you with being in possession of a loaded revolver and house-breaking implements. I shall further charge you with breaking and entering the Burlington Safe Deposit on the seventeenth of this month, and still further with breaking and entering the Home Counties Bank on the twelfth of August."

He paused.

"Don't let me interrupt your curious recital," said Jim. "You will also caution me that anything I say may be used in evidence against me. That is your duty, you know, inspector, but you omitted the customary caution."

The detective was scrutinising him keenly.

"You'll be interested to know that I've also arrested your accomplice, Jane Smith," he said, and Jim chuckled.

"I'm delighted! I should very much like to see Jane Smith. And have you arrested our friend Hamon too?"

The detective smiled indulgently.

"None of that, Morlake," he said. "You know I've not arrested Mr. Hamon. What charge could you make against him?"

Jim was silent for a moment, and then:

"Wilful murder," he said quietly; "and I should charge you with being an accomplice after the fact."

CHAPTER 14

CAUGHT!

For a time the police officer did not recognise the significance of Jim's charge.

"What do you mean?" he asked roughly. "Wilful murder!"

"As to how much you know of the matter I have yet to learn, Marborne," said Jim Morlake quietly. "But on the day I catch Hamon it will go pretty hard with you!"

"When you catch Hamon—are you pretending to be a policeman too?" asked the other sarcastically.

"I'm not even pretending to be a policeman. I have never sunk so low," said Jim.

The detective stooped down and pulled him to his feet.

"You're coming out to see a few of the jiggers that were found on you when you were arrested," he said, and pushed him along the corridor to the charge room.

On the station sergeant's desk was a variety of articles. There was a black silk mask, the eyeholes of which, as Jim saw with a professional glance, had been newly cut; an automatic pistol, a complete set of house- breaking tools, a small acetylene blow-lamp, a tiny rubber case containing six phials, and three small skeleton keys.

"Are these supposed to be mine? Where did I carry them—in my waistcoat pocket?" he asked.

"Some were in your coat pocket, some were concealed under the cushion of your car," said the detective. "You admit these are yours, I suppose?"

"I admit nothing. The only thing I can't see, which really belongs to me, is a gold watch and chain, which I presume you have confiscated for personal use. There was also a little money—some sixty-five pounds—which isn't visible. Are those also your personal perquisites, Marborne?"

"I've got the money and the watch in my desk," said the station sergeant. "You don't make your case any better by bringing charges against this officer, Morlake."

"Perhaps I don't," admitted Jim after a moment's thought.

He held up his manacled hands.

"These are not exactly necessary, are they, sergeant?"

"I don't think so."

The sergeant took down a key from behind his desk, and unlocking the handcuffs, removed them. In charge of the gaoler, Jim was removed to the cell.

Joan Carston was at breakfast at Lowndes Square, reading the morning newspaper, when Hamon was announced, and with a groan she put down the journal and glanced pathetically across to her father.

"Bless the man! Why does he come at this hour of the morning?" he demanded irritably. "I thought we should be free of him for a month or so?"

He was not in a pleasant frame of mind. The horse he had backed for the long distance handicap at Newmarket had been struck out overnight, and he was not unnaturally annoyed.

"We shall have to see him: let us get it over," said Joan, resigned.

Ralph Hamon's manner was both brisk and cheerful: in fact, the girl had never seen him quite so bright as he was, as he pranced into the dining-room—the description was hers.

"I have some very interesting news for you people this morning," he said, almost jovially, as, without invitation, he pulled out a chair and sat down to the breakfast table. "We've got the devil!"

"Good business," murmured his lordship. "I hope you will fasten the customary chains to his legs and cast him down into his jolly old pit."

"Which particular devil are you talking about, Mr. Hamon?" asked the girl, with a sinking of her heart.

"Morlake. He was caught red-handed last night, burglaring a house at Blackheath."

She jumped to her feet.

"You don't mean that!" she gasped. "Mr. Morlake ... oh, no, it isn't true!"

"It is delightfully true," said Hamon. (She thought he smacked his lips.) "He was caught red-handed in the act of breaking into the house of a man who has a collection of antique jewellery. Fortunately, two police officers who have had him under observation for some time had shadowed him, and took him just as he was running out of the house, having been disturbed in his work by the owner, a Colonel Paterson."

Lord Creith took off his glasses and stared at the other in amazement.

"You mean James Morlake, our neighbour?" he asked incredulously.

Hamon nodded.

"I mean The Black, the cleverest burglar we've had in this country for years."

Joan had sunk back to her seat: the room seemed to be swimming. Hamon was telling the truth; there was no mistaking the exhilaration in his voice.

"Of course you caught him," she said at last, speaking slowly as though to herself. "You said you would, didn't you?"

"I didn't exactly catch him myself," said Hamon, loth to relinquish the credit, "but I must confess that I was able to give the police a great deal of useful information. And by the way, Lady Joan, my sister is giving herself the pleasure of calling on you to-day."

"Yes?" said Joan absently. "Oh, yes, you have a sister in Paris. I'm afraid I shan't be at home this afternoon."

"I thought you wouldn't be, so I told her to call this morning. You'll like Lydia: she's a good girl, though I'm afraid I've spoilt her a little. But she's one of the best."

"When will Mr. Morlake come for trial?" she asked, dismissing the existence of Lydia Hamon.

"He'll come up this morning for the preliminary hearing, and then I suppose he'll be remanded, and next week he'll be committed for trial. You're interested in him, aren't you? Well, it is only natural that you should be. These rascals have a certain romantic interest, even for the more law-abiding."

