cessity for getting away was not very urgent. He met Stafford King in
the Park one morning, and Stafford had been unusually communicative and
friendly. Then the whispering voices in the flat had temporarily ceased,
and Jack o' Judgment had given him no sign of his existence. It was five
days after he had made his deposit in the bank that the first shock came
to him. He found Snakit waiting on returning from a matinee, and the
little detective was so important and mysterious that the colonel knew
something had been discovered.

"Well," he asked, closing the door, "what have you found?"

"She is in communication with the police," said Snakit, "that's what
I've found."

"Lollie?"

"Miss Marsh is the lady. In communication with the police," said the
other impressively.

"Now just tell me what you mean," said the colonel. "Do you mean she's
on speaking terms with the policeman on point duty at Piccadilly
Circus?"

"I mean, sir," said Snakit with dignity, "that she's in the habit of
meeting Mr. Stafford King, who is a well-known man at Scotland Yard----"

"He's well-known here too," interrupted the colonel. "Where does she
meet him?"

"In all sorts of queer places--that's the suspicious part of it," said
Snakit, who had joyously entered into the work which had been given to
him, without realising its unlawful character.

He had accepted without question the colonel's story that he was the
victim of police persecution, and as this was the first news of any
importance he had been able to bring to his employer, he was naturally
inclined to make the most of it.

"He has met her twice at eleven o clock at night, at the bottom of St.
James's Street, and walked up with her, very deeply engaged in
conversation," said Snakit, consulting his note-book. "He met her once
at the foot of the steps leading down from Waterloo Place, and they were
together for an hour. This morning," he went on, speaking slowly, and
evidently this was his tit-bit, "this morning Mr. Stafford King went to
the Cunard office in Cockspur Street and booked cabin seventeen on the
shelter deck of the _Lapland_ for New York."

"In what name?"

"In the name of Miss Isabel Trenton."

The colonel nodded. It was a name that Lollie had used before, and the
story rang true.

"When does the _Lapland_ sail?" he asked, and again the detective
consulted his book.

"Next Saturday," he said, "from Liverpool."

"Very good," said the colonel; "thank you, Snaki