couple of Scotland Yard chaps with 'em. My hat! what do you suppose
that means?"

He knew in the next moment. Panting and puffing, a crowd at their heels,
and people from all sides stringing out from the pavement and trooping
after them, the two "plain-clothes" men came racing through the grinning
gathering and bore down on P. C. Collins.

"Hullo, Smathers, you in this, too?" began he, his feelings softened by
the knowledge that other arms of the law would figure on that film with
him at the Alhambra to-night. "Now, what are you after, you goat? That
French lady, or the red-headed party in the gray suit?"

"Yes, yes, of course I am. You heard me signal you to head him off,
didn't you?" replied Smathers, looking round and growing suddenly
excited when he realized that Collins was empty-handed and that the
red-headed man was not there. "Heavens! you never let him get away, did
you? You grabbed him, didn't you--eh?"

"Of course I grabbed him. Come out of it. What are you giving me, you
josser?" said Collins, with a wink and a grin. "Ain't you found out even
yet, you silly? Why, it was only a faked-up thing, the taking of a
kinematograph picture for the Alhambra. You and Petrie ought to have
been here sooner and got your wages, you goats. I got half a quid for my
share when I let him go."

Smathers and Petrie lifted up their voices in one despairing howl.

"When you what?" fairly yelled Smathers. "You fool! You don't mean to
tell me that you let them take you in like that--those two? You don't
mean to tell me that you had him, had him in your hands, and then let
him go? You did? Oh, you seventy-seven kinds of a double-barrelled ass!
Had him--think of it!--had him, and let him go! Did yourself out of a
share in a reward of two hundred quid when you'd only to shut your hands
and hold on to it!"

"Two hundred quid? Two hun---- W--what are you talking about? Wasn't it
true? Wasn't it a kinematograph picture, after all?"

"No, you fool, no!" howled Smathers, fairly dancing with despair. "Oh,
you blithering idiot! You ninety-seven varieties of a fool! Do you know
who you had in your hands? Do you know who you let go? It was that devil
'Forty Faces,' the 'Vanishing Cracksman,' 'The Man Who Calls Himself
Hamilton Cleek'; and the woman was his pal, his confederate, his blessed
stool pigeon, 'Margot, the Queen of the Apaches'; and she came over from
Paris to help him in that clean scoop of Lady Dresmer's jewels last
week!"