ip-pocket, where Dunn had reason to believe he carried a formidable
little automatic pistol.

But almost at once his expression changed, and with a gesture he invited
Dunn to crouch down at his side. For a little they remained like this,
and then Deede Dawson moved cautiously away, signing to Dunn to follow
him.

When they were at a safe distance he turned to Dunn and said

"Is he serious, do you think, or is he playing with her? I'll make him
pay for it if he is."

"How should I know?" answered Dunn, quite certain it was no such anxiety
as this that had set Deede Dawson watching them so carefully.

Deede Dawson seemed to feel that the explanation he had offered was a
little crude, and he made no attempt to enlarge on it.

With a complete change of manner, with his old smile on his lips and his
eyes as dark and unsmiling as ever, he said,

"Pretty girl, Ella--isn't she?"

"She is more than pretty, she is beautiful," Dunn answered with an
emphasis that made Deede Dawson look at him sharply.

"Think so?" he said, and gave his peculiar laugh that had so little
mirth in it. "Well, you're right, she is. He'll be a lucky man that
gets her--and she's to be had, you know. But I'll tell you one thing, it
won't be John Clive."

"I thought it rather looked," observed Dunn, "as if Miss Cayley might
mean--"

Deede Dawson interrupted with a quick jerk of his head.

"Never mind what she means, it'll be what I mean," he declared. "I am
boss; and what's more, she knows it. I believe in a man being master in
his own family. Don't you?"

"If he can be," retorted Dunn. "But still, a girl naturally--"

"Naturally nothing," Deede Dawson interrupted again. "I tell you what I
want for her, a man I can-trust-trust-that's the great thing. Some one I
can trust."

He nodded at Dunn as he said this and then walked off, and Dunn felt
very puzzled as he, too, turned away.

"Was he offering her to me?" he asked himself. "It almost sounded like
it. If so, it must mean there's something he wants from me pretty bad.
She's beautiful enough to turn any man's head--but did she know about
poor Charlie's murder?--help in it, perhaps?--as she said she did with
the packing-case."

He paused, and all his body was shaken by strong and fierce emotion.

"God help me," he groaned. "I believe I would marry her tomorrow if I
could, innocent or guilty."

CHAPTER XIII. INVISIBLE WRITING

It was the next day that there arrived by the morni