CHAPTER

JOURNALISM IS AN EXACTING TASKMASTER. Worn as Silverdale was, reluctant as he was to leave Hilary, his first duty was to the newspaper that employed him. He held in his hands the biggest newspaper story of years and though the actual raid and the burning of the house in Cello Street had already brought down the battalions of Fleet Street, there was nothing that they could have gained that would in any way take the gloss off his big story.

      So it was that leaving Hilary with Garfield, who promised that she should be carefully looked after, he hurried to Fleet Street.

      It was late and the early editions of the paper had already been dispatched, but a number of the night staff, including the chief sub-editor to the news-editor, were still on duty. They welcomed the sunken-eyed Silverdale boisterously.

      "You've been left standing this time, Jimmie. While you've been hunting will-o'-the-wisps, there's been a big stunt up in Bloomsbury—a great yarn and arrests wholesale. We've given it four columns."

      Jimmie searched his pocket for the makings of a cigarette and rolled it languidly. "I know," he said. "I was there."

      The news-editor had had a wearing night and his temper was a little jagged. "You were there," he repeated. "Then why the policemen didn't you lot us hear from you? See here, Silverdale, you may think you're the big noise on this sheet, but you've got no right to hold things up till the paper's gone to press. Why didn't you 'phone—"

      Silverdale held up a deprecating hand. "Don't fly off the handle, old bean. I didn't get in touch with you because I couldn't. You see I was inside that house when they set fire to it and couldn't very well—"

      The news-editor gripped him by the shoulders, all his anger gone. He looked into the reporter's weary, humorous eyes and then swung away swiftly to the 'phone." Tell Mackshott there Is a big story coining," he ordered. "We'll run a special edition." He dashed down the receiver and turned again to Jimmie. "There won't be time for you to write it, " he declared. "You must dictate. Half a moment."

      His quick eye had appreciated that Silverdale was on the verge of utter exhaustion. He gave swift orders to a boy who, galvanized into activity, slipped over to the Paper Club for brandy and coffee. Thus stimulated, Jimmie began his big story—the biggest story, outside the war, of his career.

      Every person in the building who could write shorthand was pressed into service, for minutes gained meant pounds saved in special trains. Watch in hand, the news-editor touched each man on the shoulder at the end of two minutes and the writer almost without pause would take up the work of transcription while another followed Silverdale's dictation. The chief sub snatched the slips as they were finished, numbered them consecutively and corrected slight errors and jammed them into pneumatic tubes to be shot up to the composing room.

      Silverdale had often noticed that a state of acute physical exhaustion re-acted as a stimulant on his mind. He formulated his phrases and the sequence of his story clearly, and as he came the fight in the tunnel, he knew he was, in the words of Fleet Street, "getting there." The news-editor's eyes glistened and he licked his lips appreciatively. Here was a big story told in a big way. Yet Jimmie had not unduly stressed those parts of the episode of which he did not wish the public to have too close an appreciation. Only where he himself was concerned did be let himself go large. That had to be done. He was a part of the paper. Jimmie Silverdale would have preferred to shine a little less conspicuously. As the representative of the Daily Wire, he was forced to sink his modesty.

      It was an hour before he finished. The news-editor slapped him lightly on the back. "This will make our obscure and loathsome contemporaries sit up, Jimmie," he said. "You're one, of the seven wonders of the world."

      "Yes," said Jimmie listlessly.

      "What are you going to do now?"

      "Go home and have asleep. There'll be the wind-up of the yarn to do to-morrow and then I'm going to have a holiday."

      "You've earned it," agreed the other.

      "As a fact," said Jimmie in a burst of confidence,"I'm going to get married."

      "The devil you are. I never thought you were a marrying man. Who's the poor deluded victim?"

      Jimmie was rolling another cigarette with slow, nervous fingers. "It's the best girl in the world," he said." She's a lady of the name of Hilary Sloane."

      The news-editor whistled. "I begin to understand a lot of things that puzzled me," he said. "Well, good luck, Jimmie."

      Silverdale slept like a log that night-a sleep of pure exhaustion. When he awoke, it was after ten o'clock and he could bear the newsboys in the streets. He smiled happily and bathed and dressed before he looked at the paper. Sprawled right across the main page was a big headline.

      THE SIEGE OF CELLO STREET The Daily Wire Unmasks Great Murder Conspiracy

      WHO KILLED HAROLD SAXON? Exclusive Story of Battle with Revolvers in Underground Tunnel Beneath Burning Gambling Hell.—Vivid Story of Daily Wire Representative Who Was Imprisoned by Prisoner.

      SEVERAL ARRESTS (By JAMES SILVERDALE—Our Special Correspondent)

      Jimmie smiled happily. This was the sort of thing that made life worth living.

      An hour later he found Garfield at Scotland Yard. The chief detective inspector admitted to two hours' sleep in an armchair and confessed to Jimmie that he felt a trifle wearied. Yes, he had had Miss Sloane escorted safely home and everything was looking promising.

      "Just for to-day, we're going to charge Eston with attempting to murder you," he said. "There'll only be formal evidence of arrest and we'll get a remand till we're good and ready to go on."

      "How about Miss Dring?"

      Garfield sucked at his pipe. "In hospital and not expected to live. She was shot through the lungs. She's conscious and I'm going to try to et a statement from her if the doctors permit."

      "I'll go with you," said Jimmie.

      All that day he acted as Garfield's shadow and the chief inspector was a very busy man. The organization of such a prosecution as it was intended to initiate was in itself no light business and Scotland Yard had to supply the Public Prosecutors' Department with all the material on which to act. It was after mid-day when they received an intimation that Nora Dring, though very weak, was in a condition when she might be questioned. Accompanied by a magistrate, they found the girl breathing painfully, her vivid hair forming a startling splash of color on the white cot where she rested, a doctor by her side. She turned a white pain-drawn face towards them. Silverdale, who had flashes of sentiment, laid a bunch of roses at the foot of the bed.

      "Thank you," she gasped. "I scarcely deserve them, do I?"

      "I am sorry to worry you like this," said Garfield. "We should not have worried you but it is essential in the interests of justice that you answer a few questions. You will understand that you are not forced to answer. You may refuse if you like. You ought to know that your condition is serious."

      "I'm dying," said the girl placidly. "I know it."

      "Your condition is very grave, said the doctor. "But there is a chance—a remote chance."

      "Don't trouble to deceive me," she said grimly. "I'm going to die. I'm terribly afraid that it's not so dreadful as I thought."

      "I want to know what you know of the murder of Sir Harold Saxon," said Garfield quietly. "Did Eston have any concern in it?"

      She raised herself on one elbow. "You know I was his wife," she said. "You know I killed him!" Her eyes, unnaturally bright, sought Garfield's questioningly.

      "I know that," he said gravely. "Do you feel equal to telling us the whole story of your associations with him?"