The colonel wiped his burnt and discoloured hands after he had dropped the last diamond into a medicine bottle which the bank manager happened to have in the room.

"That's something saved from the wreck, at any rate," he said.

He had gone suddenly old, and his mouth trembled, as many a younger mouth had trembled in despair that Colonel Boundary might become a rich man.

"Something saved from the wreck," he repeated slowly.

The manager's grave eyes were fixed on his.

"I'm not blaming you, Ferguson," said the colonel. "It was a plot to ruin me, and it succeeded."

"What do you think happened?" asked the troubled Ferguson.

"The second package was a box filled with a very strong acid," said the colonel. "Probably the box was made of soft metal, through which the acid would eat in a few hours. It was placed in the safe, and in time the corrosive worked through–"

He shrugged his shoulders and left the room without another word.

"Thirty-five years' work that represents, Crewe," he said as they were driving back to the flat; "thirty-five years of risk and thought and organisation, and ended in pulp—stinking pulp—that burns your fingers when you touch it."

He began to whistle and Crewe noticed with curiosity that he chose the "Soldiers' Chorus" from "Faust" for the dirge to his lost fortune.

"Jack o' Judgment!" he said wonderingly. "Jack o' Judgment! Well, he's had his judgment all right, and I'm going to have mine. You needn't tell Pinto what happened this morning. Leave him guessing. He's got a pretty thick bank-roll, and I'll agree to that grand scheme of his for sharing out."

The thought seemed to cheer him, and by the time they reached the flat he was almost jovial.

"Well, what's the news?" asked Pinto eagerly.

"Fine," said the colonel. "Everything is as it should be."

"Stop rotting," growled the other. "What is the news?"

"The news, my lad," said the colonel, "is that I've decided to agree to your unselfish suggestion."

"What's that?" said the unsuspicious Pinto.

"That we should pool and divide."

"Jack o' Judgment's got your money, too!" said Pinto, who cherished no illusions about the colonel's generosity.

"How well he knows me!" said Boundary. "Now, come, Pinto, we're all in this, sink or swim. I told Crewe going down that I intended dividing; didn't I, Crewe?"

"You said something like that," said Crewe cautiously.

"Now we'll pool our money," said the colonel, "and split three ways. I'll make a fair proposition. We'll divide it into four and the man who puts in the most shall take two shares. Is it a bet?"

"I suppose so," said Pinto reluctantly. "What is the truth about your money? Did Jack o' Judgment get it?"

"I hadn't any money," said the colonel blandly. "I've about a thousand pounds hidden away in this room; that is all, if Jack hasn't been in."

He unlocked the safe and made an inspection.

"Yes, a little over a thousand, if anything. How much have you, Crewe?"

"Three thousand," said Crewe.

"That makes four thousand. Now what have you got, Pinto?"

"I've about five thousand," said Pinto, trying to appear unconcerned.

The colonel made a little whistling noise through his teeth.

"Bring fifty," he said. "I'm dead serious, Pinto. Bring fifty!"

"But how can I get it?" demanded the other frantically.

"Get it," said the colonel. "It is highly probable that it will be of no use to any of us. Let us at least have the illusion of being well off."

* * * * *

In greater leisure than either of her three companions in crime were exhibiting, Lollie Marsh was preparing to take her departure to New York. She was packing at leisure in her cosy flat on Tavistock Avenue, stopping now and again to consider the problem of the superfluous article of clothing—a problem which presents itself to all packers.

Between whiles she arrested her labours to think of something else. Kneeling down by the side of her trunk, she would give herself up to long reveries, which ended in a sigh and the resumption of her packing.

By the commonly accepted standards of civilisation she was a wicked woman, but there are degrees of wickedness. She had searched her mind to recall all the qualms she had felt in her long association with the Boundary Gang, and took an unusual pleasure in her strange recollection. She remembered when she had refused to be drawn into the Crotin fraud; she recalled her stormy interview with the colonel when she declined to take a part in the ruining of young Debenham.

