s within measuring distance
of the end. I can't forgive that; and I never could fathom her
reason for it. If it was as you yourself suggested at the time,
because she shrank from the notoriety that was likely to accrue
to her from letting everybody in the world know that 'Jimmy the
Shifter' was her own brother, she ought to have thought of that
in the beginning--when she acknowledged it so openly--instead of
making such an ass of me by her high-handed proceeding of calling
me off the scent at its hottest, as if I were a tame puppy to be
pulled this way and that with a string. I object to being made a
fool of, Mr. Narkom; and there's no denying the fact that Miss
Larue treated me very badly in that James Colliver case--very badly
and very cavalierly indeed."

Unquestionably Miss Larue had. Even Mr. Narkom had to admit that;
for the facts which lay behind these heated remarks were not such
as are calculated to make any criminal investigator pleased with his
connection therewith. Clearly set forth, those facts were as follows:

On the nineteenth day of the preceding August, James Colliver had
disappeared, as suddenly and as completely and with as little trace
left behind as does a kinematograph picture when it vanishes from
the screen.

Now the world at large had never heard of James Colliver until he
did disappear, and it is extremely doubtful if it would have done
so even then but that circumstances connected with his vanishment
brought to light the startling disclosure that the worthless,
dissolute hulk of a man who was known to the habitues of half the
low-class public houses in Hoxton by the pseudonym of "Jimmy the
Shifter" was not only all that time and drink had left of the
once popular melodramatic actor Julian Monteith, but that he was,
in addition thereto, own brother to Miss Margaret Larue, the
distinguished actress who was at that moment electrifying London
by her marvellous performance of the leading role in _The Late Mrs.
Cavendish_.

The reasons which impelled Miss Larue to let the public discover that
her real name was Maggie Colliver, and that "Jimmy the Shifter"
was related to her by such close ties of blood, were these: _The
Late Mrs. Cavendish_ was nearing the close of its long and successful
run at the Royalty, and its successor was already in rehearsal for
early production. That successor was to be a specially rewritten
version of the old-time favourite play _Catharine Howard; or, The
Tomb, the