"Now, look here; suppose the worst comes, how far away is it? How long will it take to get a letter to Australia, and an answer or a journey back?" "Oh, I don't know." "Well, it'll take all the time _we_ want. But who is there to answer that advertisement?" "Oh, dear!" "You miserable coward! _She_ wouldn't know what it meant if she saw it." "No." "Arthur Pearson--" "Oh, _don't_!" "Arthur Pearson has not been heard of in twenty years." The old man shuddered, and drew a long sighing breath. "Walter Parks, after all his big talk, never came back from England," she hurried on. "Menard is dead; and Joe Blakesley is in California. The rest are dead, or scattered south and west. There are none of the train to be found here, except--except the Krutzers; and who can identify _them_ after twenty years?" "I shall never feel safe again." "Yes, you will. You always feel safe when the dollars jingle in your pockets, although it's precious little good they bring you." "But _her_ money is already gone." "Her husband has a full purse." "But how--" "Oh, I see the way clear enough. It's only half the work of the other job, and double the money." "The money! Ah! how do you think to get it?" "Honestly, this time; honestly, old man. It shall come to us _as a reward_!" Drawing nearer still to her hesitating partner, the woman began to whisper rapidly, gesticulating fiercely now and then, while the old man listened in amazement, admiration, doubt, and fear; asking eager questions, and feeling his way cautiously toward conviction. When the argument was ended, he said, slowly: "I shall never feel safe until it's over, and we are away from this place. When can you do--the job?" "To-morrow night." "To-morrow night!" "Yes; it's the very time of times. To-morrow night it shall be." "It's a big risk! We will have to bluff the detectives, old woman." "A fig for the detectives! They will have a cold scent; besides--we have dodged detectives before." CHAPTER IV. ENLISTED AGAINST EACH OTHER. It is early in the evening of the day that has witnessed the events recorded in the preceding chapters, and the Chief of the detectives is sitting in his easiest office chair, listening attentively to the words that fall from the lips of a tall, bronzed, gray-bearded man who sits opposite him, talking fast and earnestly. He has been thus talking, and the Chief thus listening, for more than an hour, and the story is just reaching its conclusion when the stranger says: "There, sir, you have the entire case, so far as I know it. What I ask is something unusual, but what I offer, in compensation, is something unusual too."