CHAPTER

WHENEVER A MYSTERIOUS CRIME develops Scotland Yard can usually afford time to organize its net for the confusion of the culprit. Its one aim is detection and arrest. Now a great daily newspaper also organizes, but what it does has to be done swiftly—it must have something to show its readers at breakfast time. It cannot wait. If it holds up a development of news while waiting for a coup it does so at the risk of a rival scoring a "beat."

      So Jimmie Silverdale found himself in for a busy evening. Every available man was thrown on to the story. Two dashed out to piece together such details as they might, find of Saxon's career. Another was sent to haunt Scotland Yard on the off chance of picking up stray ends of information. A fourth went to Grape Street police station on a similar mission. Still another held himself available to act as general aide to Jimmie. The foreign editor was drafting cables to New York to have Saxon's record investigated in America. The art editor had his minions scouring London for photographs.

      Jimmie, his right, shoulder hunched over his ear, his hair disheveled, was scrawling in frantic haste a vivid story of the affair so far as he already knew it. A sub-editor stood at his elbow and hurried the sheets away as they flashed from under his hand.

      The reporter finished, handed the last folio to the waiting sub, and pressed a bell.

      "Boy," he yelled impatiently, "get me a taxi."

      A lad, catching the feverish excitement which pervades a newspaper office when there is a big story on the move, scurried to the lift. Jimmie slipped into his overcoat and rolled a fresh cigarette.

      "We'll move on to St. Ronan's Place, Harry, me lad," he said to the man who had been detailed as his assistant. "Perhaps we can nobble Garfield."

      There was only one thing in the world that could have diverted Jimmie Silverdale's mind from the work he was engaged upon at that moment. And with the usual perversity of destiny it occurred as he reached the hall door. The commissiouaire thrust a letter into his hand.

      "Just brought by a district messenger, sir." Jimmie kept his cab waiting while he tore it open. He read it twice and then more slowly and reflectively.

      "Dear Mr. Silverdale," it ran. "You once told me that if ever the time came when I might need your help or advice you would come to me. I need you now. I am in great doubt and distress and know no one other than yourself to whom I can turn. Can you see me immediately? I shall be waiting outside Charing Cross Post Office at seven o'clock. Do come—for God's sake, come!—Hilary Sloane."

      The semi-hysterical appeal was as unlike the one girl in the world whom Silverdale hoped might in time be something closer than a friend to him, as it was possible to conceive. It was a couple of years since they had first met in France—she a nurse, he an officer in the intelligence branch, and the acquaintanceship had developed and ripened since the war ended.

      Always he remembered her as be first saw her one fragrant spring morning in France. She had stood under a big beech-tree outside the hospital with the sunlight creeping many patterned on to the blue painted ground. All in white she was, and the masses of her soft dark hair framed the dainty oval of her face flushed delicately by good health and open air.

      Jimmie, who was a judge, did not fail to mark the personality in the soft curves of the facea personality that was emphasized in the firmly molded chin and the depth of the gray eyes, whether they were alight with mischief or aglow with sympathy with some sufferer broken on the wheel of war.

      Of her family, of her pre-war associations he knew little. Their talk had never drifted in that direction and Silverdale was the most incurious person on earth apart from his profession. He knew that she had breeding; he knew that she had nerve—any woman who had faced the red horrors of war as she had done must have nerve.

      She lived, a bachelor girl, with a friend somewhere in Chelsea where they shared a studio and dabbled in art. Art, she had told Jimmie once, was her career. Very cleverly, with much gentleness, she had side-tracked him whenever he showed symptoms of falling into the mistake of urging another career upon her—a career that would have necessitated a change of name.

      "Don't get sloppy, Jimmie," was her warning, and Jimmie was content to wait.

      This, then, was the girl who for some reason had lost her grip on herself sufficiently to send that frenzied appeal for help. Silverdale's brow was puckered with a deep frown as he stepped into the taxi-cab. "I'm going to turn you out at Charing Cross, Harry," he announced. "You'll have to walk down to St. Ronan's Place. Get hold of Garfield if you can and see what you can dig out of him. He's a tight nut but he owes me one or two things and he might give us a line. I'll be with you in twenty minutes or so."

      Harry grunted assent. He was a silent man by nature, and Silverdale preferred to have silent assistants on matters of this nature.

