looking the other in
the eye, "you have no feeling beyond an ordinary professional interest
in this young lady?"

Beale dropped his eyes.

"If I said that, Mr. Kitson, I should be telling a lie," he said
quietly. "I have a very deep interest in Miss Cresswell, but that is not
going to make any difference to me and she will never know."

He left soon after this and went back to his rooms. At four o'clock he
received a visitor. Parson Homo, cleanly shaved and attired in a
well-fitting black coat and white choker, seemed more real to the
detective than the Parson Homo he had met on the previous night.

"You look the part all right," said Beale.

"I suppose I do," said the other shortly; "what am I to do next?"

"You stay here. I have made up a bed for you in my study," said Beale.

"I would like to know a little more of this before I go any further,"
Homo said, "there are many reasons why I want information."

"I have told you the story," said Beale patiently, "and I am going to
say right here that I do not intend telling you any more. You carry this
thing through and I'll pay you what I agreed. Nobody will be injured by
your deception, that I promise you."

"That doesn't worry me so much," said the other coolly, "as----"

There came a knock at the door, an agitated hurried knock, and Beale
immediately answered it. It was McNorton, and from force of habit Parson
Homo drew back into the shadows.

"All right, Parson," said McNorton, "I knew you were here. What do you
make of this?"

He turned to Beale and laid on the table a piece of paper which had been
badly crumpled and which he now smoothed out. It was the top half of a
telegraph form, the lower half had been torn away.

"'To Belocity, London,'" Beale read aloud.

"That's you," interrupted McNorton, and the other nodded.

"'To Belocity, London,'" he read slowly. "'Am imprisoned at Deans----'"

At this point the remainder of the message had been torn off.

CHAPTER XV

THE GOOD HERR STARDT

"Where is the rest?" said Beale.

"That's the lot," replied McNorton grimly. "It's the only information
you will get from this source for twenty-four hours."

"But I don't understand, it is undoubtedly Miss Cresswell's
handwriting."

"And 'Belocity' is as undoubtedly your telegraphic address. This paper,"
he went on, "was taken from a drunken tramp--'hobo' you call 'em, don't
you?"

"Where?"

"At Kingston-on-Thames," said McNorton--"the man was pic