"Jack o' Judgment!" She breathed the words. "And I--I never thanked him! I never knew!" He told her the story step by step of the discovery which the police had made and the theories they had formed. "He was lured there," said the girl. She did not cry. She seemed incapable of tears. "He was lured there and murdered, and Jack o' Judgment slew his murderer? Poor father! Poor, dear daddy!" And then the tears came. Half an hour later he left her in charge of the nurse and went back to Scotland Yard to report. CHAPTER XXIII THE GANG FUND The news of the girl's escape had been received in another quarter. Colonel Boundary had sat in his favourite chair and listened without comment to Pinto's halting explanation. "Oh, they went out of the window and down a ladder, did they?" said the colonel sarcastically when the Portuguese had finished, "and you had a fit on the mat, I suppose? Well, that's a hell of a fine story! And what did you do? You who were plastered all over with guns? Couldn't you shoot?" "Did you shoot when you saw Jack o' Judgment?" said the other sullenly. "It is no good your telling me what I ought to do." "Maybe it isn't," said the colonel. "Well, there's nothing to do now, anyway. The girl's gone, and all your fine plans have come unstuck." "They weren't my plans," said Pinto indignantly, "it was your scheme throughout." The colonel bit off the end of his cigar and contemplated the ceiling reflectively. "We can only wait and see what will happen," he said. "The odds are all in favour of our being raided." Pinto went pale. "Yes," said the colonel, talking to himself, "I guess this is our last day of freedom. Well, Pinto, I hope you can pick oakum." "Oh, shut up about oakum," growled the other; "it isn't a joke." "It is not a joke," said the colonel, "and if it is, it is one of those jokes that make people laugh the most. And do you know the kind of joke that makes people laugh the most, Pinto? It is when somebody gets hurt; and we are the people who are going to get hurt." "Do you think she'll tell the police?" "It is extremely likely," said the colonel; "in fact, it is extremely unlikely that she won't tell the police. I am rather glad I'm out of it." Pinto leaped up. "You're out of it!" he shouted. "You're in it up to the neck!" The colonel shook his head. "I'm absolutely out of it, Pinto," he said, flicking the ash of his cigar into the fireplace. "I cannot be identified with this unhappy affair by so much as a finger-print." The Portuguese scowled down at him. "So that's the game, is it? You're going to double-cross us? You're going to be out of it and we're going to be in it."