st hour, I'll stake my life on that. Good night. Show Mr.
Fawe out, Jim."

The Romany had not time to thrust back the cigars upon his host, and
dazed by the strategy of the thing, by the superior force and mind
of the man who a moment ago he would have killed, he took the box and
turned towards the door, taking his hat dazedly from Jim.

At the door, however, catching sight of the sly grin on the mulatto
servant's face, his rage and understanding returned to him, and he faced
the masterful Gorgio once again.

"By God, I'll have none of it!" he exclaimed roughly and threw the box
of cigars on the floor of the room. Ingolby was not perturbed. "Don't
forget there's an east-bound train every day," he said menacingly, and
turned his back as the door closed.

In another minute Jim entered the room. "Get the clothes and the wig and
things, Jim. I must be off," he said.

"The toughs don't get going till about this time over at Manitou,"
responded Jim. Then he told his master about the clothes having been
exposed in the room when the Romany arrived. "But I don't think he seen
them," Jim added with approval of his own conduct. "I got 'em out quick
as lightning. I covered 'em like a blanket."

"All right, Jim; it doesn't matter. That fellow's got other things to
think of than that."

He was wrong, however. The Romany was waiting outside in the darkness
not far away--watching and waiting.

CHAPTER X. FOR LUCK

Felix Marchand was in the highest spirits. His clean-shaven face was
wrinkled with smiles and sneers. His black hair was flung in waves of
triumph over his heavily-lined forehead; one hand was on his hip with
brave satisfaction, the other with lighted cigarette was tossed upwards
in exultation.

"I've got him. I've got him--like that!" he said transferring the
cigarette to his mouth, and clenching his right hand as though it could
not be loosed by an earthquake. "For sure, it's a thing finished as the
solder of a pannikin--like that."

He caught up a tin quart-pot from the bar-counter and showed the
soldered bottom of it.

He was alone in the bar of Barbazon's Hotel except for one person--the
youngest of the officials who had been retired from the offices of the
railways when Ingolby had merged them. This was a man who had got his
position originally by nepotism, and represented the worst elements of a
national life where the spoils system is rooted in the popular mind. He
had, however, a little residue