£19,000

Yours truly,
G. Danvers.

"If he is hard up," muttered the writer, "that last line may appeal to him. It may come off: it may not. If it does, a week will enable me to turn the place inside out for any clue there may be. Was the nineteen thousand pounds ever handed Josh Todd?"

Therein lay the reason for the course Danvers was taking. It seemed to him a reasonable solution of the matter.

Instead of handing Todd the money, the lawyer had killed him, bribed another man to help him, and to divert suspicion, had sent that man with Todd's body on the ship for America, telling him to return and share the spoil.

But before the ship left English waters, Loide had managed to kill his accomplice, and so, as he thought, destroy all trace of his crime.

But, thought the pursuer, he has Gerald Danvers to deal with!

Gerald said this to himself, with a note of exclamation at the end of it. Most of us have a trace of melodrama in our natures. Gerald was not without it.

He had a description of the perky, red haired, rough voiced, flashily dressed man who had left the boat at Queenstown, and he quite reckoned that when he saw Lawyer Loide he would—mentally—exclaim, "Thou art the man!"

With that melodramatic trait aforesaid, he no doubt would.

If he found it so, he would not betray the faintest sign of his knowledge. He must work quietly, and give his man no pretext for flight.

He must find where that nineteen thousand pounds was deposited, and draw the meshes of his net so closely around that the bird could not escape—anyway, with the money.

As a matter of fact, Gerald was more concerned about the money than the murder. Because it concerned Tessie more closely.

Moreover, it was but human to expect that a nineteen thousand pound father-in-law would be generous in the way of wedding presents.

He guessed that the housekeeper's story of Loide's poverty was a piece of acting on Loide's part to divert suspicion.

Perhaps the discharge of the clerks meant only the gradual winding up of his business, and that presently he would sail away to another land. Danvers felt cold at the fear of this. If it were true, there was not the faintest chance of a reply to his application for a situation. His letter could only appeal to a poor man.

And while he was thinking this again the next morning, an answer came.

CHAPTER XX

He was in Liverpool Street between ten and eleven o'clock next morning. Saw the lawyer and settled with him.

He was to begin his duties on Monday—three days after. The lawyer was satisfied with his appearance, and did not ask for references.

He could not very well do so, as the man was giving him his services. Moreover, things were fitting so tightly with Mr. Loide that anything a clerk could filch would not be worth looking at.

When a man's income is suddenly reduced it hurts. Hurts badly.

Loide was experiencing that. At present his little luxuries were knocked off, and in the future he foresaw a difficulty in the procuration of even necessaries.

He had been wont to take home from the city fish shop a middle cut of salmon. Now he took the—perhaps as toothsome but certainly cheaper—fresh herring.

As with the fish, so with all things. His economy was of the studied kind. It had to be.

The cutting off of the twenty pounds a week did not unfortunately mean that sum only. Money breeds money, and Mr. Loide was an excellent breeder—sixty pet cent. breed.

He liked to lend a man a five or ten pound note for a week, and charge him one or two guineas for the loan. If you work that out you will find it quite a big percentage.

Mr. Loide did not need to do so. He knew. He had done it so often. It was a big source of revenue to him.

Indeed money lending was the profitable part of his business. He had found it so much so, that he had neglected the more legitimate but less profitable legal work.

The result was that that had slowly filtered away. It had not mattered a bit so long as the thousand pounds a year was coming in. In the course of the year his interest enabled him to double it.

So it will be seen that honesty—strictly speaking—if the best was certainly not the most profitable policy with Mr. Loide.

Wipe that nearly forty pounds a week away from his income, and—well, wipe the naught off the forty, and you get at about what his legal work brought him in now.

Four pounds a week is not colossal wealth. It comes very, very hard on a man to have to live on it who has been living on ten times as much.

Loide found it so. Cold, flinty, bed rock bottom hardness.

On Monday morning Gerald took his first step on the trail, and his seat in Loide's office.

There was not much work to do. Gerald saw that at a glance.

There was no acting about the matter. His employer was poor. What did it mean?

Round the walls of the outer office were black tin boxes, with—real and imaginary—names of clients printed on the flap doors thereof in white letters.

