“My dear Angel,” wrote Jimmy, “I commend to you one Mr. Spedding, an ingenious man. If by chance you ever wish to visit him, do so in business hours. If you desire to examine his most secret possession, effect an entrance into a dreary-looking house at the corner of Cley’s Road, a stone’s-throw from ‘High Holly Lodge.’ It is marked in plain characters ‘To Let.’ In the basement you will find a coal-cellar. Searching the coal-cellar diligently, you will discover a flight of stone steps leading to a subterranean passage, which burrows under the ground until it arrives at friend Spedding’s particular private vault. If this reads like a leaf torn from Dumas or dear Harrison Ainsworth it is not my fault. I visited our legal adviser last night, and had quite a thrilling evening. That I am alive this morning is a tribute to my caution and foreseeing wisdom. The result of my visit is this: I have the key of the ‘safe-word’ in my hands. Come and get it.” Angel found the message awaiting him when he reached Scotland Yard that morning. He too had spent sleepless hours in a futile attempt to unravel the mystery of old Reale’s doggerel verse. A telegram brought Kathleen Kent to town. Angel met her at a quiet restaurant in Rupert Street, and was struck by the delicate beauty of this slim girl with the calm, gray eyes. She greeted him with a sad little smile. “I was afraid you would never see me again after my outburst of the other night,” she said. “This--this--person is a friend of yours?” “Jimmy?” asked the detective cheerily. “Oh, yes, Jimmy’s by way of being a friend; but he deserved all you said, and he knows it, Miss Kent.” The girl’s face darkened momentarily as she thought of Jimmy. “I shall never understand,” she said slowly, “how a man of his gifts allowed himself to become----” “But,” protested the detective, “he told you he took no part in the decoying of your father.” The girl turned with open-eyed astonishment. “Surely you do not expect me to believe his excuses,” she cried. Angel Esquire looked grave. “That is just what I should ask you to believe,” he said quietly. “Jimmy makes no excuses, and he would certainly tell no lie in extenuation of his faults.” “But--but,” said Kathleen, bewildered, “he is a thief by his own showing--a bad man.” “A thief,” said Angel soberly, “but not a bad man. Jimmy is a puzzle to most people. To me he is perfectly understandable; that is because I have too much of the criminal in my own composition, perhaps.” “I wish, oh, how I wish I had your faith in him! Then I could absolve him from suspicion of having helped ruin my poor father.”