"Not every rascal," she answered instantly. "I know some who are the most uninteresting creatures it is possible to meet!"

She had recovered her poise, and Lord Creith, who knew his daughter remarkably well, detected what Mr. Hamon had failed to notice—a certain gentle malignity in her voice, and writhed at the memory of past encounters with his daughter that had left him a little limp.

"Has he any friends? I mean, is there anybody who would bail him?"

"No bail would be allowed," answered Hamon promptly. "Having got the fellow, it is hardly likely that the police are going to risk his bolting, especially as he put up a tough fight before he was captured."

"Was he hurt?" she asked quickly.

"He got a blow or two," said Hamon, with a careless shrug, and her eyes did not leave his.

"You know a great deal about this: I suppose they 'phoned you up and told you, as you were interested?"

"I only know what I read in the newspapers," said Hamon quickly, and he saw her lip curl.

"It is not in the newspapers," she said. "It happened too late last night to be in the morning Press."

She got up from the table and walked out of the room without another word.

"Joan takes a tremendous interest in this fellow," growled Hamon.

"Why shouldn't she?" demanded Lord Creith, beaming at him. "I think he's immensely interesting. By Jove, I wish I'd known he was a burglar! I'd have gone to him and found an easier way of making money than selling my poor old Creith, lock, stock and barrel. Where will this interesting criminal come up for trial?"

"At Greenwich Police Court," said the other.

"Greenwich!" said Lord Creith, as though Greenwich Police Court were the last place in the world he would have imagined the man would be brought for judgment.

It was near mid-day when a gaoler called his name, and Jim Morlake walked through an open door into the large court and was guided to the steel pen. The court was crowded, and the reporters' bench, designed to hold three uncomfortably, held half-a-dozen young men in agony, whilst an army of Pressmen overflowed into the public benches.

Brief evidence of the arrest was given; a hint was offered that new and more startling charges would be produced at the next hearing, and the police, represented by their official lawyer, asked for a remand—a course which Jim's attorney mechanically opposed, though his opposition was overruled.

"On the question of bail, your worship—" began the defending counsel, but the magistrate shook his head.

"There can be no question of bail," he said.

And here there occurred an unexpected interruption. A tall, lean man stepped, without invitation, to the witness-box and handed his card to the magistrate's clerk.

"This gentleman"—he looked over his glasses at the wondering Jim— "is a neighbour of mine, and I am particularly anxious that he shall have every facility for preparing his defence."

"I am extremely sorry, Lord Creith," said the magistrate, "but in these cases, where the police oppose bail, as I understand they do, we cannot deviate from the rule of the court."

Jim went back to his cell wondering what on earth had induced this distinguished-looking old man, whom he knew by name, and whose home he had once burgled, to come forward and, in order to serve a man he did not know, court the publicity which many of his class so intensely disliked.

CHAPTER 15

JOAN MAKES A CONFESSION

Joan read, with as great astonishment, the account of her father's interposition in an evening newspaper, and when he came in to dinner that night she was waiting for him in the hall.

"Really, Daddy, you're a most wonderful person," she said, kissing him. "Did you see him?"

"I saw him," admitted Lord Creith, in whom any demonstration of affection on the part of his daughter produced a sense of discomfort, "and quite a nice-looking fellow he is, Joan." He shook his head. "The police say he's a most dangerous rascal. You'd never dream it to see him. To tell you the truth"—he looked round and lowered his voice—"our friend Hamon is infinitely more criminal-looking! And for heaven's sake, don't repeat my words, Joan. The last time I said something unpleasant about Hamon, you blurted it out in the middle of dinner, and I had to lie myself blue to save my face."

Joan had successfully avoided meeting Miss Lydia Hamon that morning, and was hopeful that so inexcusably rude had she been in her failure to keep an appointment, that the girl would not call upon her. At any other time she would have been curious to see what type of individual a sister of Ralph Hamon would be. Today one thought and one subject absorbed her.

The two hours before dinner Lord Creith ordinarily devoted to what he described as a siesta, and Joan usually occupied that period in dealing with her correspondence. She was in no heart to write to-day, and less in a mood to entertain visitors, so that Peters's announcement that Lydia Hamon had called wrung from her a sigh of despair.

"Ask her to come up," she said, and braced herself to be polite.

Her first feeling, on seeing the visitor, was one of surprise. Lydia had many accomplishments, not least of which was an exquisite taste in dress, and so fragile and sweet she looked, as she came into the drawing- room, that Joan found it difficult to believe that the girl could claim any relationship with the unprepossessing Mr. Hamon.

"I'm so sorry I have interrupted you," drawled the visitor, with a glance at the writing-table, which Joan had hastily littered with notepaper in preparation for an excuse to cut the interview short. "I called this morning; Ralph said you would be expecting me, but you were out."

Joan murmured her apologies, wondering what was the urgency of the business which brought the girl at this unconventional hour to make her call.

"I am only in London for a few days, and I simply had to see you," said Lydia, as though supplying an answer to the question uppermost in Joan's mind at that moment. "I live in Paris. Do you know Paris very well?"

"I know it a little. It is not my favourite city," said Joan.

"Really!" Those arched eyebrows of Lydia's rose. "I can't understand anybody not loving Paris: it is so delightful to people of taste."

"Then my taste is deficient," said Joan almost good-humouredly.

"No, I didn't mean that." The girl hastened to correct any possibly bad impression. "I think one lives there. Do you know the Duc de Montvidier? He is a great friend of ours."

She rattled off the names of a dozen noble Frenchmen without Joan discovering one in whom she might claim to have an interest, let alone an acquaintance.