You turned the key and the flap fell down, enabling you to get at the contents. One in particular had a great charm for the new clerk. He fixed his eyes on it with an eager I-wonder-what's-inside-you sort of glance.

It bore the name of Depew.

The locks were poor things. Evidenced by the fact that one key on the bunch seemed to open them all.

Loide kept the bunch in his trousers pocket. If he wanted a paper from a particular box, he would ring his bell, give the keys and ask for the paper to be brought to him.

That seemed to take the pebbles out of Gerald's part—smoothed his course a trifle.

Why? Because he knew it would enable him to examine the Depew papers.

The next time he was asked to get a paper, he first opened the Depew flap, and closed it again without turning the key.

He kept the flap in position by a small wedge of paper. It was handy that way.

Mr. Loide would go to lunch at one o'clock, and Gerald proposed devoting that hour to an examination of the Depew papers.

He was not the kind of young man to let the grass grow to any extreme length under his feet.

"If you are learning, you should commence at the beginning. Mount the ladder from the lowest rung, and you will know then what the work is like."

So spake the lawyer to Gerald. It was in connection with the letter book.

The indexing of it was in arrear, and Gerald's business was to bring that index up to date.

The lawyer showed him how. He had a system of his own, had Loide. In addition to the name of the sender of the letter, the letter itself was indexed under the name of the action or matter.

It was a good way, because when Loide made out his bills of costs, he did not miss a single letter he could charge for.

There was perhaps no man in the City of London who could make out a better bill of costs than Loide.

There were rivals in his profession who said that if you blew your nose in his office, he clapped down six and eightpence, while if you wiped your feet on his door-mat, it meant three and six.

But then rivals will say anything, won't they? And again, if there is any reputation for truthfulness in the legal profession, it is not a world-wide one.

Its patron saint is the father of lies.

So it was that, with the letter book in his hand, at his own desk, Gerald turned up in the index "Depew."

There were two entries; one he found applied to a letter sent to Depew in America, which had brought him over, and the other to a series of letters connected with the winding up of the affair.

The letter to Depew he read, and was not a whit the wiser. Then he took on a perusal of the others.

He started at the last, and proposed to work his way back.

He was surprised to find the last letter of so recent a date. And when he saw it was to the governor of the Bank of England, and read in it that Loide was stopping the numbers of the notes for nineteen thousand pounds, he stopped himself.

Stopped right there and did nothing but look out of the window blankly—he was so unutterably amazed.

That he had struck a tangled web he knew quite well. That when he was in the lawyer's office he was in the meshes of that web, he guessed.

But he had not expected the spider to give him such a facer as this. He knew—knew most certainly now that Loide did not possess the missing money.

He was depressed, his heart sank a bit, he had been so sure—so sure. Chicken counting before hatchment is a poor game anyway. Gerald indorsed that.

When lunch time came, he did not even open the tin box with "Depew" on it. It had ceased to interest him.

He knew it would not help him along a bit. He sat there all the time thinking.

His theory of Todd's disappearance shaped differently now.

He somehow felt convinced that the lawyer had had a hand in the man's murder, and he tried to piece things together so that he could account for the notes being missing.

His short acquaintance with the lawyer did not favor the idea that he was a man to lose things.

Then ideas came to him. He thought he had struck the solution.

There had been a quarrel about the division of the spoil—the nineteen thousand pounds—between Loide and the man who was lying with his throat cut on the boat. Or Loide had perhaps murdered him for possession of the whole sum.

He had been disappointed to find that his victim had not the notes in his possession, had probably given them to a friend in London to mind till his return from America.

The moment Loide got back to London he would stop the notes.

He tallied the date of the murder and the date of the letter to the bank. They fitted his idea.

Gerald was aware that where there had been a mere hill, there was a mountain for him to climb now; but he was not dismayed. There was Tessie for certain, and a possible dot on the top of that mountain. Its summit was worth reaching.

He meant getting there—he was full up to the brim with excelsior.

He was debating now whether he should keep up the farce of clerkship any longer, or blossom forth—for surprise purposes—as a New York detective, and see what he could frighten out of Loide.