But mostly she was glad that she had never gone any farther to carry out the colonel's instructions in regard to Stafford King. Not that she would have succeeded, she told herself with a little smile, but she was glad she had never seriously tried. Her mind switched to Crewe and switched back again. Crewe's was the one face she did not wish to see, the one member of the gang that she put aside from the others and wilfully veiled. Crewe had always been kind to her, always courteous, her champion in all bad times, and yet had never made love to her. She wondered what had brought him down to his present level, and why a man possessed of education, and who at one time, as she knew, had been an officer in a crack regiment, should have fallen so readily under Boundary's influence.

She made a little face and went on with her packing. She did not want to think about Crewe for obvious reasons. Yet, as he had said– But he hadn't said, she told herself. Very likely he was married, though that fact did not greatly trouble the girl. Such men as these have always a good as well as a bad past, pleasant as well as bitter memories, and possibly he included amongst the former the recollection of a girl whose shoelaces Lollie Marsh was not fit to tie.

She took a delight in torturing herself with pictures of her own humiliation, though she may have counted it to the good that she was capable of feeling humiliated at all. She finished her trunk, squeezed in the last article and locked down the lid. She looked at her wrist watch—it was half-past nine. Stafford King had not asked to see her, and she had the evening free.

She had only spoken the truth when she had told Boundary that the police chief had made no inquiries as to the gang. Stafford King knew human nature rather well, and he would not make the mistake of questioning her. Or perhaps it was because he did not wish to spoil the value of his gifts by fixing a price—the price of treachery.

She wondered what the colonel was doing, and Pinto—and Crewe. She impatiently stamped her foot. She was indulging in the kind of insanity of which hitherto she had shown no symptoms. She looked at her watch again and then remembered the Orpheum. It was a favourite house of hers. She could always get a free box if there was one vacant, and she had spent many of her lonely evenings in that way. She had always declined Pinto's offer to share his own, and of late he had got out of the habit of inviting her.

She dressed and took a taxi to the Orpheum. The booking office clerk knew her, and without asking her desires drew a slip from the ticket rack.

"I can give you Box C to-night, Miss Marsh," he said. "That is the one above the governor's."

The "governor" was Pinto.

"Have you a good house?"

The youth shook his head.

"We're not having the houses we had when Miss White was here," he said. "What's become of her, miss?"

"I don't know," said Lollie shortly.

She had to pass to the back of Pinto's box to reach the little staircase which led to the box above. She thought she heard voices, and stopping at the door, listened. Perhaps Crewe had come down or the colonel. But it was not Crewe's voice she heard. The door was slightly ajar, and the man who was talking was evidently on the point of departure, because she glimpsed his hand upon the handle and his voice was so distinct that he must have been quite near her.

"–three o'clock in the morning. You can't miss the aerodrome. It is a mile out of Bromley on the main road and on the right. You will see three red lamps burning in a triangle."

The aerodrome! She put her hand to her mouth to suppress an exclamation. Pinto was talking, but his voice was a mumble.

"Very good," said the strange voice. "I can carry three or four passengers if you like. There's plenty of room—of course, if you're by yourself, so much the better. I shall expect you at three o'clock. The weather's beautiful."

The door opened and she crouched against the wall so that the opening door hid her, and heard Pinto call the man back by name.

"Cartwright!" she repeated. "Cartwright. A mile out of Bromley on the main road. Three lamps in a red triangle!"

She was going to slip up the stairs, but the door had closed on Cartwright, and making a swift decision she passed the box and came again into the vestibule of the theatre. Presently she saw the man appear. She guessed it was he by the smile on his face, and when he said "Good night" to the attendant at the barrier she recognised his voice. She followed him but let him get outside the theatre before she spoke to him. Then suddenly she laid her hand on his arm: "Mr. Cartwright!"

