"Whilst White is away and until he turns up I should keep a watchful eye on his daughter," he said.
"What do you mean, sir?" asked Stafford.
"I'm just making a suggestion," said the other. "Think it over."
Stafford thought it over on his way to meet the girl, who was waiting for him on a sunny seat in Temple Gardens, for the day was fine and even warm, and, two hours before luncheon, the place was comparatively empty of people.
She saw the trouble in his face and rose to meet him, and for a moment forgot her own distress of mind, her doubts and fears. Evidently she knew the reason for his attendance at Scotland Yard, and something of the interview which he had had.
"I offered my resignation," he replied, in answer to her unspoken question, "and Sir Stanley refused it."
"I think he was just," she said. "Why, it would be simply monstrous if your career were spoilt through no fault of your own."
He laughed.
"Don't let us talk about me," he said. "What have you done?"
"I've cancelled all my contracts; I have other work to do."
"How are" He hesitated, but she knew just what he meant, and patted his arm gratefully.
"Thank you, I have all the money I want," she said. "Father left me quite a respectable balance. I am closing the house at Horsham and storing the furniture, and shall keep just sufficient to fill a little flat I have taken in Bloomsbury."
"But what are you going to do?" he asked curiously.
She shook her head.
"Oh, there are lots of things that a girl can do," she said vaguely, "besides going on the stage."
"But isn't it a sacrifice? Didn't you love your work?"
She hesitated.
"I thought I did at first," she said. "You see, I was always a very good mimic. When I was quite a little girl I could imitate the colonel. Listen!"
Suddenly to his amazement he heard the drawling growl of Dan Boundary. She laughed with glee at his amazement, but the smile vanished and she sighed.
"I want you to tell me one thing, Mr. King"
"Staffordyou promised me," he began.
She reddened.
"I hardly like calling you by your christian name but it sounds so like a surname that perhaps it won't be so bad."
"What do you want to ask?" he demanded.
She was silent for a moment, then she said:
"How far was my father implicated in this terrible business?"
"In the gang?"
She nodded.
He was in a dilemma. Solomon White was implicated as deeply as any save the colonel. In his younger days he had been the genius who was responsible for the organisation and had been for years the colonel's right-hand man until the more subtle villainy of Pinto Silva, that Portuguese adventurer, had ousted him, and, if the truth be told, until the sight of his girl growing to womanhood had brought qualms to the heart of this man, who, whatever his faults, loved the girl dearly.
"You don't answer me," she said, "but I think I am answered by your silence. Was my fathera bad man?"
"I would not judge your father," he said. "I can tell you this, that for the past few years he has played a very small part in the affairs of the gang. But what are you going to do?"
"How persistent you are!" she laughed. "Why, there are so many things I am going to do that I haven't time to tell you. For one thing, I am going to work to undo some of the mischief which the gang have wrought. I am going to make such reparation as I can," she said, her lips trembling, "for the evil deeds my father has committed."
"You have a mission, eh?" he said with a little smile.
"Don't laugh at me," she pleaded. "I feel it here." She put her hand on her heart. "There's something which tells me that, even if my father built up this gang, as you told me once he didah! you had forgotten that."
Stafford King had indeed forgotten the statement.
"Yes?" he said. "You intend to pull it down?"
She nodded.
"I feel, too, that I am at bay. I am the daughter of Solomon White, and Solomon White is regarded by the colonel as a traitor. Do you think they will leave me alone? Don't you think they are going to watch me day and night and get me in their power just as soon as they can? Think of the lever that would be, the lever to force my father back to them!"
"Oh, you'll be watched all right," he said easily, and remembered the commissioner's warning. "In fact, you're being watched now. Do you mind?"
"Now?" she asked in surprise.
He nodded towards a lady who sat a dozen yards away and whose face was carefully shaded by a parasol.
"Who is she?" asked the girl curiously.
"A young person called Lollie Marsh," laughed Stafford. "At present she has a mission too, which is to entangle me into a compromising position."
The girl looked towards the spy with a new interest and a new resentment.
"She has been trailing me for weeks," he went on, "and it would be embarrassing to tell you the number of times we have been literally thrown into one another's arms. Poor girl!" he said, with mock concern, "she must be bored with sitting there so long. Let us take a stroll."
If he expected Lollie to follow, he was to be disappointed She stayed on watching the disappearing figures, without attempting to rise, and waiting until they were out of sight, she walked out on to the Embankment and hailed a passing taxi. She seemed quite satisfied in her mind that the plan she had evolved for the trapping of Stafford King could not fail to succeed.