Then he determined to wait a little longer, till he had seen the passenger agent at Eldon Street.

That individual had been away ill, and would be at the office, it was thought, to-morrow or the day after. Gerald decided to wait till then.

CHAPTER XXI

When he returned to the office, Mr. Loide went out to keep an appointment at the West End of London. That left the floor free for Gerald.

He went into his employer's room, and stood opposite the fireplace. With the "view finder" on his camera, he brought the mantel within focus.

He did that because hanging above the mantel was an oil painting of the lawyer.

There was a little tablet let into the frame of the painting inscribed, "From a grateful client."

Gerald rather wondered whether the artist—the client filled with gratitude—could have been quite sane; but his business just then was with the painting—not the painter.

He had described the room to Benetfink's assistant, the light it faced, and so on; and had been told to pull down the lever, count seventy-five seconds by his watch, and then let go.

These instructions he carried out.

First he measured off two yards, and piling up tin boxes till he got the level he required, he snapped his first photograph for seventy-five seconds' exposure.

He used all six plates, varying the distance of his tin boxes support an inch each time, to insure focus.

Then he packed up his camera, replaced the tin boxes, and waited till closing time.

He left the office at half-past five, mounted a tram-car in the City Road, and with his camera in a hand bag made for the regions of the Euston Road.

For some reason the Euston Road is famous for the number of its photographers—the lower class of that art.

The double description is used as it is a calling full of artfulness and craft. The this-style-in-a-frame-for-a-shilling sort seem to look on it as a happy hunting ground.

The tout outside produces samples of the photographic art—created perhaps a dozen miles away—and lies with the freedom of a cyclometer.

Night makes but little difference to these artists. They have an arrangement of what the outside man calls "magnesia," which he will assure you "results in as good a picter as if tiken in the brord dielight."

Gerald entered one of these art studios. He found the man inside quite as full of art as the outside one.

When Gerald stated his business and needs, the man shook his head, and spoke of terms which made Gerald put the camera back in his bag.

The art of the photographer fell before that act, and his artfulness came into play—it looked like money walking away.

When Gerald spoke of trying another photographer, the studio man thought he could manage it—became sure of it, and a bargain was struck.

Benetfink's man had told Gerald something. Told him that after development, the negative could have a bath of spirits of wine, and be dry enough to print from in ten minutes.

He had also sold Gerald a packet of special printing paper, which could easily be printed on by the light from an ordinary gas jet.

Ultimately—things were a trifle tight in the neighborhood of Euston Road; to servant girls and their military admirers photography seemed to have lost its charm—the photographer agreed to develop the six plates, and print one copy of each for six and sixpence.

Four of the plates turned out failures in the developing dish; the other two were all right. When, later on, the printing paper came out of the little printing frames, Gerald was quite satisfied.

He cheerfully paid the six and sixpence, and walked away with two unmistakable pictures of Loide, the lawyer, in an envelope in his pocket.

The next morning he went to Eldon Street before going to his office, and was cheered to hear that the steamboat agent was much better, and was coming to business that morning.

Gerald asked if he would be in between two and three o'clock, and was answered affirmatively.

So it came about that in his dinner hour he walked round to the agent's. The agent was in.

"I have come to see you about the Europia murder case."

"Have you?" replied the agent, somewhat wearily; "and what particular line is yours—newspaper? If so, I haven't a scrap of fresh news for you."

"No," said Gerald, with a smile; "there's nothing journalistic about me."

"Not the police then again, surely! I understood from Inspector Welch that they had dropped the matter."

"Maybe the English police have," answered Gerald quietly; "but the American force hasn't. I'm from the other side—come over in the Europia last week."

"Oh! Is that so? Anything fresh? I suppose so, by your coming across the pond."

"Well, I think we are striking a trail. I want you to help me a little. I see by one of the newspaper interviews that you stated to a reporter that you would know the two men who booked the particular berth in which the murder took place."

"That's so. One thing, my memory's keen on, is faces. If I see a man once, I know him again. I could locate him in a crowd."

"That will perhaps help us."

