ave their hands on them. To-morrow there'll be some arrests,"
Mr. Batchgrew answered, exuding authority. For he was not merely a
Town Councillor, he was brother-in-law to the Superintendent of the
Borough Police. "Caught 'em long ago if th' county police had been a
bit more reliable!"

"Oh!" Mrs. Maldon breathed happily. "I knew it couldn't be Mr. Snow's
fault. I felt sure of that. I'm so glad."

And Rachel also was conscious of gladness. In fact, it suddenly seemed
plain to both women that no burglar, certain of arrest on the morrow,
would dare to invade the house of a lady whose trustee had married
the sister of the Superintendent of Police. The house was invisibly
protected.

"And we mustn't forget we shall have a man sleeping here to-night,"
said Rachel confidently.

"Of course! Of course! I was quite overlooking that!" exclaimed Mrs.
Maldon.

Mr. Batchgrew threw a curt and suspicious question--"What man?"

"My nephew Julian--I should say my grand-nephew." Mrs. Maldon's proud
tone rebuked the strange tone of Mr. Batchgrew. "It is his birthday.
He and Louis are having supper with me. And Julian is staying the
night."

"Well, if you take my advice, missis, ye'll say nowt to nobody. Lock
the brass up in a drawer in that wardrobe of yours, and keep a still
tongue in your head."

"Perhaps you're right," Mrs. Maldon agreed--"as a matter of general
principle, I mean. And it might make Julian uneasy."

"Take it and lock it up," Mr. Batchgrew repeated.

"I don't know about my wardrobe--" Mrs. Maldon began.

"Anywhere!" Mr. Batchgrew stopped her.

"Only," said Rachel with careful gentleness, "please don't forget
where you _have_ put it."

But her precaution of manner was futile. Twice within a minute she had
employed the word "forget." Twice was too often. Mrs. Maldon's memory
was most capriciously uncertain. Its lapses astonished sometimes even
herself. And naturally she was sensitive on the point. She nourished
the fiction, and she expected others to nourish it, that her memory
was quite equal to younger memories. Indeed, she would admit every
symptom of old age save an unreliable memory.

Composing a dignified smile, she said with reproving blandness--

"I am not in the habit of forgetting where I put valuables, Rachel."

And her prominently veined fingers, clasping the notes as a
preliminary to hiding them away, seemed in their nervous primness to
be saying to Rachael: "I have deep confidence in you,