Without the slightest objection Sir Rohan permitted himself to be turned back and led up to the kitchen-porch. "Now you two sparklin' angels get out," said Uncle Beamish, "and go in. I'll attend to the horse." Jane, with a broad grin on her face opened the kitchen-door.

"Merry Christmas to you both!" said she.

"Merry Christmas!" we cried, and each of us shook her by the hand.

"Go in the sitting-room and get warm," said Jane, "she'll be down pretty soon.'

I do not know how long we were together in that sitting-room. We had thousands of things to say, and we said most of them. Among other things we managed to get in some explanations of the occurrences of the previous night. Kitty told her tale briefly. She and her aunt, to whom she was making a visit, and who wanted her to make her house her home, had had a quarrel two days before. Kitty was wild to go to the Collingwoods, and the old lady, who, for some reason, hated the family, was determined she should not go. But Kitty was immovable and never gave up until she found that her aunt had gone so far as to dispose of her horse, thus making it impossible to travel in such weather, there being no public conveyances passing the house. Kitty was an orphan, and had a guardian who would have come to her aid, but she could not write to him in time, and, in utter despair, she went to bed. She would not eat or drink, she would not speak, and she covered up her head.

"After a day and a night," said Kitty, "Aunty got dreadfully frightened and thought something was the matter with my brain; her family are awfully anxious about their brains. I knew she had sent for the doctor, and I was glad of it, for I thought he would help me. I must say I was surprised when I first saw that Mr. Beamish, for I thought he was Doctor Morris. Now tell me about your coming here."

"And all the time," she said, when I had finished, "you didn't know you were prescribing for me. Please do tell me what were those medicines you sent up to me and which I took like a truly good girl."

VOL. XVIII.-79

"I didn't know it at the time,” said I, "but I sent you sixty drops of the deepest, strongest love in a glass of water, and ten grains of perfect adoration."

"Nonsense!" said Kitty, with a blush, and at that moment Uncle Beamish knocked at the door.

"I thought I'd just step in and tell you," said he, "that breakfast will be comin' along in a minute. I found they were goin' to have buckwheat - cakes anyway, and I prevailed on Jane to put sausages in the bill of fare. Merry Christmas to you both! I would like to say more, but here comes the old lady and Jane."

The breakfast was a strange meal, but a very happy one. The old lady was very dignified; she made no allusion to Christmas or to what had happened, but talked to Uncle Beamish about people in Warburton.

I have a practical mind and, in spite of the present joy, I could not help feeling a little anxiety about what was to be done when breakfast was over; but, just as we were about to rise from the table, we were all startled by a great jingle of sleigh-bells outside. The old lady arose and stepped to the window.

"There!" said she, turning toward us. "Here's a pretty kettle of fish! There's a two-horse sleigh outside with a man driving and a gentleman in the back seat which I am sure is Doctor Morris, and he has come all the way, on this bitter cold morning, to see the patient I sent to him to come to. Now, who is going to tell him he has come on a fool's errand?"

"Fool's errand!" I cried. "Everyone of you wait in here and I'll go out and tell him."

When I dashed out of doors and stood by the side of my Uncle's sleigh, he was truly an amazed man.

"I will get in, Uncle," said I, "and if you will let John drive the horses slowly around the yard, I will tell you how I happen to be here."

The story was a much longer one than I expected it to be, and John must have driven those horses backward and forward for half an hour.

"Well," said my uncle at last, "I never saw your Kitty, but I knew her

father and her mother, and I will go in and take a look at her. If I like her, I will take you all on to the Collingwoods and drop Uncle Beamish at his sister's house."

"I'll tell you what it is, young Doctor," said Uncle Beamish at parting,

"you ought to buy that big roan horse, he has been a regular guardian angel to us, this Christmas."

"Oh, that would never do at all, cried Kitty. "His patients would all die before he got there."

"That is, if they had anything the matter with them," added my uncle.