"I don't think so. They photographed one of the bodies found on the boat, and it was sent across here for identification. Inspector Welch brought it here, but bless your soul, it wasn't a tiny scrap like either of the men."

"So I understand."

"Inspector Welch didn't quite believe me. Thought I placed too much reliance on my memory. Almost said so. But I know right enough where my strong point lies. I didn't recognize that photograph simply because it wasn't the picture of either of the men. But the moment I get a photograph of either of the real men before me, you'll see I'll pick it out from fifty others."

"You are sure you would know it?"

"Know it! I'm dead certain—cock-sure."

"Well," said Gerald, as he quietly drew the daguerreotype of Josh Todd from his pocket and put it on the agent's desk, "is that like either of them?"

"That's one!—that one!" cried the agent excitedly, as he banged his fist on the desk. "I'd know him from a thousand. That's the man that spoke with a Yankee accent and came in first."

"So," said Gerald quietly, although in his excitement his blood was racing through his veins, "and possibly this may be the portrait of the other one?"

He placed the picture he had brought away from the Euston Road studio before the agent.

"By God, sir, you're right! That's 'em—that's 'em both. You've got the right men, sir—you've got 'em. I always said if the American detectives took the case up over here, they'd strike the trail. No English 'tec can touch 'em for cuteness. If you know where to put your hands on these two men, you're able to solve the Europia mystery."

CHAPTER XXII

To run through the disguise shops of London in the hope of tracing a man who had bought a red wig, he knew would be as sensible a task as endeavoring to find the needle in the proverbial stack of hay.

He read again and again the description of the spruce, smartly dressed, jaunty looking, raucous voiced, red haired missing man, and for the life of him, he could not make it fit in with the present appearance of the lawyer.

He started rehearsing his bogus detective from New York idea. Thought how best he could so surprise the lawyer as to force the truth from him.

He knew him to be a cute old fox, and that if he gleaned anything it would be at a time when the lawyer's shrewdness was overclouded by fear.

His business was to bring on that cloud—to inspire that fear.

It took him a long while to formulate his scheme. He knew that a false move in it would upset everything—that the lawyer would snap it up in a moment, and save himself.

When he had got his idea as near perfection as he thought he could get, he walked into Loide's private room, ostentatiously turned the key in the door, and seated himself opposite the astonished lawyer.

"What the devil does this mean, sir?"

"It means, Mr. Loide, that the game is up."

As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a pair of handcuffs he had hired for a shilling at a theatrical costumer's in the neighboring Houndsditch.

Even yet, so surprised was he, the lawyer did not understand the situation. He spluttered out:

"What does this play acting business mean in office hours?"

"I'm afraid your office hours, Mr. Loide, are all over. I throw off the disguise of clerk, and appear as Detective Crayle of the New York police."

"Detective!"

"There is a warrant out for your arrest in connection with the murder on the Europia."

The livid face of the lawyer told Gerald all he wanted to know—he had hit the right nail on the head, despite the red hair.

He continued:

"There's been a little trouble in trailing this scent, Mr. Loide, but we've got it all mapped out from the moment of your entrance of the Eldon Street agent's office, and your subsequent purchase of the other half of the berth, down to the present moment. You have been watched right through, Mr. Loide."

The lawyer groaned.

"The American system of police work is different from the English. Every man to his department. Now, mine is not to arrest you. There's a man on the Atlantic now, in response to my cable, on his way here to do that—no, don't look at the door; don't play at silly fools—you know I could put you in the custody of the first policeman we met."

"If not to arrest me, what is your business, then?"

The hoarse voice of the lawyer showed how deeply he was affected.

"Well, I've been deputed to hunt up that missing nineteen thousand pounds."

The lawyer looked up. Gerald continued:

"Oh, I know you don't know where it is, but if I heard the whole story from your lips, I might be able to find a clue. Now, bargain for bargain—I've told you my business isn't to arrest you.

"I don't personally care whether you go to eternity viâ our recently invented electrocution chair, or whether you scoot. See? Just tell me the whole story from beginning to end without missing a single detail—and remember, I know the facts, so if you lie or attempt to deceive me, I shall consider the bargain off—do this, and you'll get three days start. I'll leave you to do what you like—go where you like."

