you ever blush for yourself when you think of how you and your pals
held up Hoffman's store, shot Hoffman, and took his swag?" asked John
Minute. "I'd give a lot of money to see you blush, Crawley; and now, for
about the fourteenth time, what do you want? If it is money, you can't
have it. If it is more promotion, you are not fit to have it. If it is a
word of advice--"

The other stopped him with a motion of his hand.

"I can't afford to have your advice, John," he said. "All I know is that
you promised me my fair share over those Saibach claims. It is a paying
mine now. They tell me that its capital is two millions."

"You were well paid," said John Minute shortly.

"Five hundred pounds isn't much for the surrender of your soul's
salvation," said Sergeant Smith.

He slowly replaced his cape on his broad shoulders and walked to the
window.

"Listen here, John Minute!" All the good nature had gone out of his
voice, and it was Trooper Henry Crawley, the lawbreaker, who spoke. "You
are not going to satisfy me much longer with a few pounds a week. You
have got to do the right thing by me, or I am going to blow."

"Let me know when your blowing starts," said John Minute, "and I'll send
you a bowl of soup to cool."

"You're funny, but you don't amuse me," were the last words of the
sergeant as he walked into the rain.

As before, he avoided the drive and jumped over the low wall on to the
road, and was glad that he had done so, for a motor car swung into the
drive and pulled up before the dark doorway of the house. He was over
the wall again in an instant, and crossing with swift, noiseless steps
in the direction of the car. He got as close as he could and listened.

Two of the voices he recognized. The third, that of a man, was a
stranger. He heard this third person called "inspector," and wondered
who was the guest. His curiosity was not to be satisfied, for by the
time he had reached the view place on the lawn which overlooked the
library John Minute had closed the windows and pulled down the blinds.

The visitors to Weald Lodge were three--Jasper Cole, May Nuttall, and a
stout, middle-aged man of slow speech but of authoritative tone. This
was Inspector Nash, of Scotland Yard, who was in charge of the
investigations into the forgeries. Minute received them in the library.
He knew the inspector of old.

Jasper had brought May down in response to the telegraphed instructions
which John Minute had sent him.