T being, as a rule, the appointed lot of the police force to find their experience in criminal matters somewhat narrowly confined to the sphere of the poor and ignorant, it is a natural impulse, peculiar to these functionaries, to greet, with something approximating relish, those exceptional cases where crime diverges from its customary channel and involves the clever and well-todo. Thus it happened that when, on a certain morning in June, the inspector in charge at Scotland Yard was informed that a visitor desired an immediate interview, he received the intelligence with the indifferent habitude of his class, and presently found himself agreeably surprised by the entrance of a well-dressed and prosperous-looking man, evidently in a condition of extreme excitement. Accepting these surface indications as a promise of something out of the usual line, the inspector invited his visitor to be seated and awaited what he had to say with considerable interest.

"About a year ago," began the stranger, throwing his hat upon the inspector's table and coming to the point without the least circumlocution, "I was prospecting in Colorado, when I fell in with a fellow named Blair. We make acquaintance easily in those parts, and I took to him from the first. He was a smooth article, fair-mannered and soft

spoken, and I trusted him-like a North American ass, as I was-threw in my lot with his, and in forty-eight hours we were partners. My name is Snedecorby the way, do you object to my smoking? I can talk better when I smoke," and without awaiting the inspector's reply, Mr. Snedecor lighted a large cigar and, puffing appreciatingly, continued his narrative.

"The claim I had staked didn't promise to pan out very big, and Blair and I made a deal. He was to peg away at what I had opened, and I was to make a new venture farther up the river. We were to share and go halves on both claims, honor bright; signed papers in proper shape-he's got one and I've got the other- -" and here Mr. Snedecor tapped his breast-pocket as indicating the location of the document. The inspector nodded responsively and his visitor went on.

"The up-river experiment wasn't worth a damn, and at the end of six months I went back to Blair, found he had struck a line of pockets, taken out a cool fifty thousand, sold the claim for a hundred and seventy-five thousand, and cleared out with a quarter of a million, half of which was mine. I followed him," continued Mr. Snedecor, resuming his hat with great vehemence, and flinging his half-smoked cigar into the grate, "tracked him to El Paso, up to Chicago, east to New York, up into Canada, and finally here-and I want him;" and here the victim of misplaced confidence brought down his large

hand with a slam on the table and sat staring earnestly at the inspector. "How do you know he's here?" inquired the inspector.

"I've seen him," replied Snedecor, lighting another cigar as if the idea of smoking had just occurred to him. "He was fat and sleek, and was dressed up in your English fashion, but I'd know him anywhere-and I want him."

"But, my dear sir," explained the inspector, "there are many formalities to be observed before we can touch a case of this sort. The man has done nothing here, and you must get a requisition from your minister, apply for a warrant and extradition papers, and all that sort of thing."

"Oh, that's all been done. I'm no child," exclaimed Snedecor, impatiently.

"Then why didn't you point him out to the nearest constable when you saw him, and have him taken into custody at once?" inquired the inspector.

"Because I don't want him in that way," said the American, leaning forward and laying his forefinger impressively on the inspector's knee. "You don't know Blair. He's an ass about some things, such as travelling about without changing his name, for instance, but he is infernally deep where money is concerned; and if I don't find where that pile is before he's nabbed, I'll never see a cent of it. My idea is to have him shadowed, find out where he has cached the plunder, pre-empt it, and then jug him." And having thus delivered himself of his views on detective procedure, Mr. Snedecor fell a-rocking to and fro on the back legs of his chair, contemplating the inspector meanwhile with an indescribably knowing air.

The inspector, gathering the purport of this dialectical communication without much difficulty, at once recognized that instead of a high-grade criminal mystery, nothing lay ahead of him save a prosaic hunt for stolen money. This induced an immediate collapse of interest in Mr. Snedecor and his affairs, and assuming a stony official glare, he pushed a pad toward his visitor and said, coldly, "Give me your full name and address, and I will send you a man in the course of an hour or so."

"Plain clothes man, I suppose?" said Snedecor, inquisitively.

"Well, we shall hardly put a fancy costume on the job," replied the inspector, stiffly, and the American, in nowise abashed, leisurely wrote his name and the address, "5 Oakley Crescent, Chelsea," on the pad, and withdrew.