"I can believe—rely—on that?"

"I'm no liar in straight business, Mr. Loide. Follow my example, tell me the truth, and we'll say good-bye. If we meet again, it will be your own fault."

"Very well, I will tell you, then."

"Good. I've my note-book here containing an account of every movement of yours since——"

"Oh, I'll tell the truth. On the day of the settlement with Depew, I handed him nineteen thousand pounds in notes. The numbers——"

"I know them," interposed Gerald—he had got them from the lawyer's letter book—"get on with the story."

"After that we went to the Great Eastern Hotel opposite and had lunch. He did not know where the passenger agent's was, so I showed him. It was the agent saying he had the other half berth which confirmed me in my idea of robbing him, which, as you know, I did not do."

"I know all about it," said Gerald, "but all the same, you tell me the whole thing complete."

"Well, after Depew had bought his ticket, we came outside, shook hands, and parted, and I never saw him again until I saw his cut up remains"—the lawyer shuddered at the recollection—"in the Europia's cabin."

"After you parted, you went back to the agent's, and got the other berth. Where did Depew go; do you know that?"

"No. I fancy to his hotel. He was staying during his visit to England at Armfield's."

"Did he go in that direction?"

"No. Now I come to think of it, I remember he spoke of an aching tooth, and said he was going to a dentist's in Finsbury Circus to have one—as he called it—'yanked out.'"

The lawyer faithfully detailed every other incident which had occurred, and with which the reader who has followed this narrative will be acquainted.

When he had finished, Gerald said:

"Just write me a letter to the Bank of England, withdrawing that stop on the notes, will you?"

"What?" inquired the lawyer eagerly. "Have you found the missing notes, then?"

"I came over to Europe for that purpose," answered Gerald shortly. "Give me that letter. That'll do, and now good-bye. You deserve a shove into Kingdom Come, but it's not my business to push you."

He put the handcuffs into his pockets and opened the door.

"Now put your hat on and mizzle. I'll take charge of this office. Don't set foot near it again, or you'll have yourself to blame for the consequences."

The lawyer gathered up a few letters, and cramming them into his pocket, walked to the hat rail.

"This isn't a trap," he inquired; "they are not waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs?"

"I've told you I'm not a liar. You can walk straight away and no soul will attempt to stop you."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Left to himself, Gerald locked the outer door, and sat down to think.

So far, he had arrived at very little. He knew now that Todd had stopped at Armfield's, that when he left the lawyer he had gone into a dentist's in Finsbury Circus, that when next seen he was unrolled from a newspaper parcel on the boat.

He took down the post-office directory from the shelf and turned up Finsbury Circus.

Surgeons and doctors abounded. That set Gerald thinking.

At the inquest, medical evidence had been given that only a medical expert could have dismembered the body so neatly. He went down the names in the directory carefully.

One thing struck him. There was a Mr. Charles Lennox, a dentist, and a door or two off a Mr. Arthur Lennox, surgeon. There might be nothing in it, but it was worth looking into. The combination was suggestive.

Gerald made up his mind to have his teeth seen to at one place, and to attend at the other with some imaginary complaint.

He then took the whole of the Depew papers from the tin box, and made them into a compact parcel. They might be useful to the farmer.

Then he put on his hat, and with the parcel under his arm left the building.

CHAPTER XXIII

He went further and saw a brass plate—"Arthur Lennox, M.R.C.S." This determined him.

He believed in his power of reading faces, and he was eager to try his hand at the doctor's.

He entered the house, and went to the surgeon's door. Knocked and knocked again; and again.

Then he pulled the housekeeper's bell.

In reply to his inquiries he learned that Mr. Arthur Lennox was away abroad; had gone—he tallied the date—the day the Europia sailed with Todd's body aboard.

Further information, the housekeeper told him, could be obtained of the surgeon's brother—a dentist, a few doors off.

Gerald felt that at last he was nearing his goal.

"Ah! I don't want to see the dentist," he said. "I don't know him. I was very friendly with the doctor, and I promised to see him when I came to England. I wasn't quite sure, though, that I had the address correct—indeed, I am not now sure that this Dr. Lennox is the one I want. What sort of a man is he?"

