Second Bout with the Mildew Gang

by Sydney Fowler

Eyre & Spottiswoode
1942
See prequel A Bout With The Mildew Gang
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CONTENTS

I.	COUNCIL OF WAR IN A QUIET SPOT
II.	THE PRICE OF NOTORIETY
III.	WHICH ENDS IN A SCOTCH MIST
IV.	A GOOD OFFER IS ILL RECEIVED
V.	USE FOR A GOOD DITCH
VI.	STIRLING WILL DO
VII.	BY DEVIOUS WAYS
VIII.	THE QUESTION OF WHO SHALL GO
IX.	ANACONDAS ARE NOT BOA CONSTRICTORS
X.	CONVERSATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES
XI.	INDIFFERENCE OF SUPERINTENDENT BACKWASH
XII.	SOME LIES TO DELAY DEATH
XIII.	MR. BEAL TAKES A SOFTER SEAT
XIV.	SPECTACULAR EXIT OF MAURICE BEAL
XV.	A PROBLEM OF GOING DOWN
XVI.	ATTITUDE OF INSPECTOR CAULDRON
XVII.	MISS BRELL DISLIKES THE POLICE
XVIII.	MR. MILDEW IS NOT AT HOME
XIX.	CONSTABLE HITCHINS HAS OPEN EYES
XX.	CAUTION OF INSPECTOR CAULDRON
XXI.	CORNELIUS MILDEW THINKS
XXII.	INSPECTOR CAULDRON RISKS BEING THROWN OUT
XXIII.	BILLIE TAKES A TOUGH JOB
XXIV.	HEROINE BECOMES THIEF
XXV.	BILLIE WILL COLLECT IN A
XXVI.	MR. MILDEW HAD MADE A FRIEND
XXVII.	MR. MILDEW PLANS
XXVIII.	MR. MILDEW DOES W HAT
XXIX.	MR. MILDEW COMPLETES
XXX.	PRELUDE TO BATTLE
XXXI.	SUDDEN BATTLE OF WITS
XXXII.	HE CALLED AND HE WENT
XXXIII.	"LE ROI EST MORT: VIVE LE ROI"
XXXIV.	TO END IS TO BEGIN

CHAPTER I

COUNCIL OF WAR AT A QUIET SPOT

EUSTACE LIMBROOK and Billie Wingrove (who was his half-sister, a girl of twenty, seven years younger than he) sat together in the old-fashioned parlour of a village inn on the west coast of Scotland. The open window looked out on a quiet, wind-rippled bay, now reddened with sunset light. They had the appetites of healthy youth in a keen air; and an abundant meal, with the added excellence of wholesome simplicity, was spread out between them.

        Their relationship was one which will often fail to reveal itself in any similarity of features, and a stranger who saw them together there might have thought them to be lovers rather than united by bonds of blood.

        It was a scene of holiday peace, and even the fishing-boats drawn up on the pebbly beach had an appearance, as they lay somewhat over upon their sides, of having abandoned toil to drowse on memories of more strenuous days.

        But peace was not the emotion dominant in Billie Wingrove's heart; and though it was no more than three hours since they had arrived from Oban (after flying from Croydon in the early hours of the day) with enough luggage to suggest that they had come for a holiday of unusual length, her thoughts were already upon the quickest way by which they could return to London without coming under the observation of those whom they had no reason to call their friends.

        A few weeks before, Billie had had no cause to think that anything more momentous than the loss or gain of one of the patrons who kept her busy in research work at the British Museum would be likely to disturb the serenity of her life; and Eustace, a civil engineer returning home from Egypt, where he had lost his appointment through the bankruptcy of the firm he served, had thought that the hazard of obtaining a new position in his precarious profession was cause for as much anxiety as any man would find it tolerable to have.

        But since then he had been, however innocently, involved in the smuggling of noxious drugs, he had been arrested for a murder with which he was not concerned, and both Billie and he had assisted the police, at no light risk to themselves, in what now looked like an abortive effort to obtain evidence of criminal practices against the heads of the Mildew gang.

        In the end, the police had hurried them out of London, as people whose use to them was ended, and for whose safety they were concerned; and the only tangible results of three exciting weeks were a cheque for two thousand pounds, nominally for false imprisonment and actually for services to the police, which was in Eustace's pocketbook, still uncashed, and a hundred one-pound notes, earned by Billie in a less legal manner, of which over ninety were still unspent - these, and a Whitechapel address which she memorized since it had been whispered to her by Mr. Catsgill, the solicitor who now lay between life and death in a London hospital, a victim of those who had feared (not without cause) that he would betray them to the police.

        It was that address, known to herself alone, and now confided to Eustace, which had determined her that she must return to London, if possible while it would still be supposed that they were making holiday on the Scottish coast.

        Now Eustace looked speculatively at the girl whom he had promised his mother, when he had been no more than a boy of twelve who would be orphaned on the next day, that he would always care for. He had kept his word. There had been no failure in that. And there was a degree of love and understanding between them now which those of a still closer parentage do not always feel. But, even so, force of character will prevail, and Billie was not easy to guide, and could not be ruled.

        "Don't you think," he asked, "we might leave matters to the police now? After all, it's their job. And they've shown that they don't need any more help from us by the way they've dumped us here."

        "They wouldn't have done that if they'd known about the address Mr. Catsgill gave me."

        "Which may be useless. On his own statement it was two years old, if not more."

        "He couldn't have looked at it that way."

        "No. But he may have been wrong. Suppose we stay a few days, anyway? We should be far more likely to get back to London without being noticed if we do that. And it will give the police a chance to clear matters up their own way."

        "You know they'll do precisely nothing. They've decided that the evidence isn't strong enough to make any more arrests now, and they just mean to lie low."

        "Well, they ought to be the best judges of that. And, after all, you say that Catsgill told you not to use that address while he was alive."

        "Not exactly. He told me not to give it to the police while he was alive. He must have thought that, if I did, Mildew'd know it had come from him, and that he was giving the gang away. But they must have got suspicious without that, and now they've nearly killed him he won't be safe, if he doesn't die in the hospital, many hours after he gets out.

        "He couldn't have thought of things happening just as they have. But I'm not meaning to tell the police. I m going - we re going, that is - to find out what we can, and, if it's nothing, neither they nor anyone else need ever know. But if we get any evidence on which the police can act, they might arrest Mildew at once, and I suppose that would make Mr. Catsgill safe; and I don't know what else would."

        "What it means is that you're to - we're to risk our lives to make Mr. Catsgill safe - and he may be already dying! You can't expect me to be enthusiastic over you doing that."

        "I thought we'd gone over all this in the plane! But you know it isn't only for Mr. Catsgill. It's to break up a drug-trafficking gang that does more harm than all the murderers that were ever hanged. That's what Inspector Cauldron said; and the police ought to know. . . And of course you needn't do anything. I might be safer going alone."

        "Don't be silly."

        "But the fact is, Eustace, it's all humbug talking about noble motives. I may have some. I don't see how anyone could find that out when I'm not sure myself. But I like doing it. That's the honest truth. And I don't want to leave this thing till it's all cleared up. Not if I have to borrow your pants and get a place in the C.I.D."

        "I believe there's a medical examination, which you might find to be an awkward preliminary to get over."

        "I expect there is. There's always some beastly obstacle when a girl wants to do anything. But I might find some way of getting over that. Inspector Cauldron might help. He'd do anything for me. I dare say you noticed that. Only he thought I was certain to marry you, and that rather cramped his style. It's wonderful what detectives aren't able to see."

        The firm lines of Billie's mouth softened into a dimpling smile, and there was a light of laughter in her grey eyes, at recollections she did not propose to share in a more detailed candour.

        It was a revelation to Eustace of something he had had no cause to suspect, and little opportunity to observe.

        "I hope," he said, "that you're not thinking of marrying that man.

        "Oh, he's not so bad! But as to marrying him - do you know he laid a pair of dirty shoes on a chiffon dress that I'd only bought two days before? Fancy marrying a policeman who couldn't detect the dirt on his wife's shoes! No, I think not. I couldn't do with him less than three doors away."

        "Well, I hope you won't. Though I don't suppose it's a matter on which you'd listen to me. But there's one thing certain. We can't leave tomorrow till the London papers arrive and we see what Cauldron has put in them about our coming away."

        "I should say he's married us, more likely than not."

        "Even a policeman wouldn't be such a fool as that."

        "Oh, you never know! The London police are wonderful. Aren't Americans mainly occupied in telling us that?. . . But suppose we go a stroll before it gets darker than it is now? There's one advantage of a quiet place like this, that, if we're conspicuous, other strangers would be the same."

        "We needn't worry about that tonight. If Mildew means to have us followed, which isn't likely at all, they couldn't be here now unless they had flown, as we know they didn't. He probably won't have any idea we've left London at all till he sees it in the papers tomorrow morning."

        "Oh, I'm not worrying about anything! I'm only dying to get out while we can see further than across the road."

        Eustace saw that that was literally true. She was not in a mood to worry, or for any counsels of prudence to be received. She was experiencing some reaction from the strains of the last three weeks, beneath which the spirit of new adventure stirred.

        The most he could do that night was to obtain agreement that they would not return to London until the metropolitan morning papers had arrived, which, in that remote village, could not be until late in the day; and even that concession was, as he recognized, a tribute to feminine curiosity rather than prudence or his persuasive powers.

CHAPTER II

THE PRICE OF NOTORIETY

THE morning brings counsel. That is a proverbial wisdom. Billie Wingrove woke happily from a night of untroubled sleep to see sunshine falling on a white bed, and to be aware of the scent of hydrangea bloom through the open window, and the salt breath of the sea. She was care-free still, but in a more sober and practical mood than the night before.

        When they met at breakfast she readily followed Eustace's lead, as he encouraged her in discursive talk, and it was not until her spoon was deep in her second egg that she reverted to the argument of the previous night by saying: "I've been thinking that it mayn't be easy to get back to London without being noticed. . . Of course, a good deal will depend upon what the police have let out to the Press."

        "Yes. I've been thinking of that, too. The more they emphasize that we've come away from London, the more they call the attention of people round here to whom we are."

        "Of course, they won't say anything about the Mildew matter. They'll leave him to work that out for himself. They can't say more than that they made a ghastly mistake in arresting you for murdering that

Houghton woman, and that you've come here to get as far away as possible, now they've owned up to being the fools they were."

        "They won't put it quite like that."

        "No. Perhaps not. But it will boil down to that. And the trouble is that it's the Houghton matter which will make people curious. There aren't many people arrested for murders they didn't do, and who say: ' Well, have it your own way. Call me any name you like, and say I did what you please!' "

        "I didn't say exactly that. And it isn't that which interests people as much as the way Miss Bingham proposed to identify me."

        "Well, anyway, there it is! And until we see the papers we can't tell exactly what soup we're in."

        But, in fact, they did not have to await the arrival of the London papers to appreciate the consequences of such publicity as Eustace had unwillingly gained, for they had scarcely concluded the midday meal, for which they returned to the inn with lively appetites after a morning upon the cliffs, when they heard the clanging of the iron bell in the hall, by which visitors to the Prince's Head made their presence known, and were informed that Mr. Alec Mackintosh, of the Glasgow Standard, desired to see them.

        Mr. Mackintosh was a lanky, sandy-haired youth with earnest eyes in a much-freckled face. His Scottish accent was unconquerably strong, but his English rarely lapsed from careful correctness. Sent by his editor to Oban that morning, armed with a camera and a cutting from the Daily Telegraph, he had proved his fitness for his chosen profession by the celerity with which he had traced his quarry, his means of transit having been the motor-cycle which now leant against the wall of the inn.

