CHAPTER

THERE ARE OVERWHELMING MOMENTS of catastrophe which, for a time, deaden the faculties and then leave them preternaturally acute. Silverdale was stunned—but only for an instant. He sought vainly in his mind for some outlet to the tangle. What was Hilary Sloane doing in this galley?

      Saxon had been killed by a hatpin—evidence of probability, though not of certainty, that the person who killed him was a woman. Then her frantic appeal to him to get her away from London, to enable her to disappear. To his logical mind the motive stood out now sun-clear. The links bringing home the crime to her were all connected. Her meeting with Eston, her photograph in the flat, the hatpin, her anxiety to vanish.

      And yet—and yet! Intuition which he vainly tried to dismiss as mere sentiment told him he was wrong. This sunny girl, this woman whom he had set on a pinnacle in his soul—a murderess! It was impossible!

      "What's the matter, Jimmie?" Garfield's suave voice broke in on him as from a great distance. "You don't know the lady, do you?" Silverdale pulled himself together, though for a perceptible second he hesitated.

      "Lord, no! She's some looker, isn't she?" The casual words stuck in his throat.

      "A good-looking girl," agreed the inspector. "We've got to get hold of her. You don't know her, I suppose, Velvet?"

      The crook had been surveying Silverdale narrowly. His scrutiny dropped and he shook his head.

      "Never seen her in my life before I ran across her with Eston, Mr. Garfield."

      "Not the slightest idea where she is?"

      "Not the ghost of a glimmer."

      "Right you are, Velvet. Sign your name to your statement and you can go. But mind you," Garfield emphasized his warning with upraised forefinger, "you'll be wanted again. No tricks now. Understand?"

      "Sure, I get you. I'll not double-cross you. Stand on me. Good-night, Mr. Garfield. Goodnight, Mr. Silverdale."

      He picked up his hat, brushed it with his arm and moved jauntily out. Silverdale was thankful for the respite. Rightly or wrongly, with that lie to the detective he had committed himself to a course of action. His duty to his paper, his moral obligation to Garfield, the ethical duty of every citizen to see justice done, he had sunk fathoms deep. A pair of dancing gray eyes were more to him than all the world. At all costs Hilary Sloane must be protected.

      "A nice gentleman, Mr. Blunt," he commented smilingly.

      "Glad you like him," said Garfield. "Well, Jimmie, expect that will be all the show for to-night, though we never can tell. We'll be all out after Eston for a while—and then the girl. "

      "Ah, yes, the girl," Silverdale moistened his dry lips. "Who is she?"

      "That's what we've got to find out," said Garfield. "Now if you like, I'll show you over the flat, tell you what we've done and then home to bed." He yawned. "Heigh-ho, I'm tired. "

      Even the apprehension that weighted him like a pall could not lessen Jimmie's vivid professional interest in the details of the crime. His memory on what he saw or was told was as infallible as a cash-register. Small things may mean much in detective or newspaper work, though it is not always so simple to know which of a hundred trivialities may be the one of moment. He listened, observed, and questioned, but nothing served to shake the obvious horrible fact that oppressed him.

      He found Harry waiting for him impatiently when at last be had said good-night to Garfield and shook off his colleague's questioning with an unusual surliness. He wanted to think.

      Spite of Garfield's assurance that nothing farther could happen that night, he was not easy. The unexpected frequently happens with amazing suddenness on criminal investigations. The ponderous machine of Scotland Yard was at work at full pressure and Silverdale, though he knew its limitations, also knew its immense ramifications. Men were probably raking out Saxon's history for a score of years past, both in Britain and the United States. The hounds were out after Eston-he had no doubt that general instructions had been flashed by wire to every police district—in every port, at every railway station, there would be quiet, alert men in and out of uniform, watching and ready. There would be the direct pursuit, organized by Garfield himself. The organization of Scotland Yard and its allies is beyond doubt wonderful. No man whose identity is known—and Eston's was known—can hope to evade it. When Eston was caught-what then?

      Fort, the news-editor, met them in the corridor as they reached the Daily Wire office. He was in his shirt-sleeves.

      "Back again, Silver. What luck?"

      "I've got all the facts up to now, Fort," said Silverdale. "But I don't know how far to go. It may be that this won't be the big story I thought. "

      "Listen to him," Fort admonished the ceiling. Then he punched his desk with his fist. "You know as well, or better than I do, Jimmie, that it's a big story. Let's talk sense. How have you got on? There's a woman in it, so Laughton, who's been up to the Yard, tells me. Have they got on to her? Have you got a photograph?"

      Silverdale laughed happily, but the merriment was solely for the benefit of the other. A photograph of Hilary Sloane was in his pocket at that moment. No power on earth could have induced him to surrender that picture to be reproduced for all the world to gaze at. The caption that, would have gone beneath it burned in his brain. "Suspected!—Hilary Sloane, who is wanted for the murder of Sir Harold Saxon."

      Yet outwardly he was a man entirely at ease. "Photograph," he repeated. "You'll have to wait for that, Fort. I can't do miracles. How's the other stuff coming in?"

      "Nothing startling. Just good, ordinary stuff. We can't expect much till to-morrow." Fort was relieved to see Jimmie taking a more normal interest in affairs. "Better make a start, old lad, and get the final story into shape for the last edition, hadn't you?"

      "Perhaps you're right," agreed Silverdale. He jumped from his seat on the table, yawned and stretched himself. "Looks as if I might have a stiff day to-morrow. I'll finish up, go home, and have a good sleep. I'm a bit overtired."

      There was one matter that Jimmie had to attend to bef ore he got down to the story. In the privacy of a telephone box, he put through a call to a garage which had helped both him and the Daily Wire before.

      "I want a car outside Sloane Street Underground Station at seven in the morning," he said. "Something good. None of your broken-winded antiques. Get that? I may want to drive myself and I don't know how long I shall need it."

      Jimmie wrote more slowly than his usual feverish speed that night. Every word he considered with care. Whatever might befall in the hours and days to come, he was determined that Hilary Sloane's name should not be dragged in the mire. A hundred keen eyes in Fleet Street he knew would scrutinize his story of the crime in the morning. Men would be seeking for a hint, a clew, some line of investigation. He did not want that line to lead to Hilary Sloane.