The housekeeper described him. And at each detail of the description Gerald's hopes rose higher and higher.

For she was describing the man who had been found with his throat cut, the man whose newspaper picture Gerald had then in his coat pocket.

He withdrew that from his pocketbook, and handing it to the housekeeper, said:

"Is that anything like him?"

"Oh, yes," answered the housekeeper in a moment; "there is no mistaking it. That's he right enough."

"Then I haven't made any mistake after all. Thank you for——"

"There goes his brother if you want to see him," interposed the housekeeper hurriedly. "He goes home about this time—they used both to leave at five o'clock."

"No, thank you," answered Gerald; "I am obliged to you. Good-day;" and he went down the steps.

"The dentist has gone," he muttered. "I'll just look at his show now, and interview him to-morrow. A night's thought on this won't do any harm. There's such a thing as being in too great a hurry. More haste, less speed."

He entered the house in which the dentist had rooms.

As he stood looking at the door, it opened, and a boy started to come out.

"Good-afternoon," said Gerald cheerfully, and walking in. "Is it too late to have a tooth seen to?"

"Just too late, sir," replied the boy Sawyer; "Guv'nor's just gone. He'll be here at ten o'clock in the morning—if he's well enough."

"I'm sorry. Do you mind my sitting down and resting for just a minute or two? I hurried here so fast for fear of missing him, that it set my heart beating dangerously fast."

"Not at all, sir."

"I was recommended here by an American gentleman, a friend of mine."

"Oh, sir."

"Yes. Some while ago he came here—one afternoon—and had a tooth out, and spoke so well of the job that I determined to come here myself."

"Yes, sir."

"He had a tooth extracted painlessly."

"Yes, sir, lots of people has 'em out that way."

"How is it done—chloroform?"

"Bless you, no sir! With the gas."

"Is it dangerous at all?"

"Lor no, sir. 'Sides, there's always a doctor present to help."

"Really?"

"Yes. The guv'nor used to have his brother in to do it before he went abroad."

"Has rooms some doors off, hasn't he?"

"Yes, that's him, sir."

"Has he been abroad long?"

"Been away just—well, that's curious, sir, as you mentioned an American gent. I haven't seen the doctor since the day the last American gent came here."

"That is very funny. Very likely, too, it happened to be my friend. Do you remember him?"

"Rather, sir. We don't have too many patients here"—with a grin—"as I can't remember em."

"You would know him again if you saw him?"

"Rather."

"Is that like him?"

Gerald handed the boy the daguerreotype of Todd as he spoke.

"Like him!" said the boy; "it is him."

"That certainly is a curious thing. My American friend was a bit of a coward, you know. I guess he made a big fuss about having his tooth pulled. Did he call out in any pain?"

"I don't know."

"I thought you said——"

"You see I minded both places. When your American friend came in and said he wanted the gas, I was sent in for the doctor, and minded his place for him when he came in here."

"I see."

"When I came back, of course your friend had gone."

"Hadn't, I suppose, fallen asleep on the couch or in the operating chair, had he?"

"No. I said had gone."

"So you did—I thought perhaps you might have overlooked him."

"Not much. I have to put away the things tidily, and I shouldn't overlook much."

"My American friend described to me the chair he sat in—operating chair, don't they call it?"

"Yes, that's it."

"As being a very curious one—is it?"

"Nothing out of the common. This is it."

He opened the inner door as he spoke, and Gerald entered.

"You were right about not overlooking him. If he had been here you must have seen him."

"Yes."

"This cupboard would have held him, though."

"Yes," replied the boy, with a grin. "It is big enough; but we don't stick patients into cupboards, you know."

Gerald laughed heartily at the joke.

"Well," he said, "my heart's quiet enough, now, thanks. I am much obliged to you for letting me rest. I'll come in and see the dentist to-morrow."

"If he's well enough to come to business, he'll be pleased to see you."

"Ill, is he?"

"Yes, sir. Has been for some weeks, ever since his brother went away."

"That's curious."

"Yes, sir. Shall I make an appointment for you to-morrow, sir?"

"Yes; you can say I'll be here at eleven o'clock sharp."

