o Malcolm Sage that John Dene realised how
great was the danger by which he was threatened.

The ransacking of his room at the Ritzton left John Dene indifferent.
The fact that he never locked the small safe he kept at his office at
Waterloo Place was not without its significance for Malcolm Sage.

In the course of the next few weeks Malcolm Sage learned a great deal
about John Dene of Toronto. Although proof against the wiles of
confidence men, always on the look-out for the colonials, he fell an
easy victim to the plausible beggar. He never refused a request for
assistance, and the record of his unostentatious charities formed a no
inconsiderable portion of the rapidly increasing dossier at Department
Z.

Many were the incidents recorded of John Dene's kindness of heart. A
child smiling up into his eyes would cause him to stop, bend down and
ask its name, or where it lived. Whilst the little one was sucking an
embarrassed finger John Dene would be feeling in his pocket for a coin
that a moment later would cause the youngster to gaze after him in
speechless wonder, clutching in his grimy hand a shilling or a
half-a-crown.

Once he was observed leading a tearful little girl of about five years
old up the Haymarket. The child had apparently become lost, and John
Dene was seeking a policeman into whose care to consign her. It became
obvious to Malcolm Sage that John Dene's weak points were children and
"lame dogs."

Thompson, who first had charge of the guarding of John Dene, reported
that one of the most assiduous of those who seemed to interest
themselves in the movements of the Canadian, was a little man in a grey
suit, with a pair of shifty eyes that never remained for more than a
second on any one object.

"He's clever, sir," Thompson had remarked to Sage, "clever as a vanload
of monkeys, and he takes cover like an alien," he added grinning, at
his own joke.

"Has he linked up with Naylor yet?"

Thompson shook his head. "The old bird's too crafty for that, sir," he
said. "He only comes up against the small fry. This little chap in
the grey suit is something bigger."

The officials at Department Z. soon discovered that the chiefs of the
organisation, against which they were working, never came into contact
with each other. Communication was established verbally by
subordinates. Another thing that added to the difficulties of Sage's
task was that a man, who had for some days been particularly act