b'gad--if it's not to
maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to
have the whole blessed country terrorized, the police defied, and
people's houses invaded with impunity by a gutter-bred brute of a
cracksman is nothing short of a scandal and a shame! Call this sort of
tomfoolery being protected by the police? God bless my soul! one might
as well be in the charge of a parcel of doddering old women and be done
with it!"

It was an hour and a half after that exciting affair at "Dead Man's
Corner." The scene was Superintendent Narkom's private room at
headquarters, the dramatis personae, Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, Sir
Horace Wyvern, and Miss Ailsa Lorne, his niece, a slight, fair-haired,
extremely attractive girl of twenty. She was the only and orphaned
daughter of a much-loved sister, who, up till a year ago, had known
nothing more exciting in the way of "life" than that which is to be
found in a small village in Suffolk and falls to the lot of an underpaid
vicar's only child. A railway accident had suddenly deprived her of both
parents, throwing her wholly upon her own resources without a penny in
the world. Sir Horace had gracefully come to the rescue and given her a
home and a refuge, being doubly repaid for it by the affection and care
she gave him and the manner in which she assumed control of a household
which, hitherto, had been left wholly to the attention of servants. Lady
Wyvern had long been dead, and her two daughters were of that type which
devotes itself entirely to the pleasures of society and the demands of
the world. A regular pepperbox of a man, testy, short-tempered,
exacting, Sir Horace had flown headlong to Superintendent Narkom's
office as soon as that gentleman's note, telling him of The Vanishing
Cracksman's latest threat, had been delivered, and, on Miss Lorne's
advice, had withheld all news of it from the members of his household,
and brought her with him.

"I tell you that Scotland Yard must do something--must! must! must!"
stormed he as Narkom, resenting that stigma upon the institution,
puckered up his lips and looked savage. "That fellow has always kept his
word, always, in spite of your precious band of muffs, and if you let
him keep it this time, when there's upward of L40,000 worth of jewels
in the house, it will be nothing less than a national disgrace, and you
and your wretched collection of bunglers will be covered with deserved
ridicule."

Narkom swung ro