He looked round into her smiling face in surprise, taking off his hat.

"That is my name," he said with a smile. "I don't remember–"

"Oh, I'm a friend of Mr. Silva," she said. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh, indeed?" said he.

He was a little puzzled because he thought that the projected flight was a dead secret; and she guessed his thoughts.

"You won't tell Mr. Silva I told you? He begged me not to repeat it to anybody, even to you. But he's leaving to-morrow morning, isn't he?"

He nodded.

"I know an awful lot," she said, and then: "Won't you come and have supper with me? I'm starving!"

Cartwright hesitated. He had not expected so charming a diversion, and really there was no reason why he should not accept the invitation. He was not due at Bromley until early in the morning, and the girl was young and pretty and a friend of his employer. It was she who hailed the taxi and they drove to a select little restaurant at the back of Shaftesbury Avenue.

"You're not seeing Pinto—I mean Mr. Silva—again to-night, are you?" she asked.

"No, I'm not seeing him until—well, until I see him," he smiled again.

"Well, I want to tell you something."

He thought she was charmingly embarrassed, and in truth she was, to invent the story she had to tell.

"You know why Mr. Silva is leaving England in such a hurry?"

He nodded. She wished she knew too, or had the slightest inkling of the yarn which Pinto had spun. And then the man enlightened her.

"Political," he said.

"Exactly; political," she said easily. "But you will realise that it is not necessarily he himself who is making this flight."

"I did understand that he was making the flight himself," said the aviator in surprise.

"But"—she was desperate now—"has he never told you of the other gentleman who was coming, the other political person who really must go to Portugal at once?"

"No, he certainly did not," said Cartwright; "he told me distinctly that he was going himself."

The girl leaned back in her chair, baffled, but thoughtful.

"Oh, of course, he told you that," she said with a knowing smile. "You see, there are some things he is not allowed to tell you. But do not be surprised if you have two passengers instead of one."

"I shan't be surprised, I shall be pleased. The machine will carry half a dozen," said Cartwright readily, "but I certainly thought–"

"Wait till you see him," said the girl, waving a warning finger with mock solemnity.

He found her a cheerful companion through the meal, but there were certain intervals of abstraction in her cheerfulness, intervals when she was thinking very rapidly and reconstructing the plan which Pinto had made. So he was one of the rats who were deserting the sinking ship and leaving the Colonel and Crewe to face the music. And Crewe—that was the thought uppermost in her mind.

When she parted from the pilot she had only one thought—to warn the colonel of Pinto's treachery—and Crewe. And somehow Crewe seemed to bulk most importantly at that moment.

CHAPTER XXXVI
LOLLIE PROPOSES

What should she do? It was her sense of loyalty which brought the colonel first to her mind. She must warn him. She went into a Tube station telephone box and rang through but received no answer. Her quest for Crewe had as little result. She drove off to the flat, thinking that possibly the telephone might be out of order or that they would have returned by the time she reached there, but there was no answer to her ring. She went out again into the street in despair and walked slowly towards Regent Street. Then she saw two people ahead of her, and recognised the swing of the colonel's shoulders. She broke into a run and overtook them. The colonel swung round as she uttered his name and peered at her.

"Lollie!" he said in surprise, and he looked past her as though seeking some police shadow.

"I have something important to tell you," she said. "Let us go up here."

They turned into a deserted side street, and rapidly she told her story.

"So Pinto's getting out, is he?" said the colonel thoughtfully. "Well, it is no more than I expected. An aeroplane, too? Well, that's enterprising. I thought of something of the sort, but there's nowhere I could go, except to America."

He dropped his head on to his chest and was considering something.

"Thank you, Lollie," he said simply. "I'm glad that you didn't go with Selby—you would never have got to the Continent alive."

He said this in an ordinary conversational tone, and the girl gasped. She did not ask him for an explanation and he offered none. Crewe, standing in the background, looked at the man with something like bewilderment.

