ger at it contemptuously.

"Instead of the legal papers which were in that satchel when it left
this office, there's what we found when Ferguson and I opened it. Now,
explain that, will you? No, wait! 'Phone your chief to come over here
himself at once; I think he'd better hear what you have to say. What's
your name?"

"McCorquodale. An' I takes no lip from nobody, see!"

While the man was at the telephone Jimmy Stiles knocked on the door to
report that he had delivered the satchel safely to its destination. It
was an amazed youth who was yanked unceremoniously into the room by the
coat-collar while the irate Nickleby blazed forth anew. He took hold
of the bookkeeper's shoulders and was shaking the frightened young man
in speechless fury when Podmore came in.

"Here, here, leave him alone!" he commanded sharply as he stepped
between them. "What crazy nonsense is this, J. C.?"

No fuss or fury about Hugh Podmore in time of stress. It was Podmore's
way to turn calm and cold and calculating in proportion to the extent
to which any given crisis disturbed him. The news which had reached
him over the 'phone from the incoherent Alderson had been grave enough;
but he was much the coolest of the three most vitally concerned in this
mysterious miscarriage of carefully laid plans. The first thing he did
was to have Alderson clear the outer office of stenographers and junior
clerks. He suggested that Alderson dismiss them for the afternoon, and
began at once to question the bookkeeper and the detective who had
followed him. The two recitals agreed in every particular.

Podmore at once despatched the detective to the Union Station in
Nickleby's car to find Clayton at all costs and arrest him if he would
not come otherwise.

"Tell us all you know about this man, Jimmy. Take your time," advised
Podmore kindly. "No occasion to get scared stiff."

Stiles said he had not known Clayton very long--just a few days, in
fact. He had met him for the first time last Sunday at All Saints'
Mission, where Jimmy was an usher. On Monday night there had been a
social gathering of the younger members of the church in the Sunday
School and Clayton had attended that and seemed to enjoy himself. He
had made friends with everybody quickly and seemed to fit in so readily
that he had been accepted without question by everybody, from the
pastor down. He was an American who had come north to visit relatives
and was on his way back