's time that
somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the
public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes
for--and devilish high ones they are, too, b'gad--if it's not to
maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to
have the whole blessed country terrorised, 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 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 Lome, his niece, a slight, fair-haired,
extremely attractive girl of twenty, 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 having long been dead, and her two daughters of that type which
devotes itself entirely to the pleasures of society and the demands of
the world. A regular pepper-box 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 upwards of L40,000 worth of j