“I also want a bit of a talk,” he said calmly. “There is a young lady in this house, brought here against her will. You’ve got to let her go.” The angry mutter of protest that he had expected did not come, rather was his dictum received in complete silence. This was bad, and he looked round for the danger. Then he missed a face. “Where is our friend Goyle, our dear landlord?” he asked with pleasant irony. “He hasn’t been here to-day,” Bat hastened to say. Jimmy looked at Connor standing by the door biting his nails, and Connor avoided his eye. “Ah!” Jimmy’s unconcern was perfectly simulated. “Jimmy wants us to send the girl back.” Connor was speaking hurriedly. “He thinks there’ll be trouble, and his friend the ’tec thinks there will be trouble too.” Jimmy heard the artfully-worded indictment unmoved. Again he noticed, with some concern, that what was tantamount to a charge of treachery was received without a word. “It isn’t what others think, it is what I think, Connor,” he said dryly. “The girl has got to go back. I want Reale’s money as much as you, but I have a fancy to play fair this journey.” “Oh, you have, _have_ you,” sneered Connor. He had seen the cupboard door behind Jimmy move ever so slightly. Jimmy sat with his legs crossed on the chair that had been placed for him. The light overcoat he had worn over his evening dress lay across his knees. Connor knew the moment was at hand, and concentrated his efforts to keep his former comrade’s attentions engaged. He had guessed the meaning of Goyle’s absence from the room and the moving cupboard door. In his present position Jimmy was helpless. Connor had been nervous to a point of incoherence on the way to the house. Now his voice rose to a strident pitch. “You’re too clever, Jimmy,” he said, “and there are too many ‘musts’ about you to please us. We say that the girl has got to stay, and by ---- we mean it!” Jimmy’s wits were at work. The danger was very close at hand, he felt that. He must change his tactics. He had depended too implicitly upon Connor’s fear of him, and had reckoned without the “Borough Lot.” From which of these men did danger threaten? He took their faces in in one comprehensive glance. He knew them--he had their black histories at his finger-tips. Then he saw a coat hanging on the wall at the farther end of the room. He recognized the garment instantly. It was Goyle’s. Where was the owner? He temporized. “I haven’t the slightest desire to upset anybody’s plans,” he drawled, and started drawing on a white glove, as though about to depart. “I am willing to hear your views, but I would point out that I have an equal interest in the young lady, Connor.” He gazed reflectively into the palm of his gloved hand as if admiring the fit. There was something so peculiar in this apparently innocent action, that Connor started forward with an oath.