        "I thought," he said, diplomatically tendering rather than asking for information, "you might like to see this." He offered Eustace the newspaper cutting.

        Eustace read that which he already knew, and was equally interested to observe what was not there. His arrest, under an identification that must have been deliberately false, was stated frankly enough. It was a blunder for which the police had some excuse, and which could be the more readily admitted now that the true Houghton had been traced, and the woman who had misled them had been detained on the high seas, and would soon be in the custody of the French police. Mr. Limbrook, it concluded, had flown to Oban yesterday, in company with his sister, Miss Wingrove, to recuperate from the unfortunate experience through which he had passed. If it were true that Inspector Cauldron had been ignorant of the relationship between them, it was evident that someone at Scotland Yard had been better informed. There was, of course, no mention of the Mildew gang.

        "It was," Eustace said politely, "extremely kind of you to go to so much trouble to bring us this."

        Mr. Mackintosh gazed at him with unsmiling seriousness. It was evident that a sense of humour would not obstruct the success of his chosen career. "I hoped," he said, "that you'd let me take one or two pictures and give me something that I could use - and it's grateful I'd be if you were out when the other boys come along."

        "You think there'll be other reporters looking us up?"

        "Yes, there'll be that."

        "I don't want to refuse, after you've come so far. I don't see why you shouldn't take some snaps if you think they'll be any good to you. But I've really got nothing to say beyond what's printed there."

        Mr. MAckintosh was unconcerned. "There's a good story behind that," he said; "and if you'll tell it, we won t print anything that you don't want."

        Eustace saw that capitulation might be wise. In answer to questions of a competent directness, he gave facts. They related only to his supposed connection with the Houghton murder, and the reporter was unlikely to ask about that of which he was unsuspicious, and concerning which nothing had become public. It was apparent that the interview would tend to persuade any better-informed reader that Eustace knew or cared little about the separate criminalities in which he had been so nearly involved.

        The mere fact that he had given the interview, and allowed pictures to be taken, would support the view that both Billie and he had nothing to fear. The police could not be requiring their assistance for any evidence they could give against the Mildew gang, or they would have kept them in London. They themselves could have no fear that the enmity of the gang would be directed against them, or they surely would have been less careless to allow public knowledge of where they were! What could be better than that?

        Mr. Mackintosh took the photographs. He read over his notes with concentrated earnestness. He had one further question to ask: "You'll he claiming compensation for this? It's false imprisonment, whatever excuse the police had about being misled. That doesn't let them out."

        Eustace remembered the conditions under which he had received the still uncashed cheque for two thousand pounds from the Home Secretary's office. He replied with pardonable obliquity: "Oh, I don't know that they were so much to blame! I didn't act very wisely myself. It was an unusual position to be in. But I'd rather you didn't publish that I've said that. I'd rather that nothing about compensation should be said at all."

        Mr. Mackintosh promised. But he made a condition. He wished to be sure that no other reporter would be able to print anything on a matter omitted by him. That gave Billie an opportunity for which she had been watching. "They'll have to be here quickly, or they won't see us at all. We're not staying after tonight."

        Mr. Mackintosh looked interested. Eustace concealed surprise at a seeming indiscretion which it would be useless to contradict.

        "I thought," the reporter said, "you'd come here for a long holiday."

        "We've come to Scotland for a long holiday, but we don't mean to stay all the time in one place. It's to be more like a walking tour."

        Mr. Mackintosh saw no cause for surprise in that, but he made a further note. Billie suggested that he might like some tea before going. With some persuasion he stayed.

        As she poured out the cups, she began enquiries as to the best direction in which they might go. Mr. Mackintosh could doubtless tell them much of beauties to be explored, of ways to avoid? He responded readily. For the next half-hour she interviewed him, gaining much interesting knowledge, and - which was her more immediate aim - impressing the reporter's mind with the reality of the programme she had announced

        In discussing routes it was natural that the question should arise of what time they had free. Billie was frank on that. Perhaps three weeks. Perhaps four. After that Mr. Limbrook might or might not return to London. That was for him to say. But she had research work to take up which could not be longer delayed She became confidential about her work, comparing it to that of a journalist, which, she suggested, was more interesting, more important, and opened the way more easily to more spacious things. Mr. Mackintosh went at last, pleased with himself in the anticipation that his paper would have a scoop next morning (for no other reporters had yet appeared), and with no doubt of the simple veracity of the girl who had been so flattering, so affable, and so frank.

        "And perhaps now," Eustace said, as the sound of the motor-bike died on the coastal road, "you'll tell me what you're really meaning to do."

        "What I said, of course. I thought you'd see what a good idea it is. It's no use thinking of flying back tomorrow if we're to have reporters round us as thick as flies. I hate holding things up, with Mr. Catsgill placed as he is, but it's no good trying to save time if we only get caught out in consequence.

        "If any reporters come smelling round tomorrow morning they'll just learn that we've gone on the road. There's no mystery about that. They'll find it all in the Glasgow Standard. And if they try following us, they'll find that's really what we have done. . . .When we're sure we're not being followed, we'll head south."

        "What about all the luggage?"

        "We shall have to leave it here, and say we'll call for it on the way back. It's a curse to have to do that, but it'll all help to prevent anyone doubting that everything's going to be just as we say."

        "You seem to have thought it out thoroughly! I suppose it's the best course, now that the police have let everyone know where we came. I can't help having some doubt about the wisdom of that."

        But Billie was in good spirits and indisposed to be critical, even of Inspector Cauldron. She said she thought it was rather subtle. If Mr. Mildew read it - and it was certain to come to his notice if he were giving any thought to them at all - he might think the Press had got it either from themselves or the police (he'd have to guess that), but he'd conclude that there was no thought of hiding from him. What Inspector Cauldron wanted him to think was that they hadn't given him away, and that they neither needed protection nor were of any further interest to Scotland Yard - and then, they having gone such a distance away, he wasn't likely to trouble further about them. "And as to making it hard for us to get back," she concluded, "that's about the last thing the police expect or want us to do. They reckon they can give Mr. Catsgill all the protection he needs without any help from us."

        "Well, we must hope they're right. . . You'd better tell the landlady about our new plans. Considering what you said when we came - - .

        But Billie said she could easily manage that.

CHAPTER III

WHICH ENDS IN A SCOTCH MIST

A YOUNG lady who has supported herself for nearly four years by undertaking research work for irregular clients at the British Museum has learned to subsist upon a moderate and somewhat precarious income. She will have realized the value of money and the annoyances (far greater than any benefits it can give) which its absence may cause. Unless she be incurably improvident, it is unlikely, at the end of such a period, that she will be careless in its expenditure, even should the possibility become hers.

        Billie had no disposition to dissipate the ninety-one pound notes which lay, neatly banded together and taking surprisingly little space, in her own suitcase, or the larger sum which was in her brother's possession; but there are occasions when money must not be grudgingly used.

        The face of the landlady of the Prince's Head became grim with anticipation of battle as Billie told her that they proposed to leave after an early breakfast next morning; but before she could object that the room had been taken at a weekly rental (an error for which Eustace bore the sole responsibility), it cleared with the following announcement that they would return - probably within a fortnight - and would like to come to terms to leave their luggage and retain the rooms in the meantime.

        This being finally agreed at a figure which was two-thirds of her first proposal and one-third more than she had expected to get, Mrs. Cameron became loquacious in advice as to the route her guests should take and the natural beauties they must not omit to see. As Billie listened, with this advice supplementing that which she had heard from Alexander Mackintosh at an earlier hour, the projected tour assumed an objective reality in her own mind which made it easier to respond in convincing tones.

        When they left early next morning, their minds divided between consciousness of the weights they carried and regrets for many things unavoidably left behind, the tale of their projected wanderings had gained a detailed particularity, so that the more searching the enquiries that might be made concerning it, the more convincing it would become. "And all the trouble," Billie concluded, "more likely than not for just nothing at all! I'd say it's ten to one that Mr. Mildew hasn't given us a thought since he read that we were flying to Oban, even if he hadn't lost interest in us before that. He must have plenty else on his mind just now."

        "I suppose he has," Eustace agreed; "though he probably feels that he's been too much for Scotland Yard, which isn't as far from the truth as we'd like it to be. He'd probably be quite content to leave us alone here, taking it as good enough evidence that we should be no further nuisance to him. I expect he's just as much inclined as the police to lie low for a time.

        "But it seems to me that the position's less simple than that. There's the question of whether Catsgill recovers, and what he'll say if he does. And, apart from that, if Mildew thinks I haven't given him away, he'll be expecting me to look to him for a job when we get back to London."

        "He won't do that. Whether he thinks we gave him away or not, he won't trust us again. You can tell that from what happened to Mr. Catsgill, and what I'm sure he meant to happen to us."

        "I dare say you're right; and, if so, it only means that any security we have now would only continue till we should return to London. But it only strengthens what I was trying to say, that, even if he's taking no interest in us here, he'd be taking an unpleasant amount the moment he heard that we were on our way back. We can't be too careful how we act now, if we're to hope to do any good, apart from taking care of ourselves."

        "There's one good point about being up here. As long as we want to make ourselves conspicuous it'll be easy to leave a trail that no one could miss And if

following us.

        "Yes. We ought soon to be able to make sure whether we're being followed or not; though we know so few of the gang that I don't see how we could be sure.

        "Oh, but we should make a fair guess I And I was just thinking what a good thing it will be when we get back to London that most of them can't have seen either of us. We might meet them anywhere without their having the least suspicion."

        "They don't even know each other, most of them. They don't even know Mildew. That isn't his way."

        Eustace saw that it was the fact that they did know Mildew that placed them in such particular peril. Even long-trusted members of the gang, in responsible positions, had no knowledge of who might be its directing head. Mildew would need to have a much greater confidence both in their loyalty and discretion than he would have reason to feel, to tolerate that they should know or suspect so much as they had had reason to do. Eustace thought, as Mr. Catsgill had done before, that there could be no safety for anyone with such confidential knowledge unless Mildew were within the strong walls of an English jail. But why say it? He saw that Billie was in the mood to confront anything in a sanguine spirit. What harm was there in that?

        He knew that she would be alert, shrewd, resourceful, if a moment of danger should come upon them. She did not ignore facts because she took them with a gay optimism. And the thought that they would never be certain of safety while Mildew remained at large and at the head of his ruthless gang gave an appearance of prudence, of self-defence, to the hazard of this projected return to the scene of his unlawful activities. Beyond that, Eustace was resolved that she should not again be involved in any separate peril. They would keep together in future. It would be hard to persuade him to depart from that resolution I But, as he thought this, Billie said: "I've been thinking, when we do decide to head south, that it'll be best to travel different ways, and meet in London somewhere that we both know."

        Here was subject for debate to occupy them for the next hour as they toiled an ascending road, but in the end Billie won conditional assent to a proposal the logic of which was not easy to overset. If they observed no sign that they were followed, and if she would promise to do nothing of a hazardous nature till they should be reunited, it might really be the more prudent course.

        They went northward for the next two days, covering less than thirty miles, for the roads were often steep, the days were warm, there was no temptation to exert themselves beyond inclination with the knowledge that every step took them further away from their distant goal, and, though they had abundance of youthful vigour, they were no more accustomed to sustained pedestrianism than are most of the generation to which they belonged.

        During those two days they had no reason to think that they were objects of interest to any except the aboriginal inhabitants of the picturesque but desolate regions to which they came, though they used their own names and even aimed, by conversing freely with those they met, to leave a trail that would be easy to follow.

