The card had been put there that day. He would swear it. The ink on the card had not had time to darken and when he made a further search of his room, this view was confirmed by the appearance of his blotting-pad. The card had been dried there, and the pen, which had been left on the table, was still damp.

The colonel pa.s.sed into his bedroom and took off his coat and vest. He searched his drawer and found what looked to be like a pair of braces made of light fabric. These he slipped over his shoulder, adjusting them so that beneath his left arm hung a canvas holster. From another drawer he took an automatic pistol, pulled the magazine from the b.u.t.t and examined it before he returned it, and forced a cartridge into the breach by drawing back the cover. This he carefully oiled, and then, pressing up the safety catch, he slipped the pistol into the holster and resumed his coat and vest.

It was a long time since the colonel had carried a gun under his arm, but his old efficiency was unimpaired. He practised before a mirror and was satisfied with his celerity. He loaded a spare magazine, and dropped it into the capacious pocket of his waistcoat. Then, putting the remainder of the cartridges away tidily, he closed the box, shut the drawer and went back to his room. If all the commissioner had hinted were true, if this mysterious visitor was laying for him because of the 'Snow' Gregory affair, he should have what was coming to him.

The colonel was no coward and if this eerie experience had got a little on his nerves, it was not to be wondered at. He drew up a chair to the table, sitting in such a position that he could see the door, took a pencil and a sheet of paper and began to write rapidly.

The man's knowledge was encyclopaedic. Not once did he pause or refer to a catalogue, and he was still writing when Crewe came in. The colonel looked up.

"You're the man I want," he said.

He handed the other three sheets of paper, closely covered with writing.

"What's this?" asked Crewe and read:

"Twenty-three iron bedsteads, twenty-three mattresses, twenty-three----"

"Why, what's all this, colonel?"

"You can go down to Tottenham Court Road and you can order all that furniture to be taken into No. 3, Washburn Avenue."

"Are you furnishing a children's orphanage or something?" asked the other in surprise.

"I am furnishing a nursing home, to be exact," said the colonel slowly.

"I bought it this morning, and I'm going to furnish it to-morrow. Send Lollie Marsh to me. Tell her I want her to get three women of the right sort to take charge of a mental case which is coming to my nursing home.

By the way, you had better telegraph to old Boyton, or better still, go in a cab and get him. He'll probably be drunk but he's still on the medical register and he's the man I want. Take him straight away to Washburn Avenue, and don't forget that it's his nursing home and not mine. My name doesn't occur in this matter and you'd better get a dummy to do the buying for you from the furniture people."

"Who is the mental case?" asked the other.

"Maisie White," snapped the colonel, and Crewe stared.

"Mad?" he said incredulously. "Is Maisie mad?"

"She may not be at present," said Boundary, "but----"

He did not finish his sentence, and Crewe, who was once a gentleman and was now a thief, swallowed something--but he had swallowed too much to choke at the threat to a girl in whom he had not the slightest interest.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LOVE OF STAFFORD KING

Maisie White had no illusions. When the report came to her that the detective she had employed had pa.s.sed his services over to the man he was engaged to watch, she knew that the full force of the Boundary Gang would be employed to her extinction. Strangely enough, she did not appear to be disturbed, as she confessed to Stafford King. They were lunching together at the Hotel Palatine and the detective was unusually thoughtful.

"Why don't you go out of London?" he asked.

"I must go on with my work," she said.

"What is your work?" he asked.

"I have told you once," she replied. "I am trying to disentangle my father from disgrace. I am working to put him apart when the day of reckoning comes."

"You've not heard from him?" he asked.

She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.

"He has been a good father to me," she said, "the kindest and best of daddies. It is dreadful to think----" her lips quivered and she could go no further.

Nor could Stafford King make matters any easier for her. He knew better than she the depth of Solomon White's commitments. If the gang ever smashed, and if by good fortune the law ever took its course, there was no hope for Solomon White's escape from his share of the responsibility.

"Why do you think your father went away?" he asked, to turn the subject to a new aspect.

She did not reply instantly.

"I think he was scared," she said after a while. "I was shocked when I discovered how much in awe of the colonel he stood. He was just terrified at the threat, and yet I know he would have given his life to protect me from harm. I think it was just I that spurred him on to make the plans he did."

Stafford King agreed with a gesture.

"Now what are we going to do about you?" he asked, half-humorously, half-seriously. "I cannot let you go wandering loose about London--I'm scared to death as it is."

She smiled at him.

"You had better lock me up," she said flippantly and he nodded in the same spirit.

"I know a little house in St. John's Wood that would serve us beautifully as a prison," he said. "It has ten rooms and two admirable bathrooms. There is central heating and a large shady garden, and if you will only let me take you before a Justice of the Peace, or even a commonplace clergyman----"

She shook her head.

"That isn't prison," she said quietly and put her hand over the table.

He caught it in his and held it tight.

"Maisie," he said, "you know I love you. I love you more dearly than anything in the world."

She did not speak.

"As my wife," he went on, "you would be safe and I should be happy. I just want you all the time."

Gently she disengaged her hand, shaking her head with a little smile.

"What would that mean, Stafford?" she said. "You know you are deceiving me when you agree that my father----" again her voice shook--"no, no,"

she said, "it would ruin your career to have the daughter of a convict for your wife. I realise very well what it will mean, for I know--I know--I know!"

"What do you know?" he asked in a low voice.

"I know that all my work will be in vain. But I must go on with it. I must, or I shall go mad. I know nothing on earth can clear my father, but I'm not going to tell you that again. I just want to think there is a possibility that some miracle will happen, that all the evidence which even I have against him will be explained away."