      At Charing Cross as the cab slowed up they both descended. Jimmie strolled slowly along to the point where he was to meet the girl. Through the crowd he saw her hurrying to meet him, a slim, lithe figure in brown.

      "You came, Mr. Silverdale, " she exclaimed as she extended her hand. "I knew you would."

      He held her band in his for a moment and a smile flashed across his face. "It used to be Jimmie once. Why this formality?'

      A dimple rippled momentarily in her cheek.

      Jimmie, if you like. I'm glad you've come." He saw a hint of anxiety in the gray eyes. "You are the one man in the world who can help me now. Where can we go? I want to talk."

      "I've got a taxi here. Come along. No place like a taxi when you want to be absolutely sure you're not overheard." He stood aside to let her take her seat. "I'd like to take you out to dinner but duty forbids. I've got a job on."

      She glanced at him quickly, almost apprehensively. "What sort of a job? Has something happened?"

      "My dear girl, when one's on a daily paper something's always happening. It's a dog's life anyway. But don't let's talk shop. Get along, driver. Anywhere you like for ten minutes."

      He stole a look at her face. She was grave, almost despondent. Her lower lip was quivering though he could see she was making a brave effort to steady herself.

      "You 've been all shaken up, Hilary, he said. He clasped her small gloved hand in his own and held it tightly. Time was when she would have withdrawn it hurriedly with a laughing reproof. Now she sat still and silent. There were dark rings round her eyes and she was trembling.

      "My dear girl! What on earth's the matter?"

      She laughed a trifle tremulously. "Nothing is really wrong, but I sent for you because—because—oh, because I wanted a man to give me some advice and I knew you would help."

      "Sure!" he agreed.

      She pulled her hand away from him. "Oh, Jimmie, you must think me an utter fool. I'm behaving like a school-girl. I can't tell you anything. I know you'll not ask questions. If you'll help me you'll have to do it blindly without trying to find out why. Will you?"

      He laughed. "My dear girl, if I didn't know You better I'd think you were qualifying as a heroine for the moving pictures. What's all this parade of mystery? You can tell me just as much or just as little as you like and I'll do it. I'm not a demonstrative man, Hilary, but You'll believe that I mean it."

      As has been said, Jimmie Silverdale was an incurious man in many ways. Yet it cost him something to give that promise. Somehow all the girl's gayety, all her joy in life, all her competent self-possession seemed to have vanished. He longed to take her in his arms as if she were a child to find out what was worrying her and to soothe and comfort her.

      Her face showed the relief she felt. "Thank you," she said quietly. "You're a sport, Jimmie. I want you to help me get away out of London-to America for choice, but anyway out of London. I want to go away somewhere where I can't be found—where no one will know where I've gone nor how I've gone. You ought to know how to do it for me."

      He stared blankly at her. "You want to go away?"

      "Yes. Immediately. No bother about passports or booking passages. Nora Dring and I want to disappear—to vanish from the face of the earth as if we'd never existed. Jimmie" she clutched at his sleeve—"you must help us. You must. We must get away from London at once—to-night if possible. It is important—vital. You'll do it—-Jimmie?"

      The man drew a deep breath. "I'll do anything you say, Hilary. But why—?"

      She held up a warning forefinger. "No questions. You promised."

      "Very well," he agreed desperately. "Can you tell me how long you want to be away?"

      She shook her head decisively. "I can tell you nothing. If you help you help blind. "

      "I'm in it," he said with a little gesture of resignation. "I'll go you—blind!"

      Impulsively she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him full upon the lips. Then as if realizing that she had let her feelings get the better of her she disengaged herself and a warm flush mantled her face.

      For a space there was silence. Jimmie sat looking straight in front of him as though in deep thought. Presently he came to himself and glanced at his watch. It was a sign how deeply he was perturbed that he had come near committing the newspaper man's cardinal sin. He had forgotten that he was on a big story. It would never do to let the paper down.

      "Nothing can be done tonight," he said. "I shall be hard at it till long after midnight. Can you and Miss Dring be ready to start in the early morning—say seven o'clock?"

      "I'll be ready. Where shall we be going?"

      "I don't know. I must think things out. Now get along home in the taxi and I'll hop out and see after my work. That has to be done. Good-by for the present."

      "At seven o'clock," she repeated and waved him farewell.