Had Pinto been a psychologist, which he was not, he might have been struck by the unusual reference on the part of the colonel to the funds of the gang. It was a subject to which the colonel very seldom referred, and it was certainly one which he did not emphasise. The truth was that the colonel's investigations into his own private affairs had not been as satisfactory as he had hoped would be the case.

He was in the habit of advancing money, and the gang owed him a considerable sum, money which had been advanced for the pursuit of various enterprises. To draw that money would leave the Gang Fund sadly depleted, and he could not afford to draw upon it at a moment when they were all on edge. Not only were the two principal subordinates in the condition of mind which led them to jump at every knock and start at every shadow, but he had been receiving urgent messages from all parts of the country from the other men, and he had determined upon a step which he had not taken for three years—a meeting of the full "Board" of his lawless organisation.

That night summonses went forth calling his "business associates" to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the North European Smelter Syndicate. This was one of the companies which he operated, and the existence of which was justified by a small smelting works in the North of England, and owed its international character to the fact that it had branch works in Sweden. Its turnover was small, its list of stockholders was select. A summons to a General Meeting of the North European Smelter Company meant that the affairs of the gang were critical, and in this spirit the call was obeyed.

The meeting was held in the banquet hall of a West End restaurant, and the twenty men who assembled differed very little in appearance from twenty other provincial business men who might have been gathered to discuss the affairs of any company.

Their coming excited no comment, and apparently did not even arouse the attention of vigilant Scotland Yard. Nor, had the colonel's speech been taken down by a shorthand writer and submitted to the police, could any suggestion be found of the significance of the meeting. He spoke of the difficulties of trading, of the "competition" with which the company was faced, and called upon all the shareholders to assist loyally the executive in a very critical and trying time. But those who listened knew very well that the "competition" was the competition of the police, and they had their own ideas as to what constituted the trying time to which the colonel made reference.

It was a very commonplace, ordinary company meeting, which ended in a conventional way by a vote of confidence in the directors. It was when that had been passed, and the meeting had been broken up, and members and officials were talking together, that the real business started.

Then it was that Selby, the stout little man whose special job was to act as intermediary between the company and its more criminal enterprises, received his instructions to speed up. Selby was the receiver of letters. A burglar or a pickpocket who acquired in the course of his activities documents and letters which had hitherto been worthless found a ready market through Selby. Eighty letters out of every hundred were absolutely valueless, but occasionally they would find a rich gem, a love letter discreetly cherished, on which a new "operation" would be based. Then would begin the torturing of a human soul, the opening of new vistas of despair, the stage be cleared for a new tragedy.

The colonel was to find that the chief anxiety of his "shareholders" was not as to the future of the company or as to the success of its trading. Again and again he was asked a question couched in identical words, and again and again he replied with a shrug of his big shoulders:

"What's the good of worrying about a thing like that? Jack o' Judgment is a crook! That's all he is, boys, a crook. He's not the sort of man who'll go to the police and give us away; he wouldn't dare put his nose inside a police station. You leave him to us, we'll fix him sooner or later."

"But," somebody asked uneasily, "what about Raoul, that fellow who was killed at Putney?"

The colonel lifted his eyebrows.

"Raoul," he said; "he was nothing to do with us. I never heard the fellow's name until I read it in the paper. As to White"—he shrugged his shoulders again—"we can't prevent people having private quarrels, and may be this Frenchman and White had one. My theory is," he said, elaborating an idea which had only at that moment occurred to him, "that Raoul, White and this Jack o' Judgment were working together. Maybe it isn't a bad thing that White was killed under the circumstances."

He dropped his hand on the other man's shoulder and oozed geniality.

"Now, back you go, my lads, and don't worry. Leave it to old Dan to fix Jack o' Judgment, or Bill o' Judgment, or Tom o' Judgment, whoever he may be, and that we'll fix him you can be certain."

Coming away from the meeting, he expressed himself as being perfectly satisfied with its results. He brought Pinto and Crewe back with him in his car, and dropped the latter at Piccadilly Circus. Pinto would have been glad to have joined the "Swell," but the colonel detained him.

"I want to talk to you, Pinto," he said.

"I've had enough business for to-day," said the Portuguese.

"So have I," said the colonel, "but that doesn't prevent my attending to pressing affairs. I was talking to you to-day—or was it yesterday?—about Crotin."

"The Yorkshire woollen merchant?" said Pinto.

