d of you."

The girl sighed helplessly.

"I thought that matter had been finished and done with, colonel," she
said. "I don't know how people in your world would regard such an offer,
but in my world they would look upon it as an insult."

"And what the devil is your world?" asked the colonel, without any sign
of irritation.

She rose to her feet.

"The clean, decent world," she said calmly, "the law-abiding world. The
world that regards such arrangements as you suggest as infamous. It is
not only the fact that Mr. Silva is already married----"

The colonel raised his hand.

"Pinto talks very seriously of getting a divorce," he said solemnly,
"and when a gentleman like Pinto Silva gives his word, that ought to be
sufficient for any girl. And now you have come to mention law-abiding
worlds," he went on slowly, "I would like to speak of one of the
law-abiders."

She knew what was coming and was silent.

"There's a young gentleman named Stafford King hanging round you." He
saw her face flush but went on, "Mr. Stafford King is a policeman."

"He is an official of the Criminal Intelligence Department," said the
girl, "but I don't think you would call him a policeman, would you,
colonel?"

"All policemen are policemen to me," said Boundary, "and Mr. Stafford
King is one of the worst of the policemen from my point of view, because
he's trying to trump up a cock-and-bull story about me and get me into
very serious trouble."

"I know Mr. King is connected with a great number of unpleasant cases,"
said the girl coolly. "It would be a coincidence if he was in a case
which interested you."

"It would be a coincidence, would it?" said the colonel, nodding his
huge head. "Perhaps it is a coincidence that my clerk, Hanson, has
disappeared and has been seen in the company of your friend, eh? It is a
coincidence that King is working on the Spillsbury case--the one case
that Solly knows nothing about--eh?"

She faced him, puzzled and apprehensive.

"Where does all this lead?" she asked.

"It leads to trouble for Solly, that's all," said the colonel. "He's
trying to put me away and put his business associates away, and he has
got to go through the mill unless----"

"Unless what?" she asked.

"Pinto's a merciful man, I'm a merciful man. We don't want to make
trouble with former business associates, but trouble there is going to
be, believe me."

"What kind of trouble?" asked the girl. "If you mean that your so-cal