"Ralph tells me he has bought your place in Sussex," said Lydia, playing with the handle of her parasol and looking past the girl. "It is a beautiful place, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is lovely," said Joan quietly.

"I think it is such a pity," cooed Lydia, "the old place passing out of your possession, which has been in your family for hundreds of years— it must be a great blow to you. I told Ralph that I wondered he had the heart to take possession."

"He hasn't taken possession yet; he doesn't so long as my father is alive," said Joan, beginning to understand the reason for the visit.

"Oh, yes, I know. I wasn't thinking about your father, I was thinking about you more particularly. And I know Ralph thinks about you a great deal."

Lydia looked under her eyelashes at the expressionless face of her hostess.

"Ralph worries very much. He is awfully kind-hearted. Very few people understand him. To the average every-day person, Ralph is just a money-grabbing Englishman with no soul above commerce. In reality, he is tender and kind and the most loyal of friends."

"He ought to make some girl a good husband," said Joan, leaping instantly into the breach.

The reply took Lydia aback. It was so abrupt a declaration of all that she meant to hint, that she lost her place in the narrative she had so well rehearsed.

"That is what I think. Honestly—though perhaps you will think it an impertinence of me to say so—Ralph is a prize worth winning."

"I don't know why you should think it an impertinence," said Joan, "since I am not a competitor for the prize."

A spirit of mischief was in her—the devil which on occasions caused Lord Creith great uneasiness of mind.

"You see, I couldn't very well marry your brother—to put the matter very plainly."

"Why not?" Lydia was betrayed into asking.

"Because I'm already engaged," said Joan. "In fact, the engagement is such a long-standing one that I shouldn't like to break it off."

"Engaged!"

It was evidently news to Lydia, and inwardly she grew angry with her brother that he had not added this information to the important details with which he had furnished her.

"Yes, I'm engaged."

"But you wear no engagement ring?" said Lydia.

"An engagement ring is not necessary when two hearts are in unison," replied Joan smugly.

"My brother doesn't know."

"Then you have some news to tell him," said Joan.

Lydia had risen and was twirling her parasol awkwardly, being at a loss now as to how the interview could be terminated with the least possible delay.

"I'm sure I hope you will be happy," she said tartly, "but I think it is the greatest mistake in the world for a girl of your breeding to marry somebody without money. And of course, if he had any money, he wouldn't have allowed Ralph to have bought your father's estate."

"Such marriages sometimes turn out badly," said Joan sweetly, "but one hopes this particular match—which is a love match into which the sordid question of money has never intruded—will be an exception."

The object of the girl's visit was now explained. Her chagrin, her confusion, the undisguised annoyance in her face and mien told Joan all that she wanted to know.

"Perhaps you will change your mind," said Lydia, holding out a limp hand. "Ralph is the sort of man who is not easily put off anything he wants. He is a very good friend and a very bad enemy. There is a man who is kicking his heels in a prison cell who knows that!"

She saw the flush dawn in Joan's face, but misunderstood the cause.

"I don't know why people in prison should amuse themselves by kicking their heels," said Joan coldly; "and in all probability Mr. Morlake is quite cheerful."

"You know James Morlake?"

Joan met the dark eyes of Lydia Hamon and held them. "I ought to," she said slowly. "I am engaged to him."

CHAPTER 16

MR. HAMON IS SHOWN OUT

The Earl of Creith came down to dinner in the care-free mood which an afternoon nap, for some mysterious reason, invariably induced, and over the coffee Joan described her interview.

"Good heavens!" said his lordship, for the moment aghast. "What a thing to say!"

"I had to shock her," said Joan in justification.

"Shock her! But, merciful Moses! there were other ways of doing it, Joan. You could have told her that the wine at Creith was corked—as it undoubtedly is—or that the roof leaked—which it does. Why tell her that you're engaged to be married to a—a sort of burglar? You're not, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm not. I don't even know him."

"H'm!" said her father, puckering his forehead. "Suppose this gets into the papers? 'Peeress Engaged to Burglar,' or 'Earl's Daughter to Wed Notorious American Cracksman on His Release from Prison,' eh? How do you think he'd like it?"

Joan opened her mouth in consternation.

"I never thought of that!" she gasped.

"After all," said the Earl, deriving infinite satisfaction from the knowledge that for once he was master of the situation, "after all, he may have his feelings. Burglars may consider themselves a cut above the new poor—"

"Please don't be absurd, Father! Who would tell him?"

"Anyway, it was a foolish thing to do, because this Hamon man will be coming round and bothering me about it. And nobody knows better than you, Joan, that I hate being bothered."

"You can tell him you know nothing about it—which is true. You can also say that I am my own mistress, which is also true."

The old man gulped down his coffee.

"Perhaps he won't come," he said hopefully, but he had not risen from the table when Ralph Hamon's loud knock announced his arrival.

"I'm not in!" said Lord Creith hastily. "Tell him I'm out. Joan...."

He made a hasty and somewhat undignified exit.

She walked into the drawing-room to find a fuming Hamon stalking up and down the carpet. He spun round as she opened the door.

"What is this story that Lydia tells me?" he stormed.

The change in him was remarkable. At the best he was an unpleasant- looking man—now she shuddered to see him. His jaw was out-thrust, his eyes blazed with anger.

"So you know Morlake, do you?—you're Jane Smith!" he pointed an accusing finger at her, and her calm nod seemed to infuriate him.

"Joan, I've told you before—I tell you again that you are the only woman in the world for me. I will have you—and nobody else. I'd kill him and you too rather! If this is true, I'll never leave him till he's dead!"