        On the third morning they turned eastwards, facing a bright sun, and a bitter wind which had risen during the night. At midday the wind fell, but the sky clouded greyly. They were on a black, stony road with rock rising on their left hand and a wide, shallow mountain tarn stretching on their right to the foot of a bare hill. There was no movement of life but the swaying reeds of the lake, and a pair of unknown birds that rose at their approach and flew low over the water with wailing cries that seemed born of the desolation in which they lived.

        They had taken the precaution of providing themselves with sandwiches, and sat down on convenient stones for a wayside meal. While they halted there the rain came, or perhaps it would be more accurately described as a thick mist. The mountain on the further side of the lake became indistinct, and then faded from view.

        Billie rose, shaking crumbs from a damp lap. She stooped to fasten an extra button of her raincoat. "Not," she said, "that there's much use in that. It seems to me it's the sort of rain that can come up just as well as down."

        "Anyway, we'd better be getting on," Eustace agreed as he rose also. "I reckon we've got another five miles to go before we come to anything worth putting on the map, and if this mist gets any worse - - "

        "It's doing that all the time. Now, if someone would just come along and offer us a lift - - "

        "Speak of the devil - - " Eustace replied, for with Billie's words there had come the sound of a slowly approaching car.

        "Shall we flag it to stop?"

        "They wouldn't see us until they're within a few feet. We shall be able to walk alongside at the rate that they're coming now." This statement went somewhat beyond literal fact, but it was true that the mist was becoming denser and that the car was travelling slowly, as was-prudent on such a road. When it reached them, there was no need to ask for that which was offered to them as it came abreast.

CHAPTER IV

A GOOD OFFER IS ILL RECEIVED

IT was a small Standard saloon car, new and well kept, with a liveried chauffeur driving, and a red-faced man of jovial aspect on the rear seat, who threw open an inviting door as it drew level, with a friendly "Going my way?" which assumed rather than asked that they would accept the proffered lift. "John, take the lady in front," were his next words. With scarcely time for thought or thanks, they were in the car, and it was moving again.

        Billie looked at the chauffeur, who took no notice of her. His attention was on the road, as it had reason to be. They rose, twisting sharply, and then came to an abrupt descent. The road curved and narrowed The mist closed upon them. Looking at the man's expressionless profile, she thought: "He is not one whom I should like to meet on a dark night." But, she reflected more sensibly, chauffeurs are not engaged for their looks, but for their ability to control a car. The man. drove coolly and well.

        Having no conversation to engage her thoughts, Billie listened to that which went on behind. Eustace was saying: "It was lucky for us you came just when you did." To which the owner of the car replied in his jolly voice: "Well, I couldn't say it was luck exactly. I'd come a good many miles to find you, Mr. Limbrook. I'd say the luck was mine not to have missed you in this diabolical fog."

        There was a tone of natural surprise in Eustace's voice as he replied: "I didn't suppose that you knew us when you invited us to get in. I can't remember - - "

        "Remember me? I should say not! I don't suppose you ever saw me before. But everyone knows you and Miss Wingrove now. I suppose you haven't seen this?"

        He pulled out from his pocket a copy of the Glasgow Standard, with a reproduction of one of the photographs which the reporter of that paper had taken three days before. It was - of Billie especially - good enough to explain the identification. But it did not explain why this jovial gentleman should have pursued them. So Eustace said.

        "I came after you, Mr. Limbrook, because you're the man we want. I represent the Glasgow Construction Company - Bolton s my name - and we've got a job in Vancouver that's waiting for you. The salary'll be fifteen hundred, with a five years' guarantee. You can't want fairer than that. The man we sent out has just died after an operation in Montreal. He never got there at all, and everything's held up till we can get someone to take his place. I want you to come back with me to Glasgow now and sail on the next boat."

        Billie listened without turning her head. The offer might be genuine. She knew that Eustace's credentials were good. The testimonials of his South American appointment had gained him the position with the Rushton-Thornville Company which he had only lost through the failure of that firm, which had been no discredit to him. It was of the precarious nature of his profession that he might be twelve months without occupation, or offered a responsible position at any moment in Cochin-China or the Australian desert. But why did his jesting words "Speak of the devil - - " come back to her and seem so appropriate now?

        She heard Eustace say: "It sounds an attractive offer, and I'm much obliged to you for taking the trouble to get in touch with me. But I should have one or two matters to clear up before it would be possible for me to sail. . . And I'm not alone, as you see. Suppose I call on you in Glasgow on Thursday morning? I think I could manage that."

        Mr. Bolton's manner changed. "Huffy" was the adjective Billie mentally used for its description. "I'm afraid," he said, "I haven't made myself clear. Time is the one thing we can't spare. We're willing to be liberal about terms, but we want you to go out on the next boat. Our contract's subject to a heavy penalty clause, and we're a month behind now."

        "I appreciate that. If I accept the offer - and it sounds like one I shouldn't be likely to turn down - you can rely upon me to travel without a moment's avoidable delay. But there are one or two preparations one or two things I should be obliged to deal with before leaving. You'd expect that. And the way I propose may actually save time in the end."

        But Mr. Bolton did not give way. "I'm afraid I must still ask you to put other matters aside, unless you wish to tell me that I must look in some other direction for the help we require. You'll agree that there won't be much difficulty about getting such a position filled. Come, Mr. Limbrook, we know you are on a holiday now. Just wandering about. It can't be too much to ask you to let me drive you to Glasgow. We don't want to be inconsiderate to you, but you must consider us also.

        "We shall be there before evening - unless this infernal fog stops us altogether! - and we'll find a hotel for Miss Wingrove and yourself for the night. The expense is on us for that. And in the morning we'll fix the whole matter up."

        "I've got all my luggage at an inn at Glairgowrie. I thought it might be the quickest way to go back there first and pick it up."

        Even to Billie, listening in intent silence, and about equally anxious to judge whether it were a genuine offer and whether Eustace were prepared to accept it, even at the cost of abandoning the enterprise on which they had resolved, this excuse sounded weak.

        "I believe Eustace is stalling," she thought, "and I wish I knew why he's doing that. Perhaps he doesn't trust Mr. Bolton (no more do I). But it may be a genuine offer. There's no sensible reason for doubting that. And even if Mr. Mildew's pulled the strings, it wouldn't prove that it isn't. He has lots of influence. We've seen that already. I suppose most business men have, if they are as wealthy as he. It might be his way of getting Eustace to go abroad before the police would have any chance of getting at him again."

        It was a reflection which left her in doubt of what would be the best for Eustace, or even what she would wish him, to do. Such an offer is not lightly to be refused in favour of pushing one's way unasked into other people's troubles.

        But, if he should go, would she be willing to give up the investigation on which she had set her heart? Not at all. She was not even quite sure that she might not feel a sense of satisfaction in having it entirely in her own hands. Her mind went forward to an imaginary moment of triumph when she would say to Inspector Cauldron: "Here's the proof which all you clever detectives have given up (well, for the time, at least) trying to find!" That would be pleasant enough, though she owned in a candid mind that she and they would not be starting from scratch, for she had the address which Mr. Catsgill had given her, which was unknown to them. Actually, that was all on which she was building these easy dreams. She had done nothing whatever. And the address might be an utter dud! Also, it suddenly occurred to her, the police might have got it before now, though they had not when she left London. Mr. Catsgill had been lying unconscious in hospital, with a police officer (it was simple to guess) not far from his bed-head. Suppose, on recovering his wits, that the first murmured words had been the address which he had given to her? Suppose that she should contrive to get back to London by a circuitous route and advance to the investigation of 4, Adam Street, with precautions vaguely imagined, only to meet Inspector Cauldron leading handcuffed prisoners from the door?

        Well, anyhow, that would mean that justice was being done, and she would be able to resume her work at the Museum with freedom from the shadow of peril which, however resiliently she had reacted to it, had lain upon her both day and night since the evening when she had outwitted (but had she?) the bullying Wellard at the Reader Grill.

        All this was on the assumption that Eustace might be sailing to Vancouver on Thursday leaving her to a single battle of wits with the Mildew gang. And that, her reason told her, was the one thing that it was certain he would not do. It might be, indeed, that he saw no reason to doubt the good faith of the offer he had received, and that, if he were stalling now, it was only because he would commit himself to nothing before he had her promise to leave danger alone.

        That was an unpleasant thought, because, though she could not reconcile herself to giving up the struggle into which she had been so strangely drawn, neither could she contemplate with a quiet mind Eustace's prospects being spoiled by her stubborn whim.

        But was the danger really so great? Remembering what had happened to Mr. Catsgill, she could not doubt its reality. And this thought brought up a more sinister possibility. She had been considering the preferable explanations that the offer was the straightforward business proposition which it purported to be, or else that it had been instigated by Mr. Mildew to get Eustace out of the way. There remained the more threatening possibility that it might have no substance at all.

        Suppose that they were being taken for a ride in the American sense of that innocent phrase? She did not seriously suppose that they would be shot in the next ten minutes and their bodies thrown from the car. She credited Mildew with a subtler, more inventive mind, though she saw, with a heart-beat's pause, that the mist would be friendly to such a crime.

        But if they were being taken to some sinister destination, prompt action was imperative for the frustration of such a danger. And in its own way the mist was friendly to Eustace and her. The car was not moving now at more than eight or ten miles an hour. To open the door and jump quickly out would not have been an impossible or very dangerous enterprise, if only there were any possibility of establishing a prior understanding with Eustace, so that they would act together. But such an attempt, singly made, would bring crisis in a form difficult to forecast, about which the best which could be certainly thought was that, if it must come, it might be better to have it at their own time than that of their captors, if such they were. And yet - did she wish that time to be in the mist, in this lonely place?

        The doubt naturally led her on to consider where they were going and how soon they might come to town or village where such a demonstration might be more safely made, or where she might advance some pretext of hunger or illness to secure a stoppage which would, at least, provide opportunity for the private words with Eustace which the position required. And if they were once out of the car, it would not be easy to get them back, except at their own choice.

        They had studied the map carefully together that morning, and she had looked at it again as they had rested beside the way. They were now going almost due east. She was sure of that. She would have thought that the best way of reaching Glasgow would have been to turn the car round immediately that it had caught them up. She might be wrong about that. Possibly it would be better to go on and turn south by some road ahead. She had not looked at the map with Glasgow in mind, and routes are treacherous to guess. But one thing she knew. The road forked at a point which they must now be near to reach.

        If the car should take the right-hand way, it would prove nothing; but if it should take the left, it would be certain that Glasgow was not their goal.

        What should she do then? In preference to attempting to jump out alone, might she not upset the car? A sudden clutch at the wheel might do that, and a plea of accidental folly could not be certainly disproved.

        The car, after a short spurt of speed - for the mist was becoming patchy - was moving slowly again. There would be little risk now. There was a shallow ditch on the near side. If the near wheels should descend into that, the car would certainly be stopped. The side of the ditch was too deep and abrupt for the wheels to remount it. So, rightly or wrongly, she thought. But she also thought that the car might fall over upon its side. Yet, at the pace they were going, she saw little danger in that. But she considered that Eustace and she would be underneath. The chauffeur would, be upon her, and Eustace would be sustaining Mr. Bolton's much more considerable weight. These were not positions to choose, even had their companions been more congenial than they were. . . She would wait, at least, till they should come to the forking roads. If the car should take the right-hand way, as was reasonable to expect, she knew that they would come to a village not more than half a mile ahead.

CHAPTER V

USE FOR A GOOD DITCH

EUSTACE had consented now. Billie had missed a few words as she had considered overturning the car and matters cognate thereto; but it was clear from what was being said that he had given way to Mr. Bolton's logic or importunity, and had agreed to be driven straight to Glasgow. The proposal now was that they should stop at the nearest railway station and that Billie should return to Glairgowrie alone, where he could telephone her to send or bring his luggage to the boat, if he should accept the appointment.

