“Damn you,” he hissed; “threaten me!… I will have your coat off your back, you damned policeman!… You sneaking slop!… Kate’s what she is. She will beat you and all your flat-footed pals! If she’s bad, you can’t make her anything else. I made her, yes, I made her! She is going to beat you, do you hear, and you will never catch her or me. I made her! You can’t scare me…!” His shrill voice trembled with anger, he was shaking from head to foot and the bony fist which shivered in Michael’s face was so tightly clenched that the knuckles stood out whitely. “She is not the kind you can cure with psalms, Mr. Policeman! You can’t pray over her because she has nothing to pray to, do you hear that? You caught me. You sent me to that hell at Wandsworth and I am going to get back on you, you and all people like you. Kate’s the biggest thing you have handled and she is going to break you, break you!” “Uncle!” He turned round to meet the white face of the girl. “Are you mad?” she asked quietly. He dropped his eyes before hers. “He got me rattled,” he muttered. Michael looked at the searcher and the woman shook her head. With a nod he dismissed her. “Not guilty!” he said flippantly. He looked at the trembling man in front of him with a calm intensity. “I shall remember a lot of what you said, Westhanger, and you will hear from me one of these days.” He walked over to the fireplace, for out of the tail of his eye he had seen the burnt paper. He thrust a finger gently through the ash. “Still warm,” he said. “I gather we were a little late.” He scooped out a handful of the ash and carried it to the light. A word or two of the burnt instructions was still faintly visible but there was nothing to assist him. Nevertheless he had the whole of the ashes carefully deposited in a box and carried away--he himself being the last of the police to leave. He stood in the centre of the room carefully smoothing the nap of his felt hat and Crime Street waited for the inevitable warning. In this they were disappointed, for Michael addressed himself solely to Kate. “I will give you a chance, Miss Westhanger,” he said and they wondered why he did not employ the more familiar style of address. “You are about to commit a crime which will render every one of you liable to long terms of penal servitude. What that crime is, I don’t know, but I am certain it is what Stockmar would call ‘kolossal.’ It would not matter to me if everyone of you rotted in prison for the rest of your lives.” “Tank you,” said Mr. Stockmar, “dat is fery goot of you!” “When I say everyone of you,” said Michael, “I exclude Kate. She is a young girl and if there is one of you who has any pretensions to manhood, you will get her out of this gang before you go any farther. If there is one of you who has a mother or a sister or any woman in the world for whom he has the slightest respect, he will try to save that child from herself. That is all.”