She did not flinch, and in her quiet disdain the tortured man thought her never so beautiful. Slim and white, a fragile thing of youth, with her child face and the figure that was nearly woman. His hands went out toward her instinctively, but she did not move.

"I know a dozen men who would take you by the collar and throw you out of this house if they knew a half of what you said."

Her voice was steady: she showed no trace of that agitation which he expected.

"If I am misinformed—" he began huskily.

"You are. It was a stupid joke on my part to tell your sister that I was engaged, but I disliked her so; she was so horribly common with her affectations and her talk of the aristocrats she knew—such a feminine edition of you, Mr. Hamon. I could imagine her screaming at me, as you have been screaming. A wretched virago shrieking me down."

She had left the door open as she came in, and Peters, she knew, was in the hall.

"Peters," she called, and the butler came in. "Show Mr. Hamon out; he is not to be admitted either to this house or Creith."

Peters bowed, and, his eyes upon Ralph Hamon, jerked his head to the door.

It was one of the happiest moments of his life.

CHAPTER 17

GENTLE JULIUS

Colonel Carter, of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, took his cigar from his mouth in order to smile the more comfortably.

"My dear Welling, you are romantic, and because you are romantic you ought to have been a failure. Instead of which, by some mysterious dispensation of providence, you are a very successful detective officer. Romance plays no part in our work; there is nothing romantic about crime. A is a thief, with peculiar but well-known methods; B is a stolid, unimaginative police officer who, called into a case of burglary, larceny, anything you like, finds that the crime has been committed by somebody who employs the methods of A. Perhaps A makes a hobby of forcing kitchen windows, or using chance-found ladders, or is in the habit of taking a meal after the robbery is committed. Anyway, there are characteristics of A. So B arrests him, and generally he is right. You, on the other hand, would find, in the remnants of a stolen meal, proof that the robber was starving and would look for a hungry-looking, left-handed man!"

Julius Welling, Chief of the 8th Bureau, sighed. He was an elderly, white-haired man with a sad face and a trick of rubbing his nose when he was embarrassed.

"You've won through, heaven knows how," mumbled Carter through his cigar. "Maybe it is luck—maybe inspiration."

"You have omitted all the possibilities of genius," said the other gently.

In the service which he had adorned for thirty-five years they christened him "Gentle Julius." His rank was equivalent to a Chief Constable, for every promotion that could come to a successful police officer had been his, and on the rare occasions that he wore a uniform, his decorations ran in three straight rows from buttons to shoulder.

Jackson Carter and he had entered the service on the same day, the former an office man with a peculiar gift for organisation, the other so immersed in his study of men and women that he scarcely noticed the passing of the years that brought him so much honour.

"As I say, you're a romantic old dog," said Carter, on his favourite theme, which was very nearly his only recreation, the baiting of his lifelong friend. "Though I admit—and this is very handsome of me—that your dreamings have sometimes led you to queer results."

Julius Welling smiled with his eyes.

"Where will my present dream lead me to?" he asked.

"To failure," said the other seriously. "We've got The Black—there is no doubt about it. I wish somebody else than Marborne had got him, for I had sharpened the toe of my right boot for him, but there is the luck of the game; Marborne has caught him. We have all the evidence we want. Apart from the fact that he was taken in the act, the burglar's kit and gun we found on him, a whole lot of stuff has been discovered in his flat in Bond Street. A parcel of money marked with the stamp of the Home Counties Bank—"

"I could get that by applying to the Home Counties," murmured Mr. Welling.

"A cash box buried in his garden—"

"Why should he bury a cash box in his garden?" asked the other plaintively. "Only amateur crooks do that sort of thing."

"Well, how did it get there?" asked the exasperated Carter.

Mr. Welling rubbed his nose thoughtfully.

"It may have been planted there to get a conviction," he suggested. "Marborne caught Shellman, the banknote forger, that way."

The chief stared at him.

"Do you mean it was a frame-up?" he asked, and Welling nodded.

"The particular charge on which he was convicted was faked. I've known it for some time. Shellman, of course, was a forger, too clever to be caught. The charge on which he went down for ten years was undoubtedly framed for him, and Marborne did the framing."

"That is news to me," said the other with a frown.

"As to this Morlake man," Mr. Welling advanced his views with characteristic timidity, "doesn't the story he tells sound rather fishy? He says that his servant was ill—the servant lives at Blackheath, remember. He comes to the house and is suddenly bludgeoned. Taken unawares and bludgeoned—and he is supposed to carry a gun! He comes to burgle a house and leaves his car at a corner of the street with all the lights on, when there is a lane not half-a-dozen yards away where the car could be hidden? He is supposed to have broken in at the back of the house, where there is a garden and an easy wall that would get him into open country, and yet he escapes by the front door! He 'shows fight'—how? Never forget that he has a loaded pistol, yet he 'shows fight' to such purpose that Marborne has to take his 'stick' to him. What was his gun doing all this time?"

Colonel Carter shook his head.

"The story of the telephone call is a lie—"

"On the contrary it is true," said old Julius, almost apologetically. "The New Cross exchange heard the message. They were testing junction lines because a subscriber had reported a fault, and the engineers happened to be listening in on this particular junction when the call went through."

Colonel Carter opened his eyes.

"You've been working on this case?" he said. "You're not tailing The Black?"

Gentle Julius shook his head.

"I've been tailing Marborne," he said, more gently than ever. "You see, Jack, the chief holds about the same views as you concerning the inspector, and he put me on to see that he came to no harm. And the man who called up Morlake and told him the tale about the injured servant was the inspector. I want Marborne's coat for my exhibition of ex-officers' uniforms. And, Jack, noth'n's more certain than that I'll have it!"