        She saw that, if this should be agreed, it would be far better than overturning the car. At the railway station they would naturally both get out. That could scarcely be prevented when they had pulled up. And if they should change their minds, they could both get into the train, and that - for the moment - would be the end of that.

        But Mr. Bolton, though in the mollified tone of one who felt he was getting his own way, was opposing this suggestion also. He said that it would be best for them to keep together till they got to Glasgow, and Miss Wingrove could travel from there to Glairgowrie more conveniently in the morning. Finding Eustace slow to agree. he became argumentative to a point which weakened his own case. Billie knew enough of the geography of the country to be sure that to travel

to Glairgowrie via Glasgow from where they were was an absurdity to suggest. She was sure also that they were within a few miles of an appropriate station for her to use. And that station lay to the south, as Glasgow certainly did. Mr. Bolton could easily put her down there, if he would. And why should he object?

        But object he did. He was arguing now that, however willing his firm might be to make the appointment, they might resent an assumption that it would be made, and she saw that that was absurd, even apart from the fact that it was inconsistent with how he had talked before.

        There was no assumption implied in her returning to the inn where their luggage was. Rather the other way. The conclusion that he had a different reason

for wishing to keep her in the car became irresistible, and with it the cold conviction that that reason must be hostile to her. With the thought she was aware of the forking roads and of a signpost at their junction. She could not read what it said: the mist at this point was too dense for that. But she saw that the chauffeur, without asking for instructions, without hesitation, took the left-hand way. At the same moment there came the sound of another car that was coming toward them at a more rapid pace than their own, and hooting its dread of the blinding road.

        The ditch was still there, at her left hand. Perhaps rather deeper than before. It might be her best - perhaps her last - chance. Any moment they might break into, clearer air and the pace quicken.

        She turned her head toward the occupants of the rear seat. "From what I can overhear," she said lightly, "you seem to be making plans for me without asking my opinion concerning them."

        She saw that the chauffeur had his eyes on the road. He took no notice of her. His own horn was now sounding insurgent warning to the approaching car. "

        "My dear young lady," Mr. Bolton began, "what I propose is - - " It was a sentence he was not destined to finish.

        As he spoke she had turned further, as though to give him her attention, and, as she did so, as though to steady herself, her right hand caught the steering-wheel, with a gesture which appeared casual, but she pulled on it with all the strength that the position allowed.

        For half a second it came round with scarcely any resistance. Then she felt it was in a reversing grip stronger than she could control. But the harm was done. The front near wheel had slipped over the edge. Almost simultaneously the rear one followed. The car lurched forward a few yards, throwing its occupants roughly about, and then, with a sound of buckling metal and bending wood, pitched over upon its side.

        Billie, less conscious of several bruises than she would be at a later hour, was aware of the chauffeur's body pressing upon her own, and then of his struggles to reach a door which was now over their heads. His words, as he did this, were foul and his actions rough. He may not have intended to kick her or to use her legs as a foundation on which to ground his efforts to force open a wedged door, but that is what he did, and his intentions, good or bad, made no difference to her.

        She squirmed backward, but found that there could be no retreat into the rear of the car, for the portly body of Mr. Bolton had been thrown forward, and that of Eustace was underneath. Mr. Bolton was breathing heavily, but gave no other sign of conscious life. She could not be sure that Eustace was breathing at all. At that moment, had it been in her power to do so, she would have righted the car and let it take her to whatever precarious fate might have been in that hard-breathing gentleman's mind, but the game of life cannot be played in that way. It has a stage on which rehearsals are not allowed.

        The chauffeur strove savagely, letting his feet find leverage where they would, but his position was unfavourable. Actually, that made no difference. The door was jammed beyond moving by any exertion of human muscles. Neither could the glass be let down.

        Someone was kneeling on the car now, trying to open the door, with no more success. After a hard pull these efforts were transferred to the rear door, with better results. It rose and was swung back, letting in air and light.

        The face of a young woman, a cigarette still hanging from her lips, looked down upon them. "Anyone hurt?" she asked unemotionally. "Can you manage if I give you a hand?"

        The chauffeur was already clambering over the back of his seat. His regard for his employer's body appeared to be no more than for Billie's legs. But the treatment may have been that which the occasion required, for, as the man wriggled upward, ignoring the proffered hand, Mr. Bolton's voice became articulate in angry protest.

        "Keep your clumsy feet off me, you damned fool," he exclaimed as, breathing more loudly than before, he strove to raise himself to the light above.

        But getting him out proved to be a slow and formidable operation. He ignored no proffered hand. The chauffeur hauled, and the young lady gave vigorous help in a careless manner. Slowly the obese body was drawn aloft.

        Relieved of Bolton's weight, Eustace came to life in a quieter way. "You're not hurt?" he whispered.

        "No. Only kicked to pieces. And you?"

        "Oh, I'm all right. You did splendidly. Listen quickly. Separate at the first chance, and meet at the Charles Hotel, Eccleston Square. You can remember that, Eccleston Square - Charles Hotel. Behind Victoria Station."

        "You think they're crooks?"

        "I know they are. The chauffeur's got a gun in his hip pocket."

        "I'm not going to leave you with them."

        "Don't spoil everything now. I'm not going to stay with them. But I'm not going till you've gone, so the sooner you find an excuse to quit, the better it will - - "

        The increase of light above demonstrated that the body of Mr. Bolton had cleared the door. Eustace ceased the whispered conversation abruptly. "You next," he said.

        "No. I can manage better when you're out of the way."

        "Nonsense Go ahead."

        "But I shall want you to help me out."

        Eustace saw reason in that. She might reasonably prefer his assistance to that of the gentleman who had already emerged. He wasted no further time on the point of etiquette, but clambered out, and reached a hand to Billie, who was up as nimbly, though not without consciousness of the bruises she had endured.

        The four dishevelled occupants of the car looked at one another, and speech was slow to come. The other three were, from different angles, waiting to observe Mr. Bolton's reaction to the disconcerting event, and that gentleman had been too badly shaken for his wits to function with normal celerity. When they did, he became conscious of a dilemma with which it would not have been easy to determine how best to deal, even had he not been obsessed by fear of one whose instructions he had been carrying out, and who was not gentle to those who failed.

        The fifth member of the party considered the aspects of those whom she had been active to rescue, and decided that they were not really chummy. She broke the silence with "I suppose you'll say this was my fault for honking to you to get out of the way."

        This surprisingly generous misinterpretation of the event had the effect of drawing all eyes upon the speaker, a slenderly build, even lean young woman of an obviously sporting type, who appeared to be coolly amused at the catastrophe which she so readily attributed to her own mishandling of the large primrose-yellow touring car which now occupied more than half the breadth of the narrow road, and of which she appeared to have been the only occupant.

        Billie felt it to be a disconcerting remark. Obviously, she could not let this entirely innocent young lady accept responsibility for her own action, but she was unsure how far it was known, or its deliberation guessed, by those before whom she must speak, and was discreet enough to delay a confession which might be made at a better time.

        The chauffeur opened his mouth, but gave utterance to no more than an inarticulate exclamation. It told her that he, at least, realized what had occurred,

would. But his eyes went to his employer, and he also doubted whether it were the moment for candid speech.

        Mr. Bolton was left to reply. He said: "That is a matter with which the insurance companies will have to deal."

        "I'm not sure how that would be. The cars didn't collide. But I expect they'd agree that it was my fault. I've been in so much trouble before. In fact, if you don't mind, I'd rather pay for any damage there is and not trouble them about it at all."

        Saying this, the young lady produced a card. Mr. Bolton learned that he had met the world-famous racing motorist, the Hon. Gloria Brell, of Brell Castle, Argyll. He said, with some recovery of the jovial manner which was a cultivated veneer, covering a particularly cowardly, cunning, and brutal character: "It's as you like about that. But I shouldn't say there's much damage done." He turned to the chauffeur, who was already clambering round the over-turned car, to ask: "How about getting it going again? Can you manage that?"

        The man was not hopeful. He thought the engine was all right, and they might get the car jacked up (if they had a jack) so that it could be got back on to

the road, but the back axle was buckled, and how serious the damage might be it was impossible to say while the car lay as it did.

        "That's awkward," Billie said innocently. "We were on our way to Glasgow, and wanted to be there

this evening.

        Miss Brell stared at that. "Glasgow?" she exclaimed. "I rather thought I was on the way there myself. One of us must have been going the wrong way."

        "You mean this isn't the road to Glasgow?"

        "Well, it would be rather better for Aberdeen."

        "I'm afraid," Mr. Bolton said, "we must have missed our way in the fog."

        "Yes," Miss Brell replied dryly, "you certainly must." She did not pursue the subject further. She said: "There's a good garage about a mile along the road you just passed. They'll do anything necessary to the car, and charge it to me. But you don't look like getting anywhere in it tonight. I'll drive you to Glasgow, if that will be any help. There's lots of room in mine.

        "It's very kind of you," Billie said, "especially as we're not sure it was your fault at all. Mr. Limbrook and I will be glad to come. . . Eustace, what about getting our things out of the car?"

        Billie had observed that, since he had learned that the car could not be started again, Mr. Bolton had had the look of a troubled man. She felt sure that his plans had gone wrong beyond immediate reconstruction, and it would not have required much inducement for her to make frank admission of how and why she had wrecked the car. "We can all get to Glasgow now, Mr. Bolton," she went on, "rather more quickly than we should have been likely to do the way we were going; so perhaps it wasn't a bad thing that it happened the way it did." She gave him her sweetest smile as she said this, but his response was what she had half expected and entirely hoped it to be. He had no desire to take any road that led in the direction of Glasgow. In fact, he had never had such an intention. Now he made excuse that he must stand by the car until the men from the garage should arrive to take charge of it. He would send the chauffeur to fetch them.

        Miss Brell accepted this solution easily, though she made a further offer. "That's for you to say. But if you like to come on and leave your man here, I'll drive you round to the garage, and we'll give them the necessary instructions."

        Mr. Bolton thanked her, but said that he had his luggage to think of. There were things of value he must not risk. He would probably decide to hire another car. He might not be coming to Glasgow immediately now. The accident had altered his plans.

        Miss Brell repeated indifferently: "Well, that's for you to say." Eustace asked: "I suppose I'd better call at the office of the Glasgow Construction Company in the morning? Or shall I leave it till you will have got back?"

        The veneer of gentility which Mr. Bolton wore was insufficient to receive this question complacently. "You'll be wasting your time if you do," he replied, with a vicious look in his eyes. "Not after what's happened here."

        "Perhaps it's just as well. It's the first time I've heard of the firm. The offices mightn't have been easy to find."

        Mr. Bolton, having recovered his self-control, gave no sign of perceiving the implications of this retort. Eustace climbed down into the overturned car and rescued the burdens which those who take pedestrian tours are obliged to bear.

        The mist was thinning now, as though having accomplished the purpose for which it came. There was weak sunlight and a movement of chilly wind.

        Eustace and Billie mounted to the front seat of the primrose tourer, which was spacious enough for three people to sit abreast.

        Mr. Bolton, as they passed from sight, turned to his assistant to say: "You'd better get to that garage in double-quick time. Tell them to send a car for me to use, and get on yourself to the nearest call-box and ring up Mitchell and tell him what's happened. Say I'll be 'phoning him myself in an hour's time. That'll give him time to simmer down and get his own instructions from higher up."

        The man took these instructions sullenly. He understood that he was to take the first brunt of the anger that the report would rouse. But it was not primarily his responsibility. He said no more than, "For all the softies they were, they've made proper fools of us." But the tone implied that the plural pronoun was of diplomatic rather than literal use.

