"Oh, my friends, you have had an all-fired narrow squeak. Up till the Friday in last week I held your wealth in the hollow of my ungodly hand and rejoiced in my nefarious cunning, but on that day as I with my guilty female accomplice stood listening with worldly amusement to the testimony of a converted brother at a meeting of the Salvation Army on Clapham Common, the gospel light suddenly shone into our rebellious souls and then and there we found salvation. Hallelujah! "What we have done to complete the unrighteous scheme upon which we had laboured for months has only been for your own good, dear friends that you are, though as yet divided from us by your carnal lusts. Let this be a lesson to you. Sell all you have and give it to the poor--through the organization of the Salvation Army by preference--and thereby lay up for yourselves treasures where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. (Matthew, chap, vi., v. 20.) "Yours in good works, "PRIVATE HENRY, THE SALVATIONIST. "_P.S._ (in haste).--I may as well inform you that no crib is really uncrackable, though the Cyrus J. Coy Co.'s Safe Deposit on West 24th Street, N.Y., comes nearest the kernel. And even that I could work to the bare rock if I took hold of the job with both hands--that is to say I could have done in my sinful days. As for you, I should recommend you to change your T. A. to 'Peanut.' "U. K. G." "There sounds a streak of the old Adam in that postscript, Mr Carlyle," whispered Inspector Beedel, who had just arrived in time to hear the letter read. THE TILLING SHAW MYSTERY "I will see Miss George now," assented Carrados. Parkinson retired and Greatorex looked round from his chair. The morning "clearing-up" was still in progress. "Shall I go?" he inquired. "Not unless the lady desires it. I don't know her at all." The secretary was not unobservant and he had profited from his association with Mr Carrados. Without more ado, he began to get his papers quietly together. The door opened and a girl of about twenty came eagerly yet half timorously into the room. Her eyes for a moment swept Carrados with an anxious scrutiny. Then, with a slight shade of disappointment, she noticed that they were not alone. "I have come direct from Oakshire to see you, Mr Carrados," she announced, in a quick, nervous voice that was evidently the outcome of a desperate resolution to be brave and explicit. "The matter is a dreadfully important one to me and I should very much prefer to tell it to you alone." There was no need for Carrados to turn towards his secretary; that discriminating young gentleman was already on his way. Miss George flashed him a shy look of thanks and filled in the moment with a timid survey of the room.