"And what about Morlake?" asked Carter.

Gentle Julius spread out his lined hands in a gesture of indifference.

"They may convict him or they may not," he said; "but one thing I can tell you, and it is this. James Lexington Morlake is The Black, the cleverest bank smasher we've seen in twenty years. I've proof and more than proof of that, Jack."

He pursed his lips and his white brows met in a prodigious scowl.

"Ten years ago," he said, speaking with more than his ordinary deliberation, "the Haslemere police picked up a dying sailor on the Portsmouth Road."

"What on earth are you talking about?" demanded the startled Carter.

"I'm talking about The Black," said Welling, "and why he's a burglar—get that in your mind, Jack—a dying sailor with his life hammered out of him, and not a line or a word to identify him; a dying sailor that sleeps in a little churchyard in Hindhead, without a name to the stone that is over him. Ain't that enough to turn any man burglar?"

"You love a mystery, don't you, Julius?" asked his irritated friend, when Welling rose.

"Mysteries are my specialty," said Julius gently.

CHAPTER 18

THE TRIAL

The Central Criminal Court was crowded on the second and last day of the trial, when James Lexington Morlake came up the stairs that led into the large and roomy dock. The white court, with its oaken panels, was pleasing to Jim's discriminating eye; the scarlet and crimson of the judge's robes, the velvet and fur of the Sheriff's, the gold and red of the City Marshal—they harmonised perfectly.

The judge carried in his hand a tight bouquet of flowers and laid them on his desk. It was a far cry from the days of those foetid courts when the judges carried disinfecting herbs, and an act of grim necessity had been translated through the ages into a pretty custom.

A little bob of the white-wigged head as the judge seated himself. He glanced casually at the prisoner, and, settling himself in his padded chair, waited for the concluding evidence of the last police witness.

Once or twice he leant forward to ask a question in a sharp, thin voice, but on the whole he seemed immeasurably bored, and when he concealed a yawn behind his hand, Jim sympathised with him.

"This is my case, my lord," said the prosecuting counsel as the last witness stepped down.

The judge nodded and glanced at Jim.

"Have you any witnesses to call, Morlake?" he asked.

Jim was not represented by counsel, and he had conducted his own cross-examination of the witnesses.

"No, my lord. I should have called the operator at the New Cross exchange, but the police have admitted that a message came through asking me to call at 12 Cranfield Gardens. From the known time that message came through, and the known hour of my arrest, it is clear that I could not have entered the house in the time. The police rely upon the fact that I was supposed to have been in possession of house-breaking tools and a pistol—neither the purchase nor former possession of which they have traced to me.

"The police in their evidence have told the jury that I am an expert burglar, and that I have robbed many banks—"

"They have stated that you are under suspicion, and the night watchman at the Burlington Safe Deposit has recognised your voice—that is all that has been said definitely concerning any previous crime you may have committed," interrupted the judge. "I take it that you are not going to the witness stand to give evidence on your own behalf?"

"That is so, my lord."

"Then this, I understand, is your speech for the defence? Very well."

Jim leant on the edge of the pen, his eyes fixed on the jury.

"Gentlemen, if it is true that I am a clever bank smasher, does it not occur to you that, in attempting to rob a dwelling-house in order to obtain jewellery of great historical but of little intrinsic value, I was acting in a blundering and amateurish fashion? Why should I, if, as is stated, I robbed the Burlington Safe Deposit of a large sum only a week ago? Gentlemen"—he leant forward—"you may accept as a fact that I did rob the Burlington!"

There was a stir in the court and a sudden hum of noise. Up in the public gallery a girl who had sat through the two days of trial, following every word with tense interest, began twisting her handkerchief into a tighter ball, her heart beating a little faster.

"You need not and should not make any statement incriminating to yourself," the judge was warning the tall man in the dock.

"Nothing I have said will or can incriminate me," said Jim quietly. "I am merely asking the jury to accept the hypothesis that I am an expert burglar, in order that they may judge the probability of my breaking into the house in Cranfield Gardens. The police have insisted that I am responsible for these burglaries. So far as the laws of evidence would allow them, they have enveloped my life in a cloud of suspicion. Let me clarify the air, and admit that I am The Black, without specifying for which of these many burglaries I am responsible.

"Was the Blackheath robbery typical? Was there anything to gain, any necessity? Is it not more likely that the story of the telephone call was true, and that I was arrested by, let us say, the honest error of that admirable officer Inspector Marborne?"

Here he left the case to the prosecuting counsel and the judge. It was the latter whose speech counted.

"I have not the slightest doubt," said Mr. Justice Lovin, "that the accused James Morlake is a man of criminal antecedents. I have less doubt that he is the burglar who has gained unenviable notoriety as The Black. But the least doubt of all in my mind concerns his guilt in the charge which has been brought against him in this court and in this present case. The police evidence has been most unsatisfactory. I am not satisfied that either Marborne or Slone, who gave evidence, told the whole truth. There was here almost convincing proof of what is called in America a 'frame-up'- -in other words, concocted evidence designed to deceive the court and to secure a conviction. I shall therefore direct you to return a verdict of not guilty. I will add...." He turned his stern eyes to the prisoner.

"I will add that, if ever James Lexington Morlake is convicted before me on a charge of burglary, I shall send him to penal servitude for life, believing that he is a menace to society, and a man with whom no honest or scrupulous man or woman should consort."