Two hours later Mr. Snedecor, who had with some difficulty occupied the interim by smoking a number of cigars while vacuously contemplating the glories of Chelsea Reach, repaired to his lodgings and found awaiting him, in the shabby drawing-room, a spare man of inscrutable countenance, who introduced himself as Mr. Moale, of Scotland Yard, adding, with commendable directness, that the sooner the party referred to was pointed out to him, the better. This suggestion was met with remarkable promptness by Snedecor, who, happening at the moment to glance from the window, suddenly collared Mr. Moale, and dragging him behind the curtain, exclaimed, impetuously, "There he comes now-the fellow with the silk dicer and gray pants. Size him up and don't forget him."

Thus admonished, the detective, peering from behind the shelter of the curtain, observed a well-dressed, soldierlylooking man walking leisurely past the house in the direction of the river, and with professional instinct seized his hat, with the obvious intention of setting out at once and keeping the quarry in view; but Snedecor interposed a restraining hand. He'll keep," he explained. "He lives close by in Cheyne Walk. Before you start, just tell me how this thing is going to be run. like to take a hand in it myself."

I'd

"Well, really, sir," replied Mr. Moale, surveying him with a wintry smile, "if you are going to hang about here, we might as well get out sandwich-men at once and have done with it. unless your party is blind."

Snedecor looked blank for an instant and then smiled in his turn. "It would be a little like hunting with a brass band," he said. "Where shall I go?" Well, not too far," said Moale. I'll put you up to a nice place just out of Pimlico Road, where you can be got at." Snedecor acquiescing in this proposal,

the necessary details were soon arranged, and nightfall found the American comfortably established at a small house in Westbourne Street, and Moale fairly started on the trail.

In selecting this man for what, on the surface, appeared to be a simple matter of ferreting out a base of supplies, the inspector had been influenced by Moale's well-known sagacity in eliminating, from cases in his charge, useless complications, and devoting his attention to important clews. He also knew that if there were any side villany concealed in the case in hand, Moale would infallibly detect its presence and shape his investigation accordingly, while ostensibly confining himself to his original purpose. It may be added that, in the present instance, the sequel proved that the confidence reposed in the detective's astuteness was amply justified. Within twenty-four hours from his parting with the American, Moale had discovered that the objective point of his quest was obscured by some curious complications, and he had accordingly entered upon a side issue of investigation which can be best described by quoting his report to the inspector on the evening following his visit to Oakley Crescent.

66

Snedecor's man," said Moale, reporting to his attentive superior, "passes by the name of Arthur Beveridge. He lives at 9 Cheyne Walk. Took the house, furnished, for a quarter, a month ago; undesirable premises, but agent for the property says tenant insisted on gas in his bed-room, and this was the only house obtainable that had it. So-called Mrs. Beveridge lives with him."

"Why 'so-called'?" cut in the inspector.

"Well, it's only a surmise on my part," replied Moale, indifferently. When a man does a ha'penny business at all the shops for a mile around, and crams the woman with him down the shop-keepers' throats as his wife, it somehow seems as if he wanted to call particular attention to the fact."

"Well, let that go," said the inspector.

"As to his money," resumed Moale, "I don't know where he keeps it, nor

how he gets it-unless it's at one place. Do you remember the River Syndicate, sir?" The inspector nodded. “Well, two of them are back again, in Duke Street, close to the pier-about a stone's throw from Beveridge's house."

"Which two?" inquired the inspec

tor.

"Sondheim and the Baron,” replied Moale. "If the Baroness is there she hasn't shown herself."

"How do you know?" said the inspector. "You never saw her."

"Quite so, sir," replied Moale, "but one of our men tells me there's no woman about the place. Only a boots. They're living very quiet." "Well, let that go too," said the inspector, impatiently. "Get back to your man.

"I was coming to him," resumed Moale, with a sort of suppressed relish in his tone. "He goes there, and I'm blessed if I don't think it's some sort of a game. B 804 says he's seen him going in of a night often enough, and his relief swears that Sondheim and the Baron don't know him. Swears they pass him in the street with no notice whatsoever."

