ould be glad to show
it to her."

"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam. "I'll have finished talking
business in a moment."

He returned to the inner office.

"Well?" cried Billie.

"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was a
little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were
talking about. You say...." He broke off with an exclamation, and
glanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I
promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next
court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with
one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you
spare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes."

"Certainly."

"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't know
if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting."

He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_.

"You can go in now," said Sam.

"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly."

Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_ and sat down with his feet on
the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis.

In the inner room Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment
offered by Widgery and was engaged on making a tour of the office,
looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be
the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows, and Applebys mentioned on the
contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back.
She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously.

Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of
repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one
of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a
cruel, cunning smile--at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself
was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent
simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a
motion-picture studio.

"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said.

CHAPTER XIII

SHOCKS ALL ROUND

Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the
late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that
one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this
wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the
portrait's frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this supreme
moment she di