For a second it seemed to the girl in the gallery that Jim Morlake shrank under the terrific denunciation, and his face went a shade paler. In an instant he had recovered, and, standing erect, heard the formal verdict of Not Guilty, and stepped down to freedom.

The people made way for him as he passed, eyeing him curiously. One white-haired man alone intercepted him.

"Glad you got off, Morlake."

Jim smiled faintly.

"Thank you, Mr. Welling—I know you mean it. It was a frame, of course."

"I guess so," nodded Welling gravely, and went toward the gloomy- faced Marborne, who was coming out of the court. "Heard the judge, Marborne, eh? Pretty bad, that?"

"He didn't know what he was talking about, sir," said the detective with an air of injured innocence. "I've never been so insulted in my life."

"And now I'm going to insult you," said Welling. "You're suspended from duty; that applies to you, Slone. Attend the C. C.'s office on Wednesday and bring your uniform in a bundle!"

Jim had watched the little scene interestedly, and guessed its significance. Very few people had come out of court, for the next case was a murder charge. The big marble hall was almost deserted as he slowly crossed toward the stairs.

"Excuse me."

He turned and met the eye of the waiting girl. She was plainly dressed and very pretty, and the gloved hand she held out to him trembled slightly.

"I'm so glad, Mr. Morlake! I'm so glad!"

He took her hand with a half smile.

"You were in court both days," he said. "I saw you in the corner of the gallery. I'm glad it is over—the old gentleman did not spare me, did he?"

She shivered.

"No ... it was dreadful!"

He wondered what he ought to say or do. Her friendliness and sympathy touched him more than he dreamed was possible. He saw that she was lovely, and he wanted to stop and talk to her, but he had an uncomfortable sense of shyness.

"I hope," he said gently, "that you will not think too favourably of me. A distinguished criminal is very thrilling, but a very bad object of admiration."

He saw the smile trembling at the corner of her lips and felt unaccountably gauche.

"I'm not hero-worshipping, if that is what you mean," she said quietly. "I'm just being—awfully sorry for you! I don't think you're very sorry for yourself," and he shook his head.

Looking round, he saw that a policeman was eyeing him curiously from the doorway of the court, and in a desire to shield the girl from the consequences of what might well be a folly, he suggested:

"I think I'll go now."

It needed some courage to say what she had to say.

"Won't you come to tea somewhere?" she said, a little breathlessly. "There is a small restaurant in Newgate Street."

He hesitated.

"Yes—thank you," he said.

"You know, you owe me something," she said as they walked downstairs.

"Owe you?" he asked in surprise. "What do I owe you?"

"I once sent you a very important letter," said the girl.

He stared at her.

"You sent me a letter? What is your name?"

"I am Jane Smith," she said.

CHAPTER 19

THE TEA SHOP

Half in amazement, half amused, he stared at her.

"Jane Smith?" he repeated. "Are you the lady who wrote a letter warning me about Hamon?"

She nodded.

"Do you know him? Is he a friend of yours?"

"Oh, no." She shook her head vigorously. "But I have seen him; he sometimes comes to the village where I am staying—to Creith."

"Oh, you live at Creith? I don't remember having seen you there."

She smiled.

"I shouldn't imagine you know a soul in the village," she said drily. "You're not exactly sociable, are you? And anyway," she went on quickly, "you're hardly likely to call on people of our humble circumstances."

The "restaurant" proved to be a tea shop, which, at this hour of the day, was almost deserted, luncheon having been finished and the tea rush not having yet started. She took a seat at a table in the corner, and gave the order for tea in such a businesslike way that Jim Morlake guessed she was not unused to domestic management. He wondered who she was, and how it came about that he had not noticed so strikingly beautiful a girl.

"Have you lived at Creith long?"

"I was born there," said Jane Smith.

He ruminated for a few minutes, and then:

"How did you come to know that Hamon was plotting this frame-up?"

"I didn't know, just guessed," she said. "A friend of mine lives at Creith House, and she has heard a great deal about Mr. Hamon."

Jim nodded.

"I owe Lord Creith something for his good intentions," he said, speaking half to himself and half to the girl, and smiled faintly. "I don't suppose his lordship would be very pleased if I called in person to thank him. He has a daughter, hasn't he?"

Jane Smith nodded.

"Somebody told me about her—a very pretty and a very wilful young lady, and, if I understand aright, somewhat romantic?"

Jane Smith's lips curled.

"I never heard that Lady Joan was romantic," she said, almost sharply. "I think she is a very practical, intelligent girl—she is certainly pretty, but that is no credit to her."

The tea came, and she busied herself pouring out for him. He watched her thoughtfully until she had finished and handed the cup to him. Suddenly her manner underwent a change.

"Mr. Morlake," she said seriously, "this has been a terrible lesson to you, hasn't it?"

"The trial?" he asked, and nodded. "Yes, it has been rather a lesson. I underrated Hamon, for one thing, and overrated the genius of the unscrupulous Mr. Marborne, for another. It was a very crude and stupid attempt to catch me."

She was looking at him steadily, her unwavering eyes fixed on his.

"You're not going to break the law any more, are you, Mr. Morlake?" she asked quietly. "You've been very—very successful. I mean you must have made a lot of money. It isn't necessary to take any further risks, is it?"

He did not reply. There was something about her that was familiar to him, something he recognised and which yet evaded him. Where had he seen her? Or was it her voice he recognised? Then:

"I know you," he said suddenly. "You were the girl who was knocked out by the storm!"

She went suddenly red.

"Yes," she confessed. "You didn't see my face."

"I remember your voice: it is one of those peculiarly sweet voices that are very difficult to forget."