"That's the fellow," replied the colonel. "I suggested you should go and see him."

"And I suggested that I shouldn't," said Pinto; "let him rest. You'll never get another chance like you had before."

"Rest nothing," said the colonel testily, "you're scared because you imagine Crotin is warned? What do you think?"

Pinto was silent.

"I suppose you think that, because Jack o' Judgment intervened at the right moment, he went back to Yorkshire feeling full of himself? Well, you're wrong. You don't understand one side of the psychology of this business. That little fellow is quaking in his shoes and wondering what his grand wife would say if the fact that he was a bigamist was revealed. And there's more reason for his fear to-day than ever there was. Look here!"

He took a newspaper out of his pocket and Pinto remembered that, even during the meeting, the colonel had twice made reference to its columns and had wondered why. He had suspected that there had been some reference to the Boundary Gang, but this was not the case. The paragraph which the colonel pointed out with his thick forefinger was this:

"By the death of Sir George Tressillian Morgan an ancient baronetcy has become extinct. His estate, which has been sworn at over a million, passes to his niece, Lady Sybil Crotin, the daughter of Lord Westsevern, Sir George's son and heir having been killed in the war. Lady Sybil is the wife of a well-known Yorkshire mill-owner."

"I didn't know that," said Pinto, interested in spite of himself.

"Nor did I till to-day," said the colonel. "The fact is, this damned Jack o' Judgment has put everything else out of our minds. And you can see for yourself, Pinto, that this business is important."

Pinto nodded.

"We are not only after the mill, but here's a chance of making a real big coup. Now I can't send anybody else to Yorkshire—Crewe is impossible. Crotin knows him, and the moment he puts in an appearance, as likely as not Crotin would lose his head and give the whole show away. It is you or nobody."

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You know, there are times when I'm sorry about Solomon White," he said, "he was the boy for this kind of business—that is to say in the old days—he got a bit above himself towards the end."

Pinto was to find that the colonel had made all arrangements, and that for the previous two days he had been planning a predatory raid on the Yorkshireman.

There was to be a bazaar in Huddersfield on behalf of a local hospital, in which Lady Sybil Crotin took a great interest. She was organising the fête and had invited subscriptions.

"They're not coming in very fast, according to their local paper," said the colonel, "and that has given me an idea. You're a presentable sort of fellow, Pinto, and it is likely you'll be all the more successful because you're a foreigner. You'll go up to Yorkshire and you'll take a thousand pounds, and if necessary you'll subscribe pretty liberally to the fund, but it must be done through Lady Sybil. You can make yourself known to her and invite yourself to the house, where you can meet Crotin himself."

He made other suggestions, for he had worked out the whole scheme in detail for the other to carry into effect. Pinto's objections slowly dissipated. He was a vain man and had all the vices of his vanity. A desire to be thought well of, to be regarded as a rich man when he was in fact on the verge of ruin, had brought him into crooked practices and eventually into the circle of the colonel's acquaintances.

To appear amongst the fair as a giver of largesse on a magnificent scale suited him down to the ground. It was a part for which he was eminently fitted, as the colonel, a shrewd judge of humanity, knew quite well.

"I'll take it on," said Pinto, "but do you think he'll squeal?"

Boundary shook his head.

"I never knew a man who was caught on the rebound to squeal," he said. "No, no, you needn't worry about that. All you have to do is to use your discretion, choose the right moment, preparing him by a few hints for what is coming, and you'll find he'll sit down, like the hard-headed business man he is, and talk money."

Pinto pulled a little face.

"I know what you're thinking," said the colonel. "You hate the idea of the generous donor being unmasked and appearing to anybody as a blackmailer. Well, you needn't worry about that. Lady Sybil will not know, nor will anybody else that counts. And, believe me, Crotin doesn't count. Anyway, you can pretend that you're a perfectly innocent agent in the matter, that you know me slightly and that I've dropped hints which made you curious and which you are anxious to verify."

Pinto went off to make preparations for the journey. He had one of the top flats in the Albemarle building, a suite of rooms which, if they were not as expensively furnished as the colonel's, were more artistic. He had recently acquired the services of a new "daily valet"—a step he could take without fear that his secrets would be betrayed, since he had no secrets in his own rooms, kept no documents of any kind, and received no visitors.

The man opened the door to his ring.

"No, sir, nobody has been," said the servant in answer to his query, and Pinto was relieved.

