"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest--so help me Gawd, it's true. Arst him if I didn't." The sergeant laughed openly at the story. "He run two of our men from the National Sporting right round Covent Garden and back, sir," he said to Alban. "The gentleman dropped the box and couldn't wait. But we'll see about all that in the morning." "If you mean Captain Forrest of the Trafalgar Club, I have just left him," interposed Alban, quickly; "this lad has been known to me for some years and I am positively sure he is not a thief. Indeed, I will answer for him anywhere--and if he did pick up the box, I can promise you that Captain Forrest will not prosecute." He turned to "Betty" and asked him an anxious question. "Is it true, Betty--did you pick up the box?" "I picked it up and put it into the gentleman's hand. He couldn't stand straight and he dropped it again. Then a cab runner found it and some one cried 'stop thief.' I was frightened and ran away. That's the truth, Mr. Alban, if I die for it--" "We must search you, Betty, to satisfy the officers." "Oh, yes, sir--I'm quite willing to be searched." He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his pockets, which, as he said, were open at all times to the inspection of his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness, helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that dark warren and bigger game to be had. "Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain Forrest--and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night--I'll leave the lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to do. And mind you remember what I say." It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune. "So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew Richard Gessner when I was--er--hem--on duty in Kensington, and in all matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me, how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your residence in his house." "Then you heard about it--from whom?" Alban asked.