He was not being complimentary or offensive, but the colour deepened in her face.

"You said you were a visitor, too. How could you be a visitor if you live in the village?"

"Jane Smith" recovered herself instantly.

"I told a lie," she said coolly. "I find lying is the easiest way out of most difficulties. If you must know, Mr. Morlake, I was in service at the Hall."

"A servant?" he said incredulously.

She nodded.

"I am a parlourmaid," she said calmly, "and a very good parlourmaid."

"Of that I am sure," he hastened to say, and then he looked at her hands, and she was thankful that she was wearing her gloves. "So that is how you knew, eh? Well, I'm very much obliged to you, Miss Smith. Are you still at the Hall?"

She shook her head.

"I lost my job," she said mendaciously, and added: "Through being out so late on the night of the storm."

And then, her conscience beginning to prick her, she turned the conversation to safer channels.

"You are not going to be a burglar any more, are you?" To her amazement, he smiled.

"But surely not!" she gasped. "After your terrible escape, and all that the judge said! Oh, Mr. Morlake, you wouldn't be such a fool!"

This time he laughed aloud.

"It is evident to me, young lady, that you do not estimate the joys and thrills of a burglar's life, or you would not ask me so light- heartedly to give up what is something more than a recreation and a means of livelihood. The judge was certainly fierce! But really, I don't take much notice of judges and what they say. The chances are that, by the peculiar system obtaining in England, I shall never go before that judge— there are half-a-dozen who try cases at the Old Bailey, and possibly, on my next appearance, I shall meet a kind and humanitarian soul who will dismiss me with a caution."

His quizzical eye and bantering tone awakened no response in the girl. She was troubled, almost hurt, by his obduracy.

"But isn't there anybody"—she hesitated—"who could persuade you? Somebody who is very dear to you, perhaps? A relation or—a—a girl?"

He shook his head.

"I have no relatives or friends in the world," he said; "and if that sounds pathetic, I beg of you to believe that I feel no particular sorrow that I am so unencumbered. It is very kind of you, Miss Smith"—his voice and his tone softened—"and I do appreciate the thought that is behind your request. But I must go on in my own way, because my own is the only way to peace of mind. And now I think you have been too long in a criminal's company, and I'm going to send you home. Are you living in London?"

"Yes, I live here—I mean, I have friends here," she said, somewhat confused.

"Then off you go to your friends."

He paid the bill, and they walked out of the shop together. Suddenly, to his surprise, she turned and walked back to the shop again and he followed her.

"There is a man I don't want to see," she said breathlessly, and, looking through the window, he saw Mr. Ralph Hamon striding savagely along the sidewalk, and watched him turn into an office building, his whole attitude betraying the wrath which the acquittal of James Morlake had aroused.

CHAPTER 20

A CALLER

Ralph Hamon's business activities were many, his interests varied. The high, narrow-fronted office block in which were housed his various enterprises rejoiced in the name of Morocco Building, for Mr. Hamon's interests were mainly centred in that country. Here were the head offices of the Rifi Concession, the Marakash Lead Mines, Moroccan Explorations, and half-a-dozen other incorporated concerns.

He slammed through the outer office, his face black with anger. The trial he had not attended, deeming it expedient to keep away from the precincts of the court, but the result of the case had come through on the tape machine at his club, and as the words "Not Guilty" were spelt out before his outraged eyes, Mr. Hamon's wrath had flamed to red heat.

It was incredible, monstrous. And yet he had been warned by Marborne that the case was not going so well against his enemy as he could have wished. The discovery by the police (it was not Marborne who had made this) that a call had been put through summoning Morlake to Blackheath, had made all the difference between conviction and acquittal. So satisfied was Hamon, who knew little of the processes of the law, and regarded a man as doomed from the moment a policeman's hand fell upon his shoulder, that a conviction would follow, that he scouted the possibility of Morlake escaping. And now the dreadful fact stared him in the face. Jim Morlake was free. The old struggle was to be continued, the old menace revived.

Mr. Hamon's office had something of the air of a boudoir, with its thick carpet and tapestried furniture. A faint aroma of cedar hung in the air, for he favoured the heavy perfumes of France. Pushing aside the accumulation of correspondence which his clerk brought in, he dismissed him with a curse.

"There are three cables from Sadi, sir," said his secretary, standing at the entrance of the room, ready to make a more hasty retreat.

"Bring them in," growled Hamon.

He read and, with the aid of a book he took from his desk, decoded the messages, and apparently they did not add to his pleasure, for he sat huddled up in his chair, his hands stuffed in his pockets, a scowl on his face, for a quarter of an hour, until, reaching out for the telephone, he gave the number of his house in Grosvenor Place.

"Tell Miss Lydia I want to speak to her," he said, and when, after an exasperating delay, he heard her voice: "Put the connection through to my study," he said in a low voice. "I want to talk to you privately. Morlake has been acquitted."

"Really!" asked the languid voice.

"And cut out that 'reahly'!" he snarled. "This isn't the time for any of your fancy society stuff! Get that connection through."

There was a click, and after a few seconds her voice called him again.

"What is wrong, Ralph? Does it make much difference—Morlake getting off?"

"It makes all the difference in the world," he said. "You've got to get at him, Lydia. I never thought it would be necessary, but it is! And, Lydia, that trip of yours to Carlsbad is off. I may have to go to Tangier, and I shall want you to come with me."

He heard her exclamation of concern, and grinned to himself.

"You said you would never ask me to go back there," she said, almost plaintively. "Ralph, is that necessary? I'll do anything you ask me, but please don't let me go back to that dreadful house."