For the past two days he had been living in a condition bordering on panic. It seemed unlikely that the colonel's confidence would be justified and that the police would take no action. And yet the incredible had happened. There had not been so much as an inquiry; and not once, though he had been on his guard, had he detected one shadow trailing him. His spirits rose, and he whistled cheerfully as he directed the packing of his trunk, for he was travelling North fully equipped for any social event which might await him.

"I am going to Yorkshire," he explained. "I'll give you my address before I leave, and you can let me know if there are any inquiries and who the inquirers were."

"Certainly, sir," said the man respectfully, and Pinto eyed him approvingly.

"I think you'll suit me, Cobalt," he said. "My last valet was rather a fool and inclined to stick his nose into business which did not concern him."

The man smiled.

"I shan't trouble you that way, sir," he said.

"Of course, there's nothing to hide," said Pinto with a shrug, "but you know what people are. They think that because you're associated in business with Colonel Boundary you're up to all sorts of tricks."

"That's what Mr. Snakit said, sir," remarked the man.

"Snakit?" said the puzzled Pinto. "Who the devil is Snakit?"

Then he remembered the little detective whom Maisie had employed and who had been bought over by the colonel.

"Oh, you see him, do you?" he asked carelessly.

"He comes up, sir, now and again. He's the colonel's valet, isn't he, sir?"

Pinto grinned.

"Not exactly," he said. "I shouldn't discuss things with Snakit. That man is quite reliable and–"

"Anyway, sir, I should not discuss your business," said the valet with dignity.

He finished packing and, after assisting his master to dress, was dismissed for the night.

"A useful fellow, that," thought Pinto, as the door closed behind the man. The "useful fellow" reached the street and, after walking a few hundred yards, found a disengaged taxi and gave an address. Maisie White was writing when her bell rang. It rang three times—two long and one short peals—and she went downstairs to admit her visitor. She did not speak until she was back in her room, and then she faced the polite little man whom Pinto had called Cobalt.

"Well, Mr. Grey," she said.

"I wish you'd call me Cobalt, miss," said the man with a smile. "I like to keep up the name, otherwise I'm inclined to give myself away."

"Have you found out anything?"

"Very little, miss," said the detective. "There's nothing to find in the apartment itself."

"You secured the situation as valet?"

He nodded.

"Thanks to the recommendations you got me, miss, there was no difficulty at all. Silva wanted a servant and accepted the testimonials without question."

"And you've discovered nothing?" she said in a disappointed tone.

"Not in Mr. Silva's room. The only thing I found out was that he's going to Yorkshire to-morrow."

"For long?" she asked.

"For some considerable time," said the detective.

"At least, I guess so, because he has packed half a dozen suits, top hats and all sorts of things which I should imagine he wouldn't take away unless he intended making a long stay."

"Have you any idea of the place he's going to?"

"I shall discover that to-morrow, miss," said Cobalt. "I thought I'd tell you as much as I know."

"And you have not been into the colonel's flat?"

The man shook his head.

"It is guarded inside and out, miss, now. He has not only his butler, who is a tough customer, to look after him, but he has Snakit, the man you employed, I understand."

"That's the gentleman," said the girl with a little smile. "Very good, Cobalt—you'll 'phone me if you make any other discoveries."

She was sitting at her solitary breakfast the next morning when the telephone bell rang. It was from a call office, and presently she heard Cobalt's voice. "Just a word, miss. He leaves by the ten-twenty-five train for Huddersfield," said the voice, "and the person he is going to see is Lady Sybil somebody, and there's money in it."

"How do you know?" she asked quickly.

"I heard him speaking to the colonel on the landing and I heard the words: 'He'll pay.'"

She thought a moment.

"Ten-twenty-five," she repeated; "thank you very much, Mr. Cobalt."

She hung up the receiver and sat for a moment in thought, then passed quickly to her bedroom and began to dress.

CHAPTER XXV
A PATRON OF CHARITY

Lady Sybil Crotin was not a popular woman. She was conscious that she had married beneath her—more conscious lately that there had been no necessity to make the marriage, and she had grown a little soured. She could never mix with the homely wives of local millionaires; she professed a horror of the vulgarities with which she was surrounded, hated and loathed her lord and master's flamboyant home, which she described as something between a feudal castle and a picture-palace; and openly despised her husband's friends and their feminine relatives.

She made a point of spending at least six months of the year away from Yorkshire, and came back with protest at her lot written visibly upon her face.

