Will you come and see me at half-past ten? I shan’t offer you money; I won’t even offer to find a job for you cutting wood or sorting waste paper. It is a very much bigger matter than that. He read the name and subscription again, and his brows met. “Oh, yes. Really--yes, if you wish.” He was, of a sudden, awkward and uncomfortable. The girl was quick to recognize the change in his manner and tone. “I’m afraid I’m rather a scarecrow, but you won’t mind that?” “No,” she said, and held out her hand. He hesitated a second, then took it in his. She felt the hardness of the palm, and winced at the significance of it. In another second she had joined the waiting Coldwell. Peter Dawlish watched them until they were out of sight, and then, with a little grimace, turned and walked slowly toward Blackfriars. “I knew about the smallness of the world,” said Coldwell, swinging his umbrella, “but I had no idea that applied to London. Peter! It’s years since I saw him last. He was rather a weed five years ago.” “Do you think he really is a forger?” “A jury of his fellow countrymen convicted him,” said Mr. Coldwell cautiously, “and juries are generally right. After all, he needed the money: his father was an old skinflint, and you cannot run a hectic establishment, and escort pretty ladies to New York, on two hundred and fifty pounds per annum. He was a fool; if he hadn’t taken that three months’ holiday the forgery would never have been discovered.” “Who was she?” Leslie asked; she felt that this question was called for. “I don’t know. The police _cher-chezed la femme_--forgive my mongrel French--but they never ran her to earth. Peter said it was a chorus girl from the Paris opera house. He wasn’t particularly proud of it.” The girl sighed. Near the dark entrance of Scotland Yard Mr. Coldwell stopped. “Now,” he said, standing squarely before her, “perhaps you will cease being mysterious, and tell me why you are so frantically interested in Peter Dawlish that you have talked Peter Dawlish for the past three days?” She looked up at him steadily from under the lowered brim of her hat. “Because I know just why Peter Dawlish wants to kill and whom he wants to kill!” she said. “Druze! A child would guess that!” scoffed the detective. “And he wants to kill him because he thinks Druze’s evidence sent him to jail.” She was smiling--a broad smile of conscious triumph. “Wrong!” she said. “If Druze dies, it will be because he doesn’t love children!” Mr. Coldwell could only gape at her. CHAPTER IV. PETER’S LODGINGS “Let me get this right,” Coldwell said slowly. “Druze will be killed--if he is killed--because he does not like children?” Leslie Maughan nodded. “I know you hate mysteries. Everybody in Scotland Yard does,” she said; “and one day I will tell you just what I mean. Do you remember last August you gave me a month’s vacation?” Chief Inspector Coldwell remembered that very well.