"And now I think you'd better make a real getaway, and not trust to the police," said the colonel. "Maybe with the best intentions in the world, Stafford King can't save you if I happen to be jugged. And you too, Crewe," he turned to the other.

"So Pinto is going, eh?" he bit his nether lip, "and that is why he promised to bring the fifty thousand to-morrow morning. Well, somehow I don't think Pinto will go," he spoke deliberately. "I don't think Pinto will go."

"It is too dangerous for you to stop him–" began Crewe.

"I shall not try to stop him," said the other; "there's somebody besides myself on Pinto's track, and that somebody is going to pull him down."

"But why don't you escape, colonel?" she urged. "There is the aeroplane waiting at Bromley. We could easily persuade the man that Pinto had sent us."

He shook his head.

"You take your own advice," he said, "and clear out to-night. Get her away, Crewe. Don't worry about the police. You've got twenty-four hours in hand. This is Pinto's night," he said between his teeth. "Pinto—the dirty hound!"

Slowly they paced the street together in silence. When they came to the end the colonel turned.

"I want to shake hands with you, Lollie. I shook hands with you once before, intending to send you to a very quick decease. You're carrying your money with you, aren't you, Crewe?"

"Yes," said the other.

"Good!" responded the colonel. "Now get away."

He took no other farewell but turned abruptly and left them. Crewe was following him, but the girl caught his arm.

"Don't go," she said in a low voice. "Don't you know the colonel better?"

"I hate leaving him like this," he said.

"So do I," said the girl quietly. "I've still got some decent feeling left. We're all in this together. We're all crooks, as bad as we can possibly be, and if he's used us we've been willing tools. What is your Christian name?" she asked.

He looked at her in surprise.

"Jack," he said. "What a weird question to ask!"

"Isn't it?" she said with a laugh but a little catch in her throat. "Only we're to be comrades and stick to one another, and I hate calling you by your surname, so I'm going to call you Jack."

It was his turn to be amused. They walked in the opposite direction to that which the colonel had taken.

"You're very quiet," she said after a while.

"Aren't I?" he laughed.

"Have I offended you?" she asked quickly. "Was it wrong to call you Jack? Oh, yes, somebody else must have called you Jack."

"No, no, it isn't that," he said, "but I haven't been called by my Christian name for years and years," he said wearily, "and somehow it seems to span all the bad times and take me back to the—the–"

"The 'Jack' days?" she suggested, and he nodded.

Then after another period of silence.

"This is a queer ending to it all, isn't it?" he said, and her heart skipped a beat.

"Ending?" she whispered. "No, no, not ending! It may be the beginning of a new life. I haven't got religious," she added quickly, "and I'm not getting sentimental. All my past life doesn't come up in front of me as it does in the story-books. Only I've just faith that there's something better in life than I've ever found."

"I should think there is," said Crewe. "It couldn't be much worse, could it?"

"I haven't been bad," she said—"not bad like you probably think I have."

"I never thought you were bad," he said. "You were just a victim like the rest of them. You were only a kid when you started working for the colonel, weren't you?"

She nodded.

"Well, there's a chance for you, Lollie. Your passage is booked and all that sort of thing—have you sufficient money?"

"I've plenty of money," she said.

"Fine!" He dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. "There's a big, big chance for you, my girl."

"And for you?" she asked.

He laughed.

"There is no chance for me at all," he said simply. "They'll take me and they'll take Pinto and last of all they'll take the colonel. It is written," he added philosophically. "Why—why, what is the matter?"

She stood stock-still and was holding on to his arm with both hands.

"You mustn't say that, you mustn't say that!" she said brokenly. "It isn't finished for you, Jack. There's a chance to get out, and the colonel has told you there's a chance. He meant it. He knows much more than we do. If you've got murder on your soul, or something worse; if you feel that you're altogether so bad that there isn't a chance for you, that there's no goodness in your life which can be expanded, why, just wait and take what's coming. But for God's sake know your mind, and if you feel that in another land, with—with someone who loves you by your side–"

Her voice broke.

