ittle forward.

"I am sure you didn't send for me to tell me all about your hard lot,
colonel," he said, a little ironically.

The colonel shook his head.

"I wanted to get to know you," he said with fine frankness. "I've heard
a lot about you, Mr. King. I am told you do nothing but specialise on
the Boundary enterprises, and I tell you, sir, that you can't know too
much about me, nor can I know too much about you."

He paused.

"But you're quite right when you say that I didn't ask you to come
here--and a great honour it is for a big police chief to spare time to
see me--to discuss the past. It is the present I want to talk to you
about."

Stafford King nodded.

"I'm a law-abiding citizen," said the colonel unctuously, "and anything
I can do to assist the law, why, I'm going to do it. I wrote you on this
matter about a fortnight ago."

He opened a drawer and took out a large envelope embossed with a
monogram of the Spillsbury Syndicate. This he opened and extracted a
plain playing-card. It was a white-backed card of superfine texture,
gilt-edged, and bore a familiar figure.

"The Knave of Clubs," said Stafford King lifting his eyes.

"The Jack of Clubs," said the colonel gravely; "that is its name I
understand, for I am not a gambling man."

He did not bat a lid nor did Stafford King smile.

"I remember," said the detective chief, "you received one before. You
wrote to my department about it."

The colonel nodded.

"Read what's written underneath."

King lifted the card nearer to his eyes. The writing was almost
microscopic and read:

"Save crime, save worry, save all unpleasantness. Give back the property
you stole from Spillsbury."

It was signed "Jack o' Judgment."

King put the card down and looked across at the colonel.

"What happened after the last card came?" he asked, "there was a
burglary or something, wasn't there?"

"The last card," said the colonel, clearing his throat, "contained a
diabolical and unfounded charge that I and my business associates had
robbed Mr. George Fetter, the Manchester merchant, of L60,000 by means
of card tricks--a low practice of which I would not be guilty nor would
any of my business associates. My friends and myself knowing nothing of
any card game, we of course refused to pay Mr. Fetter, and I am sure Mr.
Fetter would be the last person who would ask us to do so. As a matter
of fact, he did give us bills for L60,000, but that was in relation to a
sal