CHAPTER VII
THE COLONEL CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS
A merry little dinner party was assembled that night in a luxurious flat in Albemarle House. It was a bachelor party, and consisted of threethe colonel, resplendent in evening dress, "Swell" Crewe and a middle-aged man whose antique dress coat and none too spotless linen certainly did not advertise their owner's prosperity. Yet this man with the stubbly moustache and the bald head could write his cheque for seven figures, being Mr. Thomas Crotin, of the firm of Crotin and Principle, whose swollen mills occupy a respectable acreage in Huddersfield and Dewsbury.
"You're Colonel Boundary, are you?" he said admiringly, and for about the seventh time since the meal started.
The colonel nodded with a good-humoured twinkle in his eye.
"Well, fancy that!" said Mr. Crotin. "I'll have something to talk about when I go back to Yorkshire. It is lucky I met your friend, Captain Crewe, at our club in Huddersfield."
There was something more than luck in that meeting, as the colonel well knew.
"I read about the trial and all," said the Yorkshireman; "I must say it looked very black against you, colonel."
The colonel smiled again and lifted a bottle towards the other.
"Nay, nay!" said the spinner. "I'll have nowt more. I've got as much as I can carry, and I know when I've had enough."
The colonel replaced the bottle by his side.
"So you read of the trial, did you?"
"I did and all," said the other, "and I said to my missus: 'Yon's a clever fellow, I'd like to meet him.'"
"You have an admiration for the criminal classes, eh?" said the colonel good-humouredly.
"Well, I'm not saying you're a criminal," said the other, taking his host literally, "but being a J.P. and on the bench of magistrates, I naturally take an interest in these cases. You never know what you can learn."
"And what did your lady wife say?" asked Boundary.
The Yorkshireman smiled broadly.
"Well, she doesn't take any interest in these things. She's a proper London lady, my wife. She was in a high position when I married."
"Five years ago," said Boundary, "you married the daughter of Lord Westsevern. It cost you a hundred thousand pounds to pay the old man's debts."
The Yorkshireman stared at him.
"How did you know that?" he asked.
"You're nominated for Parliament, too, aren't you. And you're to be Mayor of Little Thornhill?"
Mr. Crotin laughed uproariously.
"Well, you've got me properly taped," he said admiringly, and the colonel agreed with a gesture.
"So you're interested in the criminal classes?"
Mr. Crotin waved a protesting hand.
"I'm not saying you're a member of the criminal classes, colonel," he said. "My friend Crewe here wouldn't think I would be so rude. Of course, I know the charge was all wrong."
"That's where you're mistaken," interrupted the colonel calmly; "it was all right."
"Eh?"
The man stared.
"The charge was perfectly sound," said the colonel, playing with his fruit knife; "for twenty years I have been making money by buying businesses at about a twentieth of their value and selling them again."
"But how" began the other.
"Wait, I'll tell you. I've got men working for me all over the country, agents and sub-agents, who are constantly on the look-out for scandal. Housekeepers, servants, valetsyou know the sort of people who get hold of information."
Mr. Crotin was speechless.
"Sooner or later I find a very incriminating fact which concerns a gentleman of property. I prefer those scandals which verge on the criminal," the colonel went on.
The outraged Mr. Crotin was rolling his serviette.
"Where are you going? What are you going to do? The night's young," said the colonel innocently.
"I'm going," said Mr. Crotin, very red of face. "A joke's a joke, and when friend Crewe introduced me to you, I hadn't any idea that you were that kind of man. You don't suppose that I'm going to sit here in your societyme with my high connectionsafter what you've said?"
"Why not?" asked the colonel; "after all, business is business, and as I'm making an offer to you for the Riverborne Mill"
"The Riverborne Mill?" roared the spinner. "Ah! that's a joke of yours! You'll buy no Riverborne Mill of me, sitha!"
"On the contrary, I shall buy the Riverborne Mill from you. In fact, I have all the papers and transfers ready for you to sign."
"Oh, you have, have you?" said the man grimly. "And what might you be offering me for the Riverborne?"
"I'm offering you thirty thousand pounds cash," said the colonel, and his bearer was stricken speechless.
"Thirty thousand pounds cash!" he said after awhile. "Why, man, that property is worth two hundred thousand pounds."