There was no affectation in her voice now; she was very sincere, very earnest, pleading almost.

"I'll see," he said. "In the meantime, you wait for me; I'll be back in half-an-hour."

He put down the receiver and hastily ran through the smaller pile of correspondence on his desk which called for personal attention, marking a letter here and there, putting a few into his pocket to answer at his leisure. He was on the point of ringing for his clerk, when that harassed individual appeared in the doorway.

"I can't receive anybody," snapped Hamon, seeing the card in the man's hand.

"He says—"

"I don't care what he says; I can't see anybody. Who is it?"

He snatched the card from the clerk's hand, and read:

Captain Julius Welling. Criminal Investigation Bureau.

Ralph Hamon bit his lip. He had heard of Welling in a vague way. Once or twice Marborne had made an uncomplimentary reference to the Chief of the 8th Bureau, from which he gathered that Welling was both honest and efficient. Why should Welling want to see him, he wondered.

"Show him in," he said curtly, and Julius Welling was ushered into the room.

Hamon was taken aback to find a man much older than he had expected; a mild-looking, white-haired gentleman, with a slight stoop and a deferential manner. He looked less like a policeman than any man Mr. Ralph Hamon had seen.

"Won't you sit down, Captain Welling?" he said. "Can I be of any service to you?"

"I thought I'd just call in," said Julius gently. "I happened to be passing—you're very handily situated here, Mr. Hamon—only a few yards from the Central Criminal Court."

Hamon shifted uncomfortably as this dubious advantage was pointed out to him.

"I suppose you weren't in court for the trial of Morlake?" said Julius, depositing his hat carefully upon the ground and hanging his short umbrella on the edge of the desk.

"No," said the other curtly, "I was not very much interested in the case."

"Weren't you now?" said Julius. "I had an idea you were. Now, how did I get that into my head?"

His mournful eyes were fixed upon the other, and Hamon grew uncomfortable under the glance.

"I suppose I was, in a sense," he admitted. "This fellow has been a nuisance to me for years. And of course, as you know, I was able to supply some valuable information to the police."

"Not to the police," said Julius, "but to Inspector Marborne—which I admit, at first glance, looks to be the same thing, but which isn't. A queer man, Mr. Morlake, don't you think?"

"All criminals are queer, I understand," said Hamon, and the other nodded slowly.

"All criminals are queer," he agreed. "Some are queerer than others. And quite a lot of people are queer who aren't criminals; have you noticed that, Mr. Hamon? He has a Moorish servant—Mahmet; and I understand that he speaks Arabic rather well. For the matter of that, you speak the language also; isn't that so?"

"I speak the Moorish Arabic, yes," said Hamon shortly.

"Dear me!" mused Gentle Julius, gazing out of the window. "Isn't that a remarkable coincidence? Both you men have an association with Morocco. You've floated a number of companies with a Moorish end to them, haven't you, Mr. Hamon? Of course you have; I needn't have troubled to ask you that question, because all the information I require is in the Stock Exchange Year-book. The Marakash Company now; that was to exploit some oil wells which existed in the desert of Hari. There was a desert, but there was no oil, if I remember rightly, and you went into liquidation."

"There was oil, but the wells went dry," corrected Hamon.

"And Morlake—was he interested in Moorish finances? He lived there for some time, I understand. Did you meet him?"

"I never met him—I saw him once," said the other, shortly. "I know he lived there. But Tangier is the sink into which all the refuse of Europe flows."

Julius agreed with a nod.

"That is so," he said. "Do you remember the Rifi Diamond Syndicate? I think you floated that about twelve years ago?"

"That also went into liquidation," said Hamon.

"I'm not thinking so much about the company, and what happened to the company, as of the shareholders."

"You needn't think about them at all, because I was the only shareholder," said Hamon roughly. "If you have come in to make enquiries about my companies, Captain Welling, I'd be very glad if you wouldn't beat about the bush, but tell me plainly what you want to know."

"I want to know nothing," Julius put out his hands in a gesture of deprecation. "I have reached the age, Mr. Hamon, when a man loves to gossip. Dear, dear, dear! It doesn't seem so many years ago that I saw the prospectus of the Rifi Diamond Syndicate and heard about the wonderful stones that had been taken out of that mine, about forty-five miles south- west of Tangier. Did you catch many suckers on that?"

The air of the question was so innocent, the bland voice so even, that for a moment Hamon did not realise its offensiveness.

"What do you mean—suckers?" he stormed. "I tell you none of the shares were issued, or, if they were, none were taken up. Not a penny came from the public. And if you doubt my word, you can see the books. An article appeared in one of the London financial papers, attacking the Syndicate and calling into question the bona-fides of the vendors, and sooner than have the slightest scandal attaching to my name, I washed my hands of the whole affair."

"And not a share was issued," said Mr. Welling.

Hamon's attitude was tense; he seemed suddenly to have grown old.

"Not a share," he said defiantly.

Julius Welling sighed, gathered up his umbrella and hat, and rose stiffly to his feet.

"Gracious me!" he said in his mild way. "Then the whole thing is an inexplicable mystery! For, if no shares were issued, why is James Morlake on your trail, Hamon? Why for ten years has he been robbing banks? Why is he a burglar?"

Julius walked to the door, opened it and turned for his final shot.

"Ever meet a sailor on the Portsmouth Road, Hamon?" he drawled, and, as the man staggered under the shock: "You don't meet them often nowadays; they go by railroad! It is safer: there's less chance of being clubbed to death on the cars than on the lonely Portsmouth Road. Think that over!"

CONTINUED IN

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