'll bring him to the gallers some day."

"But I want to know--"

"Ah, well, then, you won't, sir. I ses what I ses, and I ses no more nor
I oughter say. So good-night, sir," and Mrs. Purr toddled up the
newly-gravelled path, and entered the cottage, leaving an odor of gin
behind her.

Beecot had half a mind to follow, so strange was the hint she had given
him. Apparently, she knew something which connected him with Tray, and
Paul wondered for the fiftieth time, if the boy had picked up the opal
brooch. However, he decided to leave the matter alone for the present.
Mrs. Purr, whom Deborah had engaged to iron, was always available, and
Paul decided, that should anything point to Tray's being implicated in
the finding of the opal serpent, that he would hand him over to Hurd,
who would be better able to deal with such a keen young imp of the
gutter. Thus making up his mind, Paul dismissed all thought of Mrs.
Purr's mysterious utterance, and walked briskly to the nearest
bus-stand, where he took a blue vehicle to the Bloomsbury district. All
the way to his garret he dreamed of Sylvia, and poor though was the
home he had left her in, he was thankful that she was there in the safe
shelter of Mrs. Deborah Tawsey's arms.

It was five o'clock when Paul arrived at the door of the stairs leading
to his attic, and here he was touched on the shoulder by no less a
person than Mr. Billy Hurd. Only when he spoke did Paul recognize him by
his voice, for the gentleman who stood before him was not the brown
individual he knew as the detective. Mr. Hurd was in evening dress, with
the neatest of patent boots and the tightest of white gloves. He wore a
brilliantly-polished silk hat, and twirled a gold-headed cane. Also he
had donned a smart blue cloth overcoat with a velvet collar and cuffs.
But though his voice was the voice of Hurd, his face was that of quite a
different person. His hair was dark and worn rather long, his moustache
black and large, and brushed out _a la Kaiser_, and he affected an
eye-glass as immovable as that of Hay's. Altogether a wonderfully
changed individual.

"Hurd," said Paul, starting with surprise.

"It's my voice told you. But now--" he spoke a tone higher in a shrill
sort of way and with a foreign accent--"vould you me discover, mon ami?"
he inquired, with a genuine Parisian shrug.

"No. Why are you masquerading as a Frenchman, Hurd?"

"Not Hurd in this skin, Mr. Beecot. Comte de la Tour, a votre servic