de Guildford to split the loot."

"Loot?" said Colonel Boundary, puzzled. "I don't understand you."

"I'll put it plainer," said White, his eyes like smouldering fire: "a
year ago you got young Balston the shipowner to put fifty thousand
pounds into a fake company."

He heard Maisie gasp, but went on.

"How you did it I'm not going to tell before the girl, but it was
blackmail which you and Pinto engineered. He paid his last
instalment--the four thousand pounds was my share."

Colonel Boundary rose and looked at his watch.

"I have a taxi-cab waiting, and with a taxi-cab time is money. If you
are going to bring in the name of an innocent young man, who will
certainly deny that he had any connection with myself and my business
associates, that is a matter for your own conscience. I tell you I know
nothing about this cheque. I have made your daughter an offer."

"I can guess what it is," interrupted White, "and I can tell you this,
Boundary, that if you are going to sell me, I'll be even with you, if I
wait twenty years! If you imagine I am going to let my daughter into
that filthy gang----" His voice broke, and it was some time before he
could recover himself. "Do your worst. But I'll have you, Boundary! I
don't doubt that you'll get a conviction, and you know the things that I
can't talk about, and I'll have to take my medicine, but you are not
going to escape."

"Wait, colonel." It was the girl who spoke in so low a voice that he
would not have heard her, but that he was expecting her to speak. "Do
you mean that you will--prosecute my father?"

"With law-abiding people," said the colonel profoundly, "the demands of
justice come first. I must do my duty to the state, but if you should
change your mind----"

"She won't change her mind," roared White.

With one stride he had passed between the colonel and the door. Only for
a second he stood, and then he fell back.

"Do your worst," he said huskily, and Colonel Boundary passed out,
pocketing the revolver which had come from nowhere into his hand, and
presently they heard the purr of the departing motor.

He came to Horsham station in a thoughtful frame of mind. He was still
thinking profoundly when he reached Victoria.

Then, as he stepped on the platform, a hand was laid on his arm, and he
turned to meet the smiling face of Stafford King.

"Hullo," said the colonel, and something within him went cold.

"Sorry to break in on your reverie, colonel," said