CHAPTER VI

STIRLING WILL DO

THE Hon. Gloria Brell was one by whom no one should sit in a fast car unless having good nerves and a sound heart, or the obtuseness which is too foolish to fear. She took the sharp curves of the mountain road at a pace which may have been correctly judged as the highest to half a second which was consistent with safety. Indeed, so it must have been, for no acc dent resulted; but it was one which, for most drivers, would have ensured them a broken neck. She did this with one hand seeming to rest only loosely upon the wheel, while she passed her cigarette-case to her companions, and expressed her candid view of those they had left behind.

        "I didn't think they were friends of yours. They both looked lousy to me. And I saw that chauffeur glare at you when you were getting in here as though he'd have brained you with a spanner if he'd had you by himself in a quiet place."

        The last part of this remark was addressed to Billie, who replied to it with equal candour: "I've no doubt he would. In fact, I think that's very much what the programme was before I gave him any cause to feel that way. But he wasn't likely to be in a good temper after what I'd done, and that leads up to what I've been wanting to tell you. You mustn't pay for repairing the car. It was no fault of yours. It ran into the ditch on purpose. The man wasn't likely to feel pleased."

        Miss Brell looked a natural surprise. "I didn't know you were driving. Why on earth did you do that?"

        "I wasn't driving. I just put a hand on the wheel."

        "But why did you? You're not one to do a fool trick like that."

        "It was really because I heard you coming along."

        "You don't mind making it a bit clearer?"

        "I thought it might be quite a good idea to change cars.

        "Serious as that, was it?"

        "So I thought. For one thing, we seemed to be going to Glasgow by a very unusual road."

        "So you certainly were. But it was a neat piece of work. If they were intending to murder you in a quiet spot, you must have shaken up their plans quite a lot."

        Miss Brell showed no lack of interest in the event, but her attitude to the idea of being abducted with murderous aims was as casual as had been confined in the wrecked car. Billie wondered whether the precarious nature of the life of a racing driver might account for this emotionless reaction. If you are exposed to possibilities of sudden death or unimaginable mutilations every day of the week, it can scarcely be possible to maintain excitement at a pitch which those who live less hazardous lives might consider appropriate to such risks. Miss Brell went on: "Would it be impertinent to ask how you came to be in the fat gentleman's car?"

        "Oh, they'd caught us up on the road, and offered to give us a lift. It seemed a good idea, with the fog as thick as it was."

        "And to take you to Glasgow, although you must have been going the opposite way?"

        "We weren't doing that. We were resting at the side of the road. And we weren't going to Glasgow either. That idea only developed after we got in the car."

        Eustace had listened silently to these confusing verbal exchanges. He saw that Billie's literal answers, accurate though they were, were not of a clearly informative character. But the continuation of conversation on these lines must end in complete disclosure explicit lies, or a blunt refusal to give intelligible explanation of what had been already said. He was himself half disposed to a full confidence, and he had learned that Billie could be discreet, and would be likely to be deliberate in what she did. For the moment she should go her own way, without attempt of interference from him.

        Miss Brell's next question, in any event, was one to which they could not object to reply: "I suppose you do really want to go to Glasgow?"

        "Not particularly," Billie replied. "Certainly, not to take you out of your own way. But we understood you were going there."

        "I'm on my way to Brooklands. It doesn't matter to me which road I take. I'm not particular as to a few miles more or less. If you'll tell me what you're really wanting to do - - "

        They were passing along the narrow winding street of a picturesque Scottish village as they came to this point of the conversation, and Gloria Brell had slowed down to the moderate pace which its negotiation imperatively required, for there was a pedlar's barrow standing unattended in the middle of a roadway on which children played. Further on was a char-a-banc loaded with holiday makers, drawn up at the door of the village inn.

        It was the sight of this vehicle which inspired Billie's surprising reply: "What I really want to do is to get on to that char-a-banc, if they've got a seat to spare.

        Eustace said: "That wouldn't be such a bad idea."

        Miss Brell said: "You don't mind where it's going? Well, you know your own business best!"

        Her foot pressed the brake, and she stopped smoothly beside the standing vehicle, with no more than inches of clearance in the width of the narrow street. She called to the conductor, who was loitering at the inn door: "Have you two seats to spare?"

        "One seat," Billie corrected quickly.

        "I hoped," Eustace explained, "you wouldn't mind taking me a little further."

        Miss Brell said no more than "Oh!" and then "No, not at all. It's just as you like."

        The conductor said they could find room for one. Billie collected her belongings. "You won't do anything till I get there? You'll promise that?" she asked as she rose.

        Eustace answered reasonably: "How could I? I don't even know the address. If you mentioned it, I've forgotten - - "

        "I don't want you not to have that. Suppose something happened that I couldn't - - It was M. Beal. No e at the end. And the address was 4, Adam Street. But you'll wait for me. Yes, I remember, Charles Hotel. Eccleston Square. . . Goodbye, Miss Brell. I shall have to leave Eustace to thank you properly for all you've done for us.

        Billie did not descend to the street. There would not have been space to open the car door. She mounted from one vehicle to the other. "Stirling?" she replied to the conductor, who had climbed up to receive her. "Yes. That will do as well as anywhere else." She waved a hand to Eustace as the car moved out of sight down the crooked street.

        Miss Brell was saying: "And now perhaps you won't mind telling me what all this means?"

CHAPTER VII

BY DEVIOUS WAYS

BILLIE WINGROVE did not see the primrose car ass out of sight without becoming conscious of a feeling of loneliness which was a near cousin to fear. The experience through which she had passed would have been a nervous ordeal for anyone more accustomed than herself to episodes of physical danger, and the knowledge which it had brought that Eustace and she were still objects of the ruthless pursuit of the Mildew gang was a test of courage which many would have failed to sustain.

        But she faced this feeling boldly, and found, as may often be, that reason diminished fear. The game had still to be won, but she saw that when her hand pulled on the steering-wheel she had trumped the immediate trick. She saw also that the police had been wrong when they had concluded that Mr. Mildew would lose interest in Eustace and herself if he were made aware that they had left London. And if there were to be no safety for them, even in distant places, while Mildew remained in control of his law-less gang, then prudence might approve their return to renew the fight. That being so, the first essential was to get back to London unfollowed, which should not be difficult now. On the whole, she told herself resolutely, she must call it a good day. . .

        It was four days later that she arrived at the Charles Hotel, to find that Eustace was already there.

        "How did I get here?" she echoed his question. "Oh, from somewhere on the South Coast. I can't remember before that! I trained from there to Horsham, took a side-line to East Grinstead, then a Green Line coach to Croydon, and from there on a bus into Belgrave Road. If they can spot people entering London by such ways as that they must have more spies about than even the dope trade, or Mildew's fortune, could pay. If you took as many precautions as I did, we shan't have made a bad start."

        "I don't think I've done badly. I thought it best to tell the whole tale. She isn't one to talk, and it panned out well. She saw it wouldn't do for her to drive me into London. If they were making the most elementary efforts to trace us, they would be sure to be on the watch for her car, seeing that she gave her name to Bolton when she drove us away; and she couldn't delay her own plans. She was bound to come straight on for Brook ands. But she helped me, all the same, in a better way than I could have managed alone. When we were in Durham she telephoned to a friend in Yorkshire to meet her at a lonely spot on the moors, and she - a Mrs. Bentley, who was a real sport - drove me right across the country into Cheshire, and put me down at a little station where there certainly wasn't anyone about of the wrong sort. I travelled from there into Wales, and came here much as you seem to have done, partly by coaches and partly by trains, and ending up on a trolley-bus from Uxbridge to Shepherd's Bush. I got here last night, after dark, and registered in a false name."

        "I suppose I'd better do the same."

        "Yes. And act as though we are only casual acquaintances, who just exchange a few words as we happen to meet in the lounge here."

        Billie saw the wisdom of this. She went back to the hotel office, which she had walked past on first entering, asked for a room in the name of Miss Mary Smithson, and forestalled any possible challenge on the score of her meagre luggage by saying: "I don't suppose I shall be here more than one night, so I may as well pay you now."

        The reception-clerk pushed the book over for her to sign, with a routine courtesy, but little interest, for the Charles Hotel depends for most of its custom upon those who come and go through the great clearing-house of Victoria Station, and an actual majority of them stay for no more than a single night. From the managerial standpoint they are of only two qualities - those who do, and those who do not, haggle about their bills; and Billie proved to be one of the better sort.

        Later in the evening she met Eustace in the smoking-room, which was deserted except by an American gentleman, who dozed between frequent drinks. Even so, Eustace was too cautious for speech. He passed over a slip of paper on which he had written: "Imprudent to stay here. Hotels may be looked over. Have been out and taken a room at 19, Fordyce Street. Another fourth-floor room vacant there. You should secure it tomorrow." There was a postscript: "Look at M. Beal in the Telephone Directory in the writing-room."

        Billie nodded response at a moment when there was certainty that she could not be observed. She strolled out to the writing-room. There she read: "Beal, Maurice. Importer of Wild Animals. 4, Adam Street." There was no reticence about this announcement. It was printed in the large type for which a fee must be paid. It was plain, at least, that they had not made their hazardous return to the neighbourhood of an unscrupulous foe to find that the address Mr. Catsgill had given was no more than a mistaken memory or deserted dwelling.

CHAPTER VIII

THE QUESTION OF WHO SHALL GO

THERE were three bed-sitting-rooms and a bathroom on the fourth floor of 19, Fordyce Street. Eustace had taken one, and Billie secured the second of these. The third was let to a business young woman, who was out for five days of the week from 8.45 a.m. until 6.15 at night.

        The custom of the house was to serve breakfasts, but no other meal. Beyond that, there were gas-stoves in the rooms, and guests could cater for themselves, if they would. After some perfunctory morning attention from an overworked maid, few things were more certain than that no one would ascend the fourth-floor stairs, besides the two new tenants, until six-fifteen. To the proprietress they were Mr. Springfield and Miss Mary Smithson, who had taken their rooms separately and who were strangers to one another. So long as they were discreet in going and coming separately and confining conversation to the solitude of their own floor, it was unlikely that their acquaintance would be suspected. The next morning was given to urgent shipping, and at midday, when they could rely upon an uninterrupted conference, they met in Eustace's room to decide how they should proceed to the investigation of Mr. Beal.

        "I had a look, while I was out," Eustace said, at a classified trade directory. It described him as specializing in reptiles, and generally in the fauna of South America."

        "It's the continent," he continued, "where the drugs which are the basis of most dope - cocaine, heroin, and others - are produced. There may be some connection in that."

        "Yes, there may. . . The first thing to do is for one of us to have a look at the place and see what sort of a man Mr. Beal is."

        "One of us? Why not both?"

        "Because, if they've circulated any warning about us, the two of us would be far more likely to rouse suspicion than either alone."

        "Yes. That's sound. And as you say that Catsgill told you he drinks, I might be able to get him to talk, if I took him round to the corner pub."

        "Don't be silly, Eustace. The first time you call at a man's shop you think he'll go out with you like that? I've got a much better idea."

        "Well, what is it?"

        "I shall go there to buy a pet."

        "What sort of a pet?"

        "I've no idea. What sorts can be found among South American beasts?"

        "You might ask for a parrot. But isn't there a slump in that trade owing to their having some disease they don't keep to themselves? A monkey might be better. He'd be almost sure to have some of them."

        "I hate monkeys I think the best way will be to go with an open mind. I want a pet for myself, or a wedding present for someone who's mad on beasts, but I haven't decided what. That gives an excuse for a good look round, and, of course, I shall need Mr. Beal's advice."

        "I don't see why you assume you should be the one to go. I might want to buy an animal just as much as you."