"Why, Lollie," he said very gently. "You don't mean–?"

"I'm just as shameless as I've ever been" she said, "but I'm not proposing to marry you, I'm not asking for anything save your friendship and your comradeship. I think people can love one another without—marrying and all that sort of thing; but do you—will you–"

"Will I go?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I'll go anywhere with that prospect in sight," and he slipped his arm round her shoulders, and, bending, kissed her on the cheek.

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE FALL OF PINTO

Whilst Pinto was putting the finishing touches to his scheme of flight, the colonel paced his room, whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus" jerkily. He was restless and nervous, and rendered all the more irritable by the disappearance of his servant, a minor member of the gang, who had been a participant in every act of villainy, and who had been in charge of the arrangements for the abduction of Maisie White. Twice in the course of the evening he wandered through the hall, opened the outer door, and looked out on to the landing.

On the first occasion there was nothing to see, but on the second it was only by the narrowest margin of time that he failed to detect a dark figure moving noiselessly up the stairs and disappearing on to the second landing. The man above heard the door open and close again, and stood watching. Then, when no sound reached him, he moved to the door of Pinto's flat, opened it, deposited the suit-case which he was carrying in the hall, and closed the door softly behind him.

He was within for about a quarter of an hour, then he reappeared, and still carrying his suit-case, passed swiftly down the stairs and out into the street. The clock struck half-past nine as he disappeared, and a quarter of an hour later Stafford King received by special messenger a communication which gave him something to think about. He read it through twice, then called up the First Commissioner and gave him the gist of the communication.

"That's the third time we've had this sort of message," he said.

"The others have proved right," said the Commissioner's voice, "why shouldn't this?"

"But it seems incredible," said Stafford in perplexity. "We've been watching these people for years and we've never found them with the goods."

"I should certainly act on it, King, if I were you," said the Commissioner. "Let me know what happens. Of course, you may make a mistake, but you must take a chance on that."

Pinto had a lot of business to do at the theatre that night. For a week he had not banked the theatre's takings, but had converted them into paper money, and now he took from his safe the last penny he could carry. It was half-past eleven when he came to his Club, where supper had been prepared for him. He paid the bill from notes he had taken from the bank that day. Presently the waiter came back.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but the cashier says that this note is a wrong 'un."

"A wrong 'un?" said Pinto in surprise, and took it in his hand.

There was no doubt whatever that the man was right. It was the most obvious forgery he had ever handled.

"Then I've been sold," he smiled; "here's another."

He took the second note and examined it. That also was bad, as he could tell at a glance. In the tail pocket of his dress-coat he had the money he had taken from the theatre and was able to settle the bill. He was worried on the journey back to the flat. He had drawn a hundred pounds from the bank that morning in five-pound notes. He remembered putting them into his pocket-book and had no occasion to disturb them since. It was unlikely that the bank would have given him such obvious forgeries. He was stepping from the taxi when the awful truth dawned on him. The notes had been planted, the forgeries substituted for the good paper! He was putting his hand in his pocket, intending to take out the money and push it down the nearest drain, when he was gripped.

"Sorry and all that," said a voice.

He turned round shaking like an aspen.

"Stafford King," he said dully.

"Stafford King it is. I have a warrant for your arrest, Silva, on a charge of forging and uttering. Bring him up to his rooms."

The colonel heard the noise on the stairs and came to the door. He stood, a silent spectator, watching with unmoved face the procession as it passed up to the floor above.

"I want your key," said Stafford, and humbly the Portuguese handed it to him.

Stafford opened the door and snapped on the light.

"Bring him in," he said to the detective who held Pinto. "What room is this?"

"My dining-room," said Pinto faintly.