The inspector reflected for a moment, and then asked, "Is the boat there?"

"Lying off the pier, sir, without a sign of life aboard her," replied Moale. "They're not trying to land anythingin fact the revenue men have been aboard and found her as empty as a drum."

"What do you think of it?" said the inspector, after another pause.

"I think she's there to get away in," said Moale, promptly.

"So do I," exclaimed the inspector. "Have you men enough to watch the whole job?"

"Benning and Scott watching the Cheyne Walk place, and Copley and Tyke on the syndicate house," said Moale. "I think we'll do, sir," and so saying the detective took his departure.

Snedecor, meanwhile, was already chafing under his banishment from the scene of action. After the weary hours and repeated disappointments of his recent pursuit, he had found a certain grim solace in having his recreant part

ner in sight, and had even at times contemplated something in the way of a tragical climax, such as picking off Blair with his revolver from the window of his lodgings, or something equally preposterous; now, brooding over the situation at a distance, he gradually began to be disquieted by the apprehension that Moale would let the game slip through his fingers, and this grew upon him to such a degree that he ventured forth upon the second evening of his seclusion, and prowled about in the vicinity of Cheyne Walk in the hope that a chance sight of Blair might reassure him. It was a curious vagary of fate that this violation of his tacit agreement with Moale resulted in supplying the detective with a fresh clew, which left him for the moment quite free to concentrate his attention upon his new line of investigation. Moale, shadowing his man, had followed the soi-disant Beveridge to Cremorne Gardens, and there came suddenly upon Snedecor, sitting at a table smoking, and absorbed in reading a newspaper. It may be admitted that the imperturbable detective was somewhat startled by this awkward rencounter, but to his astonishment Beveridge glanced at the unconscious American without the faintest indication of recognition, and sitting down at an adjoining table composedly ordered a tankard of beer, drank it, and then went leisurely on his way through the gardens, leaving Snedecor still engrossed in his newspaper. Moale, who was quick at jumping to conclusions, immediately inferred that Snedecor had, by some singular facial resemblance, been misled as to the identity of his man, and promptly deferring any present consideration of his case, instantly decided to follow up Beveridge from the point of view of the River Syndicate. He subsequently justified this course by the argument that in either case he was still keeping his man under surveillance.

The point of interest was now shifted to the "game" which the Syndicate had, presumably, in hand, and Moale, with all his astuteness, presently found his detective ability taxed to its utmost. He was perfectly well aware

that he was dealing with a community of the smoothest and most accomplished criminals known to England or the Continent. Both fields had been the scene of a series of adroit rascalities so cleverly conceived and carried out that, while repeatedly traced to the very door of the so-called Syndicate, all efforts at conviction had failed for lack of some link of evidence obliterated with consummate skill. The continental record laid to their credit more than one occult crime involving the taking of life; but their supposed operations in England had been thus far confined to certain clandestine enterprises with a small steamer along the line of the Thames, from which the party had derived its sobriquet of the River Syndicate. It need hardly be added that these operations had baffled the misdirected and precipitate efforts of the local police, and it was this repeated miscarriage of justice through premature action which now determined Moale to let the game be carried out to the end, even at the risk of its ultimate success.

The Baron, a well-educated Pole of unknown antecedents, was assumed to be the head of the association; but the fertility of invention that characterized its various ventures was almost universally ascribed by the police to the female member of the confederacy, known as the Baroness, without, it may be said, any presumption of a matrimonial connection. This ascription of evil eminence was peculiarly current in England, where, by a process of dexterous self-effacement, the Baroness had succeeded in almost entirely concealing her identity from the detective force. The third member of the Syndicate was a Jew named Sondheim, who was presumed to be the decoy, or go-between, from the fact of his constant travels from place to place, and from his apparently inexhaustible variations in the matter of hair and beard. He was a slightly built, swarthy man of excellent address, and was somewhat fondly regarded by the police of London as the probable "Queen's Evidence" when the supreme moment of retribution should arrive. Beveridge was a new man on the scene, and his connection with the