        "Yes. Perhaps so. But Mr. Catsgill chose me for this. He knew it was a woman's work. I shall get a lot more out of Mr. Beal than you would be likely to do. That's plain sense. If it were a woman who kept the shop, it might be a bit different. But even then there'd be the disadvantage that men never see anything."

        "You mean I might overlook things that you would notice?"

        "Might isn't the word. Any woman sees more in a glance than she can tell in an hour, and with a man it's just the other way round. That's why women talk more than men. It's just that you can't pour out of a pint pot:"

        "I know I oughtn't to let you go. But we won't argue. We'll toss up."

        With some difficulty, Billie, who had set her heart on being the one to invade Mr. Beal's establishment, was persuaded to agree to this method of decision, and had her reward when she called "heads" and the spun halfpenny came down displaying the bearded profile of the fifth George.

        It was agreed, after some further argument, that they should go together as far as the Whitechapel Road, and that Eustace should then wait in the vicinity for her return.

        "And if you're not soon back," he added, "I shall come along to make sure that there's nothing wrong."

        "Anything wrong?" she echoed. "What could be? You don t suppose that Mr. Beal's real peculiarity is that he uses his customers to feed the beasts, do you? And if he did, there wouldn't be much use in following me into the shop to be treated the same way. It would be a saner thing to call the police.

        "Besides, South American beasts aren't ferocious. Not lions and tigers and bears. Everyone knows that. They're just repulsive. Armadillos and ant-eaters, and - well, I'm not sure about skunks. I dare say lizards would be a better guess."

        "Or pumas. And there are a few others you wouldn't care to meet alone on a dark night; though I can quite believe that Maurice Beal is the worst

scene if you don't rejoin me in half an hour."

        "That's nonsense. You'd spoil everything just as Beal and I would be getting chummy. Say an hour, and we'll call it a deal."

        "Half an hour would be quite long enough. What do you suppose would be going to happen? Do you think he'll take you into partnership the first time you walk into the shop?"

        "Well, queerer things have happened than that. Especially if I should offer to put some money into it. I expect it wants more capital. Every business does that I ever heard of. What about letting me have that two-thousand-pound cheque? He'd have a shock looking at how it's signed!"

        "I couldn't do that, because I banked it this morning. But I do wish you'd be serious. If you'll agree that I wait half an hour, and then - - "

        "I'll say three-quarters. Or forty minutes, if you'll agree to that without any more argument. But it's all silly. What's going to happen to me in an Adam Street shop where no one can possibly be expecting me to walk in? But if I'm not back with you inside forty minutes, you can follow me up, or, better still, give Inspector Cauldron a 'phone call and let him know where we both are. I should like to see Superintendent Backwash's face when he'd heard that."

        "He mightn't be quite as surprised as you'd think. I'd forgotten to tell you that I'd sent him a telegram after you got on the char-a-banc."

        "To tell him we were coming back to London? Eustace, you never did!"

        "Not to say that. Just to give him the address of a garage where a member of the Mildew gang, using the name of Bolton, was having a car repaired which he had employed in an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Miss Wilhelmina Wingrove."

        "Did you sign it?"

        "Yes. But I put no address. I couldn't choose about that. I'd got none to put."

        "Do you think there was much sense in doing that? Or was it Miss Brell's idea?"

        "How did you guess that? She thought it would be sure to get the police busy, and even if they'd nothing against Bolton on which they could run him in, and he hadn't stolen the car, they'd be sure to go smelling round, and it would give him something to think of besides being nasty to us. I thought it was rather a good idea."

        "You would." Billie's voice was cold, and Eustace was not too dull to perceive that she regarded his confidences to Miss Brell without enthusiasm. But next moment her lips curved to a smile. "What a flurry you must have put all those detectives into! Set all their great brains boiling with nothing, so to speak, in the pot for them to cook up. And it's no more than they deserved for sending us off to Scotland, as though we couldn't help them, and they knew we'd be out of mischief there. And safe! We were to be safe - that was the great idea. Inspector Cauldron'd find that he'd have to start thinking again!"

        It was an aspect of the matter to which Eustace had not been entirely indifferent. They would have his telegram, giving no address, which they would be unlikely to ignore.

        They would try to get in touch with him and Billie, and certainly fail - that had been proved by the passage of time. Indeed, they had no chance, for Miss Brell's conspicuous car had not stopped outside the telegraph office, but in a nearby street. They would make a more successful enquiry concerning Bolton and his damaged car. But unless they had means of making him speak, they were not likely to learn any luminous truth from him.

        Yes, they would be perturbed, puzzled, aware that their forecasts had been incorrect, wondering what the next development would be, and utterly foiled in their endeavour to trace those whom it had become their duty to guard.

        "Yes," he agreed, "I suppose it did make them dance."

        On this cheerful note they set out, Billie going a few minutes first, with an understanding that she would wait at the Victoria Underground Station until he should appear, when they would book separately, but enter the same compartment of the train.

        She told herself that she was not afraid - that there was, indeed, nothing to fear - that she was no more than pleasantly excited by the prospect of discovering a man so essential to the Mildew gang that he must be protected at a great price, and even the dangerous habit of drunkenness be condoned. But the fact was that her mind had become intrigued by its own conception of grotesquely malignant creatures surrounding the sinister figure of the menagerie proprietor; and she found satisfaction in the thought that Eustace would not be distant, nor slow to come to her relief if she should be detained in the place of beasts.

CHAPTER IX

ANACONDAS ARE NOT BOA CONSTRICTORS

THE name of Maurice Beal was dignified with impressive type in the telephone directory, but, whatever might be behind it, the façade of his Adam Street premises was of a less imposing character.

        Billie came to a small double-fronted shop, of which one window was no more than a large cage containing many small bright-plumaged birds, which fluttered from perch to perch, making a movement which never ceased. The other showed a large tank, in which were strange fishes, newts, and aquatic plants - presumably such as were unattractive to the appetite of the water-snake, four feet of sinuous olive-green, which swam monotonously round the sides of its narrow home.

        There was nothing formidable in these exhibits, and Billie, pausing to inspect them before entering the shop, as a customer would be likely to do, was disposed to think that the importation of the wild fauna of South America was no more than a tradesman's brag, perhaps with no worse nor better object than to give dignity to the peddling of tortoises and tropic birds Or, with at least equal probability, to conceal activities of a less innocent nature.

        Anyway, the name of M. Beal was over the door. There could be no doubt that this was the place: no doubt that its proprietor had been known to Mr. Catsgill as one on whose behalf the Mildew gang would provide a very large sum to avert danger of his operations being betrayed to the police.

        A bell clanged loudly as she pushed open the glass-panelled door and entered a dingy shop, the floor of which was strewn with sawdust, and the walls surrounded with cages, mostly empty, and the remainder containing nothing more formidable than a small catlike creature with tufted ears.

        She heard an approaching step, and, in the brief interval which passed before the inner door opened, she had a belated sense of the futility of what she did.

        The attendant would tell her that he had nothing suitable to her requirements, or he would, more probably, press upon her some of the frowsy and repellent specimens of his meagre stock. She would refuse them and come out. What would she have done? What did she expect to be able to do? She most probably would not see Mr. Beal at all! The idea, which had appeared good in the vagueness of distance, shrank to truer proportions at a closer view.

        The man who entered was repulsive rather than formidable. Elderly, though not old: so thin that his face appeared to be ridged with bones over which the skin was too tautly drawn. She was most conscious of yellow, broken teeth and of feet which shuffled along the ground. He was dirty, and his clothes looked suitable for the cleaning of cages, which may have been the occupation which filled his time.

        He said, "Yes, ma'am?" in a vacuous manner, his eyes not falling directly upon her, so that Billie thought his interest in her to be less than she was giving to him."

        "I want some kind of a pet - a bird or animal, if you have anything suitable - for a wedding present. I want something that's not dangerous, of course; and clean in its habits; and not too difficult in the food it needs."

        She spoke a formula which she had rehearsed. She thought it had a genuine sound; and it suggested a basis on which the relative suitability of various creatures might be discussed at length.

        He answered vaguely: "I don't know. We don't do much in that way. . . Perhaps I'd better tell Mr. Beal."

        He turned as he spoke, and shuffled out of the shop.

        Billie might claim that she had won the first trick, if not the game. She had put her request in such a form that she was likely to see the presumably criminal Beal, without having requested or shown any interest in his existence.

        She might have felt some elation at that, but, in fact, she was conscious most of a desire to withdraw from the shop. It had an atmosphere which she did not like. Perhaps, she told herself, it was no more than a faint jungle-scent which still lingered around those wretched creatures brought to an alien land, to an existence of thwarted instincts and narrow bars, for the satisfaction of the curiosities of mankind. It is a sinister hostile scent, to which some people are particularly susceptible, while others do not perceive it at all. But was it no more than that? What was it the man had said? "We don't do much in that way."

        But what else should they be expected to do? She supposed (wrongly) that the main business of such a shop would be the sale of domestic pets. She judged, more accurately, that the stock she had yet seen did not indicate a trade which could support Mr. Beal and his shuffling assistant. But why should she jib at that? It only confirmed what had been expected before. It was an item of knowledge already gained, to be added to the mere address she had had from Mr. Catsgill, when she should inform the police, as she had little doubt that she would soon be doing. And when the proprietor should appear she could judge whether he were one who would be likely to live on the few pounds - shillings rather - that such a shop could provide.

        Judging thus, on evidence which was misleading because still far from complete, she waited the long moment before Maurice Beal appeared, which he did so silently that she had no warning before the door opened to let him through. There might be no intention in that. He was one to whom quiet movement was as natural as to a jungle beast.

        She saw a man scarcely as tall as herself, supple in movement, with black close-cut hair, and black, curiously opaque eyes. Their whites had a yellow tinge, which matched the sallowness of his skin. He might drink at times, but it was a vice of which he showed no present sign. He was neatly dressed, and his clothes, of their kind, were good.

        When he spoke, his English was carefully correct, though it had an accent he could not conceal. His voice was smooth, giving as much confidence as a leopard's purr. "You are enquiring," he asked, "for a lady's pet?"

        "Yes," she answered, conscious of a violent beating of her heart which she could not check, and of an effort to control her voice, of the success of which she was not sure. "I thought of a small animal, or a bird."

        "Bird? There are some in the window. Carl could have shown you those."

        "I thought of something larger. Perhaps a parrot."

        "Parrots are not popular as pets now. And there are difficulties about importation. Still, there are some available. . . The present is for a friend?"

        "It is to be a wedding gift."

        "For which such a bird - - "

        She could not be sure whether the words were spoken half in earnest or wholly in jest. They came with no change of voice, and with a motion of the lips which showed white regular teeth, and was between a smile and a sneer. But she thought that if she had required a present for a successful rival in love, such as would be likely to give her a quick death, a parrot which had been in contact with the disease which can be so easily communicated to those who feed it would have been procurable for a sufficient price.

        "No," she said, her lips forming a difficult smile, "I don't think I'd better choose a parrot, if they are not safe. . . I suppose monkeys are rather out of your line?" Oh no. I have plenty of them. You mustn't judge the stock from this shop. There's no room to show it here. And, besides, almost all our business is done by mail. It isn't often that a lady like you - - You'd better come through and see."

        She knew why she had been frightened now. As he had looked at her his eyes had rested a moment upon her chin, where a bruise she had taken from Mr. Wellard's hand was still faintly visible. Instinct, sounder than reason, told her that he had recognized who she was. Reason, claiming control, told her that it was a cowardly, unfounded fear. How should he know anything of her at all? Why should there have been the remotest reason to suppose that she would be calling here? But for that whispered word in Mr. Catsgill's office there would not have been one millionth chance that she would ever enter the shop. And was it not natural for the eyes of anyone who looked at her face to notice so plain a bruise? It would be a source of lasting self-contempt if she should fail to master this silly fear.