A thin, angular woman, with pale green eyes and straight, tight lips, she had never been beautiful, but five or six years in an uncongenial environment had hardened and wasted her. That her husband adored her and never spoke of her save in a tone of awe was common property and a favourite subject for local humour. That she regarded him with contempt and irritation was as well known.

In view of Lady Sybil Crotin's unpopularity, it was perhaps a great mistake that she should make herself responsible for the raising of funds for the local women's hospital. But she was under the impression that there was a magic in her name and station which would overcome what she described as shyness, but which was in point of fact the frank dislike of her neighbours. A subscription list that she had opened had a weak and unpromising appearance. She had with the greatest difficulty secured help for the bazaar, and knew, even though it had been opened by a duchess, that it was a failure, even from the very first day.

Had she herself made a generous contribution to the bazaar fund, there might have been a hope; but she was mean, and the big, bleak hall she had chosen as the venue because of its cheapness was unsuitable for the entertainment she sponsored.

On the afternoon of the second day, Lady Sybil was pulling on her gloves, eyeing her husband with an unfriendly gaze as he sat at lunch.

"It was no more than I expected," she said bitterly. "I was a fool ever to start the thing—this is the last time I ever attempt to help local charities."

Mr. Crotin rubbed his bald head in perplexity.

"They'll come," he said hopefully, referring to the patrons whose absence was the cause of Lady Sybil's annoyance. "They'll come when they hear what a fine show it is. And if they don't, Syb, I'll come along and spend a couple of hundred pounds myself."

"You'll do no such thing," she snapped; "and please get out of that ridiculous habit of reducing my name to one syllable. If the people of the town can't help to support their own hospital, then they don't deserve to have one, and I'm certainly not going to allow you to waste our money on that sort of nonsense."

"Have your own way, love," said Mr. Crotin meekly.

"Besides," she said, "it would be all over the town that it was your money which was coming in, and these horrid people would be laughing at me."

She finished buttoning her gloves and was looking at him curiously.

"What is the matter with you, John?" she asked suddenly, and he almost jumped.

"With me, love?" he said with a brave attempt at a smile. "Why, there's nothing the matter with me. What should there be?"

"You've been very strange lately," she said, "ever since you came back from London."

"I think I ate something that disagreed with my digestion," he said uneasily. "I didn't know that I'd been different."

"Are things well at your—factory?" she asked.

"At mills? Oh, aye, they're all right," he said. "I wish everything was as right as them."

"As they," she corrected.

"As they," said the humble Mr. Crotin.

"There's something wrong," she said, and shook her head, and Mr. Crotin found himself going white. "I'll have a talk with you when I've got this wretched bazaar business out of my head," she added, and with a little nod she left him.

He walked to the window of the long dining-hall and watched her car disappearing down the drive, and then with a sigh went back to his entremets.

When Colonel Dan Boundary surmised that this unfortunate victim of his blackmail would be worried, he was not far from the mark. Crotin had spent many sleepless nights since he came back from London, nights full of terror, that left him a wreck to meet the fears of the days which followed. He lived all the time in the shadow of vengeful justice and exaggerated his danger to an incredible degree; perhaps it was in anticipating what his wife would say that he experienced the most poignant misery.

He had taken to secret drinking too; little nips at odd intervals, both in his room and in his private office. Life had lost its savour, and now a new agony was added to the knowledge that his wife had detected the change. He went to his office and spent a gloomy afternoon wandering about the mills, and came back an hour before his usual time. He had not the heart to make a call at the bazaar, and speculated unhappily upon the proceeds of the afternoon session.

It was therefore with something like pleasure that he heard his wife on the telephone speaking more cheerfully than he had heard her for months.

"Is that you, John?" she was almost civil. "I'm bringing somebody home to dinner. Will you tell Phillips?"

"That's right, love," said Mr. Crotin eagerly.

He would be glad to see some new face, and that it was a new face he could guess by the interest in Lady Sybil's tone.

"It is a Mr. de Silva. Have you ever met him?"

"No, love, I've not. Is he a foreigner?"

"He's a Portuguese gentleman," said his wife's voice; "and he has been most helpful and most generous."

"Bring him along," said Crotin heartily. "I'll be glad to meet him. How has the sale been, love?"

"Very good indeed," she replied; "splendid, in fact—thanks to Mr. de Silva."

John Crotin was dressing when his wife returned, and it was not until half an hour later that he met Pinto Silva for the first time. Pinto was a man who dressed well and looked well. John Crotin thought he was the most impressive personality he had met, when he stalked into the drawing-room and took the proffered hand of the mill-owner.