Stafford entered the room, turning on the light as he did so.

"Hullo, Pinto," he said.

Pinto could only look.

The table was littered with copper-plates and ink rollers. There was a thick pad of counterfeit money on one corner of the table, held down by a paper weight; little bottles of acids were scattered about, and near the table was a small lever press, so small that a man might carry it in a corner of his handbag.

"I think I have got you, Pinto," said Stafford King, and Pinto Silva nodded before he fell limply into the arms of his captor.

* * * * *

Maisie White had gone to bed early and the bell rang three times before she awoke. She slipped into a dressing-gown, and, going to the window, leaned out. She looked down upon the upturned face of a girl and in spite of the distance and the darkness of the night, recognised her. The man who stood in the background, however, she could not for the moment place. Nevertheless, she did not hesitate to go downstairs.

"Is that Miss White?" asked the girl.

"Yes. It is Lollie Marsh, isn't it? Won't you come in?"

Lollie was hesitant.

"Yes," she said after awhile and they went upstairs together. "I'm very sorry I disturbed you, Miss White, but it is a matter which can't very well wait. You know that Mr. Stafford King has been kind to me?"

Maisie nodded. She was looking at the girl with interest and was surprised to note how pretty she was. She could not forget what Lollie Marsh had done for her that dreadful night at the nursing home, and if the truth be told, she had inspired the assistance which Stafford had been giving the girl.

"Mr. King has booked my passage to America, as you probably know," Lollie went on, "but at the last moment I have been obliged to change my plans."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said the girl. "I was hoping that you'd get away before–"

"I am hoping to get away before," Lollie smiled faintly. "But you see, one has to be very quick, because things are moving at such a rapid rate. They arrested Pinto to-night—we only just heard of it."

"Arrested Silva?" said the girl in surprise. "That is news to me. What is the charge?"

"I didn't quite understand what the charge was. I know he's arrested," said Lollie. "The colonel has advised me to get out as quickly as I can. And there's a big chance for me, Miss White. I'm going to be married!"

She blurted the words out, and Maisie stared at her. Somehow she had never thought of Lollie Marsh as a person who would get married, and it was amazing to see the confusion and shyness in which her confession had thrown her.

"I congratulate you with all my heart," said Maisie. "Who is the fortunate man?"

"I can't tell you. Yes, I will," said the girl. "I'll trust you. I'm marrying Jack Crewe."

"Crewe? I remember. Mr. King spoke about him. But isn't he one of the—isn't he a friend of the colonel?"

Lollie nodded.

"Yes, but we're going away to-night. That is why I came to see you."

Maisie White clasped the girl's hands in hers.

"You yourself are facing a great happiness and a beautiful life," pleaded Lollie, her eyes filling with tears. "Can't you feel some sympathy with me? For I want love and happiness and security more even than you, because you have never known anything of the dreadful apprehensions and uncertainties such as I have passed through. And I want you to help me in this. I'm not going to ask you to influence Mr. King to do anything but his duty. But I want just a chance for Jack."

Maisie shook her head.

"I don't know that I can promise that," she said. "Mr. King has always spoken of your friend as one of the least dangerous of the gang. When are you leaving?"

"To-night."

"To-night? But how?"

"That's a secret."

"But it is a secret I won't reveal," smiled Maisie.

"By aeroplane," said Lollie after a moment's hesitation, and told the story of Pinto's preparation.

"You'd better not tell me where you're going," warned Maisie, but she didn't stop Lollie in time. "Well, I wish you luck and I'll do my best for you." She stopped and kissed the girl.

"There's one warning I want to give you, Miss White," said Lollie as she stood in the doorway. "The colonel is a desperate man and I don't think somehow that he's coming through this with his life. He's been a good friend of mine up to a point and according to his lights, but you've been good and Mr. King has been more than good. Beware of the colonel now that you have him at bay! That is all!"

Then she was gone.