        She followed him up two flights of a narrow stair, the jungle odour becoming stronger as she climbed. At the second landing they turned into a long passage, giving her the first intimation that the extent of Mr. Beal's premises was not disclosed by the shop through which she had entered. They passed a door through which came sounds of snarling and of some great creature bounding about, and when they came out on to a narrow wooden bridge with a paved yard below them, littered with packing-cases, upon which two carpenters were working with noises of hammer and saw, Billie, looking down, felt some return of confidence, as illogical as her former fear. For nearly two thousand years carpenters have been regarded as particularly innocent men.

        "We do all the wholesale business, and that with the larger animals, from the Trevor Street entrance. There wouldn't be room for them to pass through the shop door," Mr. Beal's voice purred at her side. Why should he tell her that? It might be natural enough but she felt the tone to be that of one who soothes a nervous beast into a cage. He was only talking to occupy her mind as he led her on! But her reason asked: Was it not your purpose in coming here to get him to talk? When he does so, will you let the conversation fail because of your silly fears?"

        "I suppose," she said, "you supply zoological gardens and places like those?"

        "Yes," he assented, "and we import thousands of monkeys for vivisection every year. That's the most regular part of the business. We've just executed the largest order for Berlin that we've ever had. And, of course, other creatures. We've got a special order now for seven hundred female rats, to be guaranteed healthy, and not more than six weeks old."

        "Rats?" she exclaimed, with repulsion and fear evident in her voice. She had a horror of a single rat. Seven hundred at once!

        "Oh," he assured her soothingly, "we shan't go near any of them. Not if you come this way."

        They had crossed the bridge and descended a flight of stairs in the Trevor Street premises now, and approached a door very solidly made, inset with thick plate glass, which was covered with heavy wire-netting on the inner side. He looked carefully through this glass before unlocking the door, and had he made the normal gesture of politeness which would have invited her to enter first she might have hesitated, but he led the way, and that, with the assurance he had just given that the direction they took would avoid the rats, caused her to follow him readily into what, as she looked round, had the appearance of an empty cage with a heap of loose straw on the floor. She was more conscious, as she entered, of humid heat than of anything that she saw.

        He closed the door behind her, stepped quickly across the cage, unlocked another similarly glazed and wired on the further side, and then, instead of holding it open for her to follow, swung it so that it closed in her face.

        "Mr. Beal," she called, in the first futile burst of anger and fear, "what do you mean? Open the door! It's not the kind of joke - - "

        He raised his voice slightly, that it might penetrate through the small sliding ventilation panel which he pushed open, but otherwise spoke without any evidence of emotion as he replied: "Miss Wingrove, if I were in your place I shouldn't make so much noise. If you look on the other side of the cage you'll see that you're not alone. It's asleep now, but, if you wake it, I might not be able to save you, even if I should try, which I should see little reason to do."

        She followed his eyes, and saw, with a thrill of horror, a huge snake curled up on the other side of the straw. Its head was cushioned on its coils. Its eyes were closed. Its tale twitched slightly as she looked, as though it were near to wake.

        "I must ask you a few questions," her captor went on, "and it will depend on how you answer them when you come out, or whether you come out at all.

        "Perhaps it may assist you to a greater candour if you understand exactly what your companion is. It is an anaconda, the kind of snake frequently, but quite erroneously, called a boa constrictor in this country.

        "The boa constrictor is actually quite small, rarely exceeding ten feet in length, and is frequently tamed, being useful for catching rats. I have myself seen and handled such specimens in villages in the Amazon basin. I have seen children with them curled playfully round their necks.

        "But the anaconda is untameable. The one you see reached this country a few weeks ago. When last measured it was thirty-two feet three inches long. It could swallow an ox. It is now sleeping off the effect of such a meal. When it wakes which may not be for one or two further days, or any moment now, it will be hungry for the next.

        "You will see the importance of remaining quiet, and you will also recognize the advantage it would be to me to go away and forget you are here. Your companion is destined for the Amsterdam Zoo, if we can agree upon the price, concerning which a little difference has arisen. Meanwhile I have to feed it, at intervals of some weeks it is true, but it is difficult to satisfy it at a cost of less than six or eight pounds.

        "You will save me that sum if you remain here, and you will observe that it is a method of disposing of you by which the greatest difficulty of such transactions - the removal of the dead body - does not arise."

CHAPTER X

CONVERSATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES

BILLIE heard the animal dealer's cynical threat, and became curiously aware that her heart was no longer beating with an uncomfortable rapidity. She had become quietly but most alertly conscious of her surroundings. Her thoughts had become supernormally clear. She had always had an intense horror of snakes, but that appeared to be in abeyance now. All feeling, all emotion, seemed to be suspended by the danger in which she stood. As she heard the final suggestion that, if she were devoured by the snake, there would be nothing left to conceal, there came a memory of having read that this class of reptile disgorges the skeleton and other indigestible parts of his victim - surely in a form by which the original structure could be identified! But even this imagination did not stir her to any extremity of horror or fear. She said boldly: "It isn't true."

        He shook his head: "I can't hear, unless you talk more loudly than that."

        She repeated the words in raised voice.

        His answer showed that he had followed her thought. "Oh, the furnace would deal with that."

        She thought: "If I go on shouting I may rouse the snake. On the other hand, if I refuse to speak he may go, and, before he does that, he may rouse it himself. I don't think I'm going to be killed here. I think that Eustace will come in time. Or the police. But, meanwhile, if I can keep him talking - - " She asked boldly: "What do you want me to say?"

        As she asked the question, though she did not move her eyes, her mind searched the cage for any place at which she could break out if he were to go. But she was not hopeful of that. Anything beyond the anaconda's strength would be beyond hers. Any hole which would be too small for it would be too small for her.

        There was a tank of warm water on the further side, which explained the humidity of the air. There was the heaped straw on the floor. Rising from floor to roof there was the great branching limb of a dead tree. Otherwise there was nothing there. Nothing from which a weapon could be contrived. She had an irrelevant but correct idea that the cage was not originally intended for such an inmate, but rather for some large predatory beast.

        Could she grasp its comparatively slender neck and break it before it should wake? She thought not. She considered that while there is a measure of security to be gained by grasping the neck of a poisonous snake, there is little gain in such a hold upon one which can wrap itself round you in constricting bone-breaking coils. No, her security was to talk, to obey, to hope that the snake's torpor would last, and, if it did not, perhaps, for a time - if she lay down - if she were still - -

        All these thoughts came and passed, as she asked that question, "What do you want me to say?" and heard his reply: "I want you to tell me why you came here.

        What was the object in lying now? The truth might be the safer as well as the simpler path.

        But, as she thought this, an idea came. She said: "To see you, of course."

        "Why?"

        "To give you a chance of saving your own skin by giving information to the police." That was certainly not what he had expected to hear. He blinked uneasily before he gathered boldness to answer: "That's nonsense. You wouldn't have come the way you did."

        "You don't know how I came. You think I'm in danger now, when it's really you."

        This was not exactly the path of simple rectitude which she had intended to tread. Rather it was bluff answering bluff, with truth a casual, disregarded ingredient in whatever it might seem expedient to declare.

        He looked at her with evil eyes, but she saw that she had caused him at least a moment of indecision. Then he said: "You're doing yourself no good. If you want to get out alive you'll have to talk a lot plainer than that."

        "I'll talk plainly enough if you'll let me out. I shan't say more while I'm shut in here."

        He considered this in an evident doubt. He thought of a test question, which might reveal much, indirectly, both of her veracity and of the measure of danger in which he lay. "If you'll tell me," he said, "who gave you my name, and why, we'll finish this talk in another place."

        She saw afterwards that she could have given many answers - anything but the truth - which would have freed her from the peril in which she stood. She might have said she had his name from Wellard, from Mildew. She might have made up any one of a score of specious explanations that would have been sufficient to rouse his curiosity or his fear, and sounded sufficiently plausible for belief. But her first thought was that he had asked the one thing she must not tell, and on that she replied: "I shouldn't tell you, even if you did let me out. It's something you've no business to know."

        "Then," he said, "you can just stay where you are." He turned with the words, and in an instant she was alone with that sleeping death. . .

        Leaving her thus, he walked quickly away, gnawing his lip. He was frightened and not sure that he had not acted a fool's part. If the girl had come on her own, it was a case for getting all possible information from her, and then disposing of her in such a manner that she would not be heard of again. He was not sure that the anaconda would be the best method for that, nor did he think her to be in imminent danger. The creature might rouse itself any moment, or it might lie there for another week. You could never tell. But it was a risk which she must take. He had other matters upon his mind, which were more important to him.

        He must ascertain, first, whether she had come alone, whether the place were watched. It might be prudent to make report, to obtain instructions. Not that he considered himself to be subordinate to anyone. No one else could do what he did. He would be almost impossible to replace. His position was impregnable, so long as he should not be suspected by the police. But if it should happen, his importance would be over, his use done. His life. if Mildew considered the fault were his, might not endure for an hour. He used his private telephone first, which penetrated the ramifications of his rather extensive premises, including communication with some that were two streets away.

        When he had done that, he felt assured that there would be no police intrusions upon him without the notice he required; sure, if they should enter, that there would be diversions, such as an escaped and (presumably) poisonous reptile to delay their penetration of his peculiar premises. That provision having been made, he rang up a number which he always carried in his mind, and indulged in an apparently innocent conversation, the substance of which would (as he correctly supposed) be relayed to another number he did not know, though he knew much. He had mentioned, among other things, having on his premises the animal with the damaged jaw, and raised the question of whether it would be profitable to keep it longer alive.

CHAPTER XI

INDIFFERENCE OF SUPERINTENDENT BACKWASH

EUSTACE sat in a teashop in Whitechapel Road for forty minutes, as he had agreed to do. He could see the end of Adam Street, round the corner of which Billie had said she would come on her way to the bus which she was to board without waiting for him, lest their meeting should be observed. He kept his eyes continually on this spot, first in fairly confident anticipation, and then in steadily increasing anxiety as the time lengthened. But for forty minutes he did not move.

        That had been the bargain which they had agreed to observe.

        That seemed to allow an ample margin for any innocent reception that she might meet. He had thought five or ten minutes to be a more probable limit.

        And their final bargain had been that the police might be informed by him under such circumstances without an inexcusable breach of her own promise, on which he had given his even more reluctant pledge that he would not enter the shop until official assistance had been obtained. For no very logical reason they had even compared their watches before they parted.

        For the last five minutes he sat with his own before him, his eyes falling continually upon the movement of the second hand, and lifting again lest he should fail to see her as she came round the corner.

        Would she, he asked himself, if all were well, go so near to the agreed limit, reluctant for him to call in the police as he knew her to be - an inclination which might not be lessened if she were successful in what she did? Well, she might. She might have engaged herself in a conversation she was reluctant to close. She would be cool and exact, and rely on him for the same qualities. Till the last second passed he could neither abandon hope that she would appear, nor break faith with her.

        But he lost no second beyond. At the stroke of the bargained time his check was already paid, and he was on the way to a telephone box fifty yards up the street, which he had located previously.

        As he approached it a man who looked as though his time were normally spent between lamp-post and bar made a quick movement to enter before him. Eustace. already moving rapidly, made an extra spurt, so that their shoulders jostled at the door of the box.

        "Pardon me," he said, declining to give way, "a matter of urgency."

        "No you don't, mate. I wor first here," the man answered roughly. His shoulder pushed Eustace aside.