"Right you are, sir; he'll keep the appointment right enough if he can. He won't fail."

"Nor shall I."

"Good-evening, sir."

"Good-evening."

Down the steps went Gerald, down into the Circus.

He felt more pleased with himself than he had felt for a long while. He was on the right scent now, he was sure.

To-morrow at eleven he must assume once more the guise of the New York detective. The appointment was eleven o'clock. Gerald would not fail to keep it.

CHAPTER XXIV

That "unless."

He had killed one man with the idea of possessing that nineteen thousand pounds, and although the murder did not lie heavily on his conscience, the ill success attending his effort did—very heavily.

As he walked through his office to the Mansion House station of the electric railway, he was debating in his mind whether he should have another shot for the nineteen thousand pounds the New York detective had in his possession.

En route to Waterloo he made up his mind that he would. His mind did not need much making up—the fancied rustle of those crisp Bank of England notes helped a deal.

He lived at a place called The Elms, on the outskirts of Wimbledon. His house stood in its own grounds, some distance away from the road, and from other houses.

It was a property he had acquired by foreclosing a mortgage. It would be a quiet spot in which to carry out the scheme he was mentally sitting on.

He hoped to hatch out a nineteen thousand pound egg.

His big difficulty would lie in luring the detective to Wimbledon. And again, as an old man, he would be at a disadvantage in any struggle.

To kill the officer would be an easy task, but that was not his intention. Not that he hesitated at the mere taking of a life—that was a detail—but he wanted to profit by his work.

He was tired of profitless murder. One incident of that sort he felt was sufficient to last a long time.

He guessed that the officer would not walk about all day with nineteen thousand pounds in his possession, that he had stored the notes away safely.

That he had them he was convinced, and his conviction was confirmed by the request for the letter to the Bank of England withdrawing the stoppage.

That letter had helped to form Loide's idea.

He would imprison the detective, keep him without food or drink till he wrote a note to the custodian of the notes requesting the handing over of them to the bearer of the letter. Loide anticipated playing the part of the bearer.

He reached Wimbledon station, alighted, and walked along the road.

As he did so, he reflected that within three days he would have shaken the dust of that suburb from his feet for good and all.

At a furniture dealer's he paused. Entering the shop, he said:

"You know me?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Loide, the lawyer."

"That's right. I am leaving the neighborhood—giving up possession of my house."

"Sorry to hear that, sir."

"I am going to live at Brighton. I have hesitated about the expense of moving my furniture, and now I am confirmed in my belief that it would be best to sell it. It is getting old, and would not fit my new house—larger rooms, you know."

"Yes, sir."

"I want you to come along with me now, and make me a cash offer for the houseful of furniture, just as it stands. If your offer is good enough I shall accept it, on condition that you clear the whole lot out before to-night."

"To-night!"

"Yes, to-night. There are only nine rooms—a couple of vans would move it all easily. However, if you don't think you can manage it, I'll try somewhere——"

"Not at all, sir," said the man, taking off his apron, and rolling down his shirt-sleeves; "I'll be ready in two seconds."

He scented a profitable job. Hasty matters of this kind often come in the way of furniture dealers and brokers—generally with much profit to the buyer.

The buyers are wont to sing gladsomely of such transactions. Surrounding creditors usually sang in another key.

The shopman put on his coat and hat, and went with Loide to The Elms.

Loide let himself in with his key. His servants had been dismissed long since. His meals he had obtained in the city, visiting his home purely for sleeping purposes.

A bargain was struck. The dealer guaranteed that before six o'clock the house should be absolutely clear of furniture—that within an hour the two vans should drive up and clear out all.

They did. The furniture dealer was as good as his word.

Everything was cleared save three feather beds which Loide kept back.

The furniture dealer marveled at this, but he had done well over the deal, and said nothing.

Loide placed those feather beds to his own credit—as an act of mercy. They were to save the detective pain.

The furniture removers had completed their task and driven away. At their heels trod Loide—in the direction of the post-office.

From there he sent a telegram to his late clerk's address. He thanked his memory that he had remembered the address in the letter applying for the situation.

The telegram ran: