"She wants to clear her father. She told me that only a week ago. And
then I've been making inquiries on my own. I found that she was seen
coming out of the Albemarle mansion, the night that Jack made his last
visit to Boundary's flat."
Sir Stanley rose.
"Wait," he said and left the room.
Presently he came back with something in his hand.
"If Miss White is Jack o' Judgment, and if she were captured to-night,
how do you account for this? it was under my pillow when I woke up."
He laid on the table the familiar Jack of Clubs.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE TURKISH BATHS
Colonel Boundary had a breakfast party of three. Though he had been up
the whole of the night, he showed no signs of weariness. Not so Pinto or
Crewe, who looked fagged out and all the more tired because they were
both conspicuously unshaven.
"Half the game's won," said the colonel. "We'll get rid of this girl and
Solly White by the same stroke. I'm afraid of Solly, he knows too much.
By the way, Raoul is coming over."
"Raoul!" said Crewe, sitting up suddenly, "why, colonel, you're mad!
Didn't the Scotland Yard man tell you----"
"That he suspected a French hand in the case of 'Snow' Gregory? All the
more reason why Raoul should come," said the colonel calmly; "he ought
to report this morning."
"You're taking a risk," growled Pinto.
"Nothing unusual," replied the colonel, shelling a plover's egg. "It is
the last thing in the world they would suspect at Scotland Yard after
their warning, that I should bring Raoul over again. Besides, they don't
know him anyway. He's just a harmless young French cabinet-maker. He
doesn't talk and I will get him out of the silly habit of leaving his
visiting-card."
There was a silence, which Crewe broke.
"You want him for----"
He did not finish the sentence.
"For work," replied the colonel. "It is a thousand pities, but it would
be a thousand times more so if you and I were jugged, and waiting in the
condemned cell for the arrival of Mr. Ellis, the eminent hangman.
Raoul's a workman. We can trust him. He doesn't try any funny business.
He lives out of this country and I can cover his tracks. Besides," the
colonel went on, "I shall give him enough to live in comfort for the
next two years. Raoul is a grateful little beast, and thank God! he can
neither read nor write."
"I don't like it," said Crewe. "I hate that kind of thing. Why not give
Solly a chance? Why not get up a fight--a duel, anything but
cold-blooded murder?"
The colonel turned his cold eyes upon the other, and his lips parted in
a mirthless smile.
"You're speaking up to your character now, aren't you, Crewe?" he said
unpleasantly. "You're 'Gentleman Crewe' once again, eh? Want to do
everything in the public school fashion? Well, you can cut out all that
stuff and feed it to the pigs. I'm Dan Boundary, looking forward to a
pleasant old age. There's nothing of the Knights of the Round Table
about me."
Crewe flushed.
"All right," he said, "have it your own way."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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