        A suspicion that this was no chance obstruction came to his mind. If that were so, it was no time for persuasive words, and Billie's peril might be desperate indeed. With all the force of the anger and fear that this thought aroused, he drove his fist at the man's chin, and saw him go down on his back as he pushed into the booth.

        Heedless of the little crowd that gathered instantly round the sprawling form, until the sight of an approaching constable caused it to rise in haste and disappear in the opposite direction, he dialled 1212, and had no cause to complain that he was not instantly heard. "Scotland Yard," he said. "It's a matter of life and death."

        A moment later he was put through. "I want Inspector Cauldron," he said. "It's a most urgent matter."

        "I don't know that he's about now," an alert but unexcited voice answered. "If it's so urgent you'd better tell me what it is."

        "I want 4, Adam Street, Whitechapel, raided at once. Tell him that Miss Wingrove is caught in there. If he's not about, let Superintendent Backwash know. He'd do just as well."

        "Yes, I suppose he would." There was the faintest trace of sarcasm in the reply. "And who shall I say you are?"

        "Eustace Limbrook."

        "Wait a moment."

        There was not long to wait. Probably the whole time had not been thirty seconds before he heard the superintendent's voice: "Yes? That Mr. Limbrook Where are you speaking from?"

        "A 'phone box in the Whitechapel Road."

        "And what the hell are you doing there?"

        "There's not time to explain. We're on the track of the Mildew gang from a new angle. What I want you to know is that Miss Wingrove has disappeared in one of their dens - 4, Adam Street, close to here - and it needs raiding at once."

        "Why do you say she's disappeared?"

        Hurriedly, but clearly enough, he gave an account of the position, omitting only the source from which the name of the wild-animal dealer had been obtained.

        In his own office Superintendent Backwash listened without interruption. At its conclusion he looked across at a stenographer at another instrument. "Got that, Pearson?"

        "Yes, sir."

        He addressed himself to his own mouthpiece.

        "Sorry, Mr. Limbrook, but we can't raid a respectable ratepayer's premises on no better pretext than that. I expect Miss Wingrove's been detained a few minutes longer than she expected, or gone home a different way. If ladies did no more foolish things than that, we should have an easier time.

        "If you call at the shop you'll find her chatting there, or learn that she left ten minutes ago, more likely than not. If she's not home when you get back, you can call us up, and we'll send an officer round, but I don't think you'll find there'll be any need for that."

        "But, Superintendent - - "

        "Sorry, Mr. Limbrook. I'm extremely busy. We told you to stay in Scotland, and if you won't take our advice you must manage your own affairs in your own way."

        With these words he hung up before there could be time for any reply. For perhaps fifteen seconds he sat in what appeared to be a half-somnolent state. His thought was: "I'm not sure yet whether it was the worst day of my life or the best when Cauldron arrested a man we'd no business to touch; but today it's going to be a rise or resignation for me. There's no time for consultation. And if I asked for authority for what I'm going to do, I shouldn't get it, more likely than not.

        "'Phone for Cauldron. He's to come here the first moment he can. . . I want Inspectors Pearce and Baker here for instructions at once. . . Tell Jeeves to have his raiding squad ready to start in four minutes from now. Yes. Armed."

        He picked up his own receiver again. He gave the names of the three police stations nearest to the Whitechapel Road. "Get me through to them. . . No, instantly. Damn the Towcaster call. Mullins, you're doing your little bit in the biggest coup or the worst cropper we ever made."

        A moment later he had ordered that an enquiry as to Mr. Catsgill's condition should be put through to the West London Hospital. Then he spoke rapidly to the chiefs of the three police stations he had called, and sat back for another moment of thought.

        "An importer of wild animals!" he was saying to himself as Inspector Cauldron entered the room. "Could anything be more obvious? And even after those Syrian bibles, Cauldron, we never had the gumption to think of that!. . . What's the matter? Oh, I want you to fetch Mildew in. It doesn't matter what for. We just want to see him. but make him come. And no communications with anyone first. Everything's in the surprise, and I'm not sure that I'm not too late. I'm just gambling on that. And have his house searched and his correspondence sealed up. And have every telephone call that comes through for him recorded and traced to its source. Don't lose a moment. I'll leave that angle absolutely to you. . . What other angle is there? Why, that Wingrove girl has held the key to the whole problem in her exasperating little head all the time, and now very likely got beaten up, if not killed, in giving them the warning that may blow the whole thing out.

        "Ever thought of the false bottom of a snake's or puma's cage for hiding dope where no one would be likely to go scratching about? Well, someone else has, and I'm going to prove that, or write my resignation within a week.

        "I can see now that, if we'd had the sense to take Catsgill's tip, we should have been running up the flag before this. I only hope it's not too late yet.

        "Want to handle the raid? Yes, of course. But you can't. I'm going to do that myself. If you get Mildew - by the way, don't let him shoot himself, he's just the sort to try that if he thinks he's caught - if you get him with the evidence on him, so to speak, you'll have done your share. . . I can't stop for a word more now. . . Pearce, and you, Baker - I want you to come with me."

        As he spoke he pulled open a drawer of his desk and transferred its contents to his pockets, which bulged responsively; and then, with an agility of movement surprising in so heavy a man, and which, in fact, he seldom displayed, he led them out of the room.

CHAPTER XII

SOME LIES TO DELAY DEATH

LEFT alone with her thoughts and the sleeping snake, Billie considered what she should do, imagined many things, and actually did nothing (which may have been wisest of all) until Mr. Beal appeared again in little more than five minutes, though it seemed longer to her.

        She had considered the contents of her handbag, and found nothing more helpful there than a thin card of cigarette matches. She had read that all wild creatures are afraid of fire, and if an anaconda be an exception to this rule it is a fact which the natural history books do not stress. Yet when she compared the relative size of the snake and of the seven matches she had, it was difficult to nourish a sanguine hope that they would be an enduring shield.

        She had a brighter but yet no more than a flickering hope when she reflected that even the smallest match might ignite straw. Suppose she should pile it between herself and the snake, and light it as soon as direction? But suppose that it would not be the anaconda but she who would succumb, if not to the roasting heat, to the smoke fumes in that ill-ventilated cage?

        As to that, might she not protect herself by creeping into the water-tank? She had read of men who had saved their lives from prairie fire by lying in a little stream with their faces uncovered only so far as breathing required.

        But suppose, again, that the anaconda should have the same idea? There was enough space in the tank for her to immerse herself in the warm water. There

might even be sufficient for the anaconda to do so, though she was less certain of that. But there would certainly not be room for both, even had they been congenial companions for a watery bed.

        She had a disconcerting imagination of the great snake putting two or three feet of sinuous muscular neck beneath her, to heave her out of the tank and on to the burning straw. She must think of something better than that.

        Probably the best thing was to do nothing. To remain quiescent, remembering that time would be in her favour. Rescue could hardly be long delayed. And if she should remain still - perhaps lying under the straw - the snake might not be in haste to molest her.

        She had coolness and wit enough to see that the idea which Mr. Beal had given her of a creature waking hungry for an instant meal could scarcely be literal fact. For, if so, it would do nothing but swallow and sleep, wake, and swallow, and sleep again. A dull - it might even be called an impossible - life.

        More probably the digestion of the heavy meal would be followed by an interval of active well-being before hunger would become urgent again. Yes, but "active." It was her own word, and still one that she did not like. For the first time her imagination gave her a vision of that thirty-two-feet length of gliding flexible muscle moving quickly in the narrow space, with a vividness at which panic came. so that she must restrain herself with difficulty from beating upon the thick wire meshing between her and the plate glass that would be easier to break.

        She must not think of that! Must believe that the huge snake would sleep until help should come. . . She saw Beal at the door.

        "Miss Wingrove," he said, "I've got an offer to make, and it's your last chance. It's no good telling me that the police are anywhere here about, because I know they are not. But if you can prove to me that they know you're here - that they are smelling round and will make trouble if they don't see you again - then I'll come to terms with you and them, and tell them all that I know.

        "But if not - well, you brought it on yourself when you came here, as though you thought we were fools. . . .So it's for you to say your piece now, and you know best what your life's likely to be worth when it's been said."

        "I shan't say anything while I'm shut up here. I'm not afraid. I've no doubt I shall live a lot longer than you.

        "If you've nothing more to say than that I shall poke the snake up and leave you to talk it over with him."

        She was not sufficiently sure that this threat was bluff to receive it with a quiet mind, nor was she confident of her power to convince with what must have been more or less an impromptu lie, unless it should disclose the part which Eustace was playing, which she was resolved, at whatever cost, that she would not do.

        She played a better card when she retorted: "If you do, you'll lose it. I should have thought it was worth a good bit."

        Mr. Beal's teeth showed in an angry smile. "I'm not afraid of any damage you'll be able to do."

        "Then that shows what a fool you are. I shall light the straw."

        The sneer left his face as she said this, and gave place to an obvious disquietude. The anaconda was worth a large sum. It was a variety of snake for which there was always a good market, even when, as was usual with imported specimens, they were only young ones, five or ten feet in length. The existence of such monsters as the present specimen was well enough known. There were stuffed ones in the European museums. But the difficulties of capture and transportation of the full-grown snake, as they exist in the remote immensities of the Amazonian swamps, are of a prohibitive kind. The present specimen was hard to value. The offer which he was hesitating to accept was £700, with all expenses paid from the moment when the drugged monster had been passed down, yard by yard, like a huge cable, into the hold of an ancient paddle-wheel cargo boat, moored to a wooden pier on a tributary of the Upper Amazon, two thousand miles from the sea.

        And, besides its actual value, there was another consideration. It is not only men of simple and upright character who have pride in business prestige. Maurice Beal had the reputation of being the leading dealer in South American fauna throughout the world. His agencies extended into the remotest swamps, the most inaccessible mountain ranges, of the least-known portion of our half-populated world. It was his boast that there was no living product of that mysterious continent, plant or insect, bird or animal, which he could not supply for a proper price. The present importation had attracted attention in zoological circles throughout the world. It had immensely raised his prestige. It would be a wretched conclusion to have to announce that it had been accidentally destroyed (and even the skin might be injured beyond repair!), and it was all through the carelessness of putting it there to sleep off its last meal without removing the straw, which is out of place in a reptile's pen.

        He said savagely: "You won't do that. You'd get roasted yourself."

        She smiled confidently, seeing the effect of her threat. "I don't think I should. I know how to manage better than that." She tried to drive home a success she had already won, and said a word too many. "I'll just tell you this before you open the door. The police will be here within an hour of when I came, if I'm not away before then."

        His eyes fell to a watch, smaller than is usually worn by men, which was set in Brazilian diamonds on his brown wrist. "So that's it, is it?" he said. "Then we've got plenty of time. We'd better clear matters up before they come smelling round."

        Her eyes fell to her own wrist. Was it possible? Had the watch stopped? No, it ticked steadily on. It was just twenty-two minutes since she had parted with Eustace in the Whitechapel Road. He would still be sitting there. watching for her appearance at the street corner. Actually, the time had not yet come when he would place his own watch before him, and set his eyes on the interminable slowness with which the second-hand circled its tiny dial. Thirty-eight minutes to go! And even that was a sanguine estimate. How could she be sure that any help would arrive within twenty minutes of when Eustace would feel free to raise an alarm? She had simply warned the man to get rid of her before any help could possibly appear!

        Maurice Beal unlocked the door. "Come out!" he said curtly.

        Playing desperately for time, she made no advance.

        "I'm not sure," she said, "that I'm not best where I am. I'm not sure that I don't like the snake better than you."

        He made no answer, except to pull a whistle from his vest pocket and blow a shrill call, on which two men came at a run.

        He said something to one which she could not hear, at which he went. To the other - a man darker and of even more dubious ancestry than himself - "Get her out of there."

        "You n