ll understand, perhaps, when I tell you that Miss Lorne is
its present occupant. It was for that I took it in the beginning.
There may come a need to communicate with her; there may come a need
for her to communicate with you. There's always a chance, you know,
that a candle may be put out when the wind blows at it from all
directions; and if anything should happen--I mean if--er--anything
having a bearing upon me personally that you think she _ought_
to be told should come to pass--well, just go to her at once,
will you?--there's a dear friend. That's the address (don't lose it)
and full directions how to get there speedily. I am giving it to
you now, as we shall soon be in town again and I shall leave you
directly we arrive there. I'm in haste to get back to Dollops and see
if between us we can't hit upon some plan, he and I, to get at the
whereabouts of Waldemar. That plain-clothes man of yours is like
the butler with the bottle of cider--he 'doesn't seem to get any
forrarder.'"

"Kibblewhite!" blurted out the superintendent, sitting up sharply.
"Well, of all the born jackasses, of all the mutton-heads in this
world----"

"Well, he doesn't seem to be very bright, I must say."

"He? Lud! I wasn't talking about _him_; I was talking about myself.
I had something to tell you to-day, and this blessed business drove
it clean out of my head. Kibblewhite had the dickens and all of a
time trying to get at that chap Serpice, as you may remember?"

"I do--in a measure. Succeeded in finding out, finally, that the
carriage he drove was one he hired from a liveryman by the month, I
think was the last report you gave me; but couldn't get any further
with the business because Serpice took it into his head not to call
for the carriage again and made off, this Kibblewhite chap didn't
know where, and appears never to have found a means of discovering."

"No; he didn't. But ten days ago he got word from the liveryman
that Serpice had just turned up and was about to make use of the
carriage again; and off Kibblewhite cut, hotfoot, in the hope of
being able to follow him. No go, however. By the time he arrived
at the stable Serpice had already gone; so there was nothing left
for the poor disappointed chap to do but to go out on the hunt and
see if he couldn't pick him up somewhere in the streets."

"Which he didn't, of course?"

"Excuse me--which he _did_. But it was late in the afternoon and
he was coming back to the stable with