"This is Mr. de Silva," said his wife, who had been waiting for her guest. "As I told you, John, Mr. de Silva has been awfully kind. I don't know what you're going to do with all those perfectly useless things you've bought," she added to the polished Portuguese, and Pinto shrugged.

"Give them away," he said; "there must, for example, be a lot of poor women in the country who would be glad of the linen I have bought."

At this point dinner was announced and he took Lady Sybil in. The meal was approaching its end when she revived the question of the disposal of his purchases.

"Are you greatly interested in charities, Mr. de Silva?"

Pinto inclined his head.

"Both here and in Portugal I take a very deep interest in the welfare of the poor," he said solemnly.

"That's fine," said Mr. Crotin, nodding approvingly. "I know what these poor people have to suffer. I've been amongst them–"

His wife silenced him with a look.

"It frequently happens that cases are brought to my notice," Pinto went on, "and I have one or two cases of women in my mind where these purchases of mine would be most welcome. For example," he said, "I heard the other day, quite by accident, of a poor woman in Wales whose husband deserted her."

Mr. Crotin had his fork half-way to his mouth, but put it down again.

"I don't know much about the case personally," said Pinto carelessly, "but the circumstances were brought to my notice by a friend. I think these people suffer more than we imagine; and I'll let you into a secret, Lady Sybil," he said, speaking impressively. He did not look at Crotin, but went on: "A few of my friends are thinking of buying a mill."

"A woollen mill?" she said, raising her eyebrows.

"A woollen mill!" he repeated.

"But why?" she asked.

"We wish to make garments and blankets for the benefit of the poor. We feel that, if we could run this sort of thing on a co-operative basis, we could manufacture the stuff cheaply, always providing, of course, that we could purchase a mill at a reasonable figure."

For the first time he looked at Crotin, and the man's face was ghastly white.

"What a queer idea!" said Lady Sybil. "A good mill will cost you a lot of money."

"We don't think so," said Pinto. "In fact, we expect to purchase a very excellent mill at a reasonable sum. That was my object in coming to Yorkshire, I may tell you, and it was only by accident that I saw the advertisement of your bazaar and called in."

"A fortunate accident for me," said Lady Sybil.

Crotin's eyes were on his plate, and he did not raise them.

"I think it is a great mistake to be too generous with the poor," said Lady Sybil, shaking her head. "These women are very seldom grateful."

"I realise that," said Pinto gravely. "But I am not seeking their gratitude. We find that many of these women are in terrible circumstances owing to no fault of their own. For example, this woman in Wales, whose husband is supposed to have deserted her—now, there is a bad case."

Lady Sybil was interested.

"We found on investigation," said Pinto, speaking slowly and impressively, "that the man who deserted her has since married and occupies a very important position in a town in the north of England."

Mr. Crotin dropped his knife with a crash and with a mumbled apology picked it up.

"But how terrible!" said Lady Sybil. "What a shocking thing! The man should be exposed. He is not fit to associate with human beings. Can't you do something to punish him?"

"That could be done," said Silva, "it could be done, but it would bring a great deal of unhappiness to his present wife, who is ignorant of her husband's treachery."

"Better she should know now than later," said the militant Lady Sybil. "I think you do very wrong to keep it from her."

Mr. Crotin rose unsteadily and his wife looked at him with suspicion.

"Aren't you feeling well, John?" she asked with asperity.

It was not the first time she had seen her husband's hand shaking and had diagnosed the cause more justly than she was doing at present, for John Crotin had scarcely taken a drink that evening.

"I'm going into the library, if you'll excuse me, love," he said. "Maybe, Mr.—Mr. de Silva will join me. I'd—I'd like to talk over the question of that mill with him."

Pinto nodded.

"Then run along now," said Lady Sybil, "and when you've finished talking, come back to me, Mr. de Silva. I want to know something about your charitable organisations in Portugal."

Pinto followed the other at a distance, saw him enter a big room and switch on the lights and followed, closing the door behind him.

Mr. Crotin's library was the most comfortable room in the house. It was lighted by French windows which opened on to a small terrace. Long red velvet curtains were drawn, and a little fire crackled on the hearth.

When the door closed Crotin turned upon his guest.

"Now, damn you," he said harshly, "what's thy proposition? Make it a reasonable sum and I'll pay thee."