"I thought it was worth a little more," said the colonel carelessly.
"You're a fool or a madman," said the angry Yorkshireman. "It isn't my mill, it is a limited company."
"But you hold the majority of the sharesninety-five per cent., I think," said the colonel. "Those are the shares which you will transfer to me at the price I suggest."
"I'll see you damned first," roared Crotin, bringing his hand down smash on the table.
"Sit down again for one moment." The colonel's voice was gentle but insistent. "Do you know Maggie Delman?"
Suddenly Crotin's face went white.
"She was one of your father's mill-girls when you were little more than a boy," the colonel proceeded, "and you were rather in love with her, and one Easter you went away together to Blackpool. Do you remember?"
Still Crotin did not speak.
"You married the young lady and the marriage was kept secret because you were afraid of your father, and as the years went on and the girl was content with the little home you had made for her and the allowance you gave her, there seemed to be no need to admit your marriage, especially as there were no children. Then you began to take part in local politics and to accumulate ambitions. You dared not divorce your wife and you thought there was no necessity for it. You had a chance of improving yourself socially by marrying the daughter of an English lord, and you jumped at it."
"You've got to prove that," he said huskily.
The man found his voice.
"I can prove it all right. Oh, no, your wife hasn't betrayed youyour real wife, I mean. You've betrayed yourself by insisting on paying her by telegraphic money orders. We heard of these mysterious payments but suspected nothing beyond a vulgar love affair. Then one night, whilst your placid and complacent wife was in a cinema, one of my people searched her box and came upon the certificate of marriage. Would you like to see it?"
"I've nothing to say," said Crotin thickly. "You've got me, mister. So that is how you do it!"
"That is how I do it," said the colonel. "I believe in being frank with people like you. Here are the transfers. You see the place for your signature marked with a pencil."
Suddenly Crotin leaped at him in a blind fury, but the colonel gripped him by the throat with a hand like a steel vice, and shook him as a dog would shake a rat. And the gentle tone in his voice changed as quickly.
"Sit down and sign!" snarled Boundary. "If you play that game, I'll break your damned neck! Come any of those tricks with me and I'll smash you. Give him the pen, Crewe."
"I'll see you in gaol for this," said the white-faced man shakily.
"That's about the place you will see me, if you don't sign, and it is the inside of that gaol you'll be to see me."
The man rose up unsteadily, flinging down the pen as he did so.
"You'll suffer for this," he said between his teeth.
"Not unduly," said the colonel.
There was a tap at the door and the colonel swung round.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Can I come in?" said a voice.
Crewe was frowning.
"Who is it?" asked the colonel.
The door opened slowly. A gloved hand, and then a white, hooded face, slipped through the narrow entry.
"Jack o' Judgment! Poor old Jack o' Judgment come to make a call," chuckled the hateful voice. "Down, dog; down!" He flourished the long-barrelled revolver theatrically, then turned with a chuckle of laughter to the gaping Mr. Crotin.
"Poor Jacob!" he crooned, "he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage! Don't touch that paper, Crewe, or you die the death!"
His hand leapt out and snatched the transfer, which he thrust into the hand of the wool-spinner.
"Get out and go home, my poor sheep," he said, "back to the blankets! Do you think they'd be satisfied with one mill? They'd come for a mill every year and they'd never leave you till you were dead or broke. Go to the police, my poor lamb, and tell them your sad story. Go to the admirable Mr. Stafford Kinghe'll fall on your neck. You won't, I see you won't!"
The laughter rose again, and then swiftly with one arm he swung back the merchant and stood in silence till the door of the flat slammed.
The colonel found his voice.
"I don't know who you are," he said, breathing heavily, "but I'll make a bargain with you. I've offered a hundred thousand pounds to anybody who gets you. I'll offer you the same amount to leave me alone."
"Make it a hundred thousand millions!" said Jack o' Judgment in his curious, squeaky voice, "give me the moon and an apple, and I'm yours!"
He was gone before they could realise he had passed through the door, and he had left the flat before either moved.
"Quick! The window!" said the colonel.
The window commanded a view of the front entrance of Albemarle House, and the entry was well lighted. They reached the window in time to see the Yorkshireman emerge with unsteady steps and stride into the night. They waited for their visitor to follow. A minute, two minutes passed, and then somebody walked down the steps to the light. It was a woman, and as she turned her face the colonel gasped.
"Maisie White!" he said in a wondering voice. "What the devil is she doing here?"