or that led to
his bedroom, and put on the light. The room was empty, and the only
cupboard which might have concealed an intruder was wide open. He came
back, walked into the entrance hall, and opened the door softly. The
landing was empty too. He returned after fastening the door and slipping
the bolts--bolts which he had had fixed during the previous week.

"You wonder why I held a thanksgiving service?" said the colonel slowly.
"Well, I've heard that laugh before, and I thought my brain was
going--that's all. I'd rather it were Jack o' Judgment in the flesh than
Jack o' Judgment wandering loose around my hut."

"You heard it before?" said Pinto. "Here?"

"Here in this room," said the colonel. "I thought I was going daft.
You're the first person who has heard it besides myself." He looked at
Pinto. "A hell of a prospect, isn't it?" he said gloomily. "Let's talk
about the weather!"

CHAPTER XXX

DIAMONDS FOR THE BANK

There was no hope for Phillopolis from the first. The case against him
was so clear and so damning that the magistrate, before whom the
preliminary inquiry was heard, had no hesitation in committing him to
take his trial at the Old Bailey on a charge of receiving, and that at
the first hearing. Every article which had been stolen from the
diamondsmiths' company had been recovered in his flat. The police
experts gave evidence to the effect that he had been a suspected man for
years, that his method of earning a living had on several occasions been
the subject of police inquiry. He was known to be, so the evidence ran,
the associate of criminal characters, and on two occasions his flat had
been privately raided.

The woman who passed as his wife had nothing good to say of him. It was
not she who had admitted the police. Indeed, they found her in an upper
room, locked in. Phillopolis was something of a tyrant, and on the day
of his arrest he had had a quarrel with the woman, who had threatened to
expose him to the police for some breach of the law. He had beaten her
and locked her into an upper bedroom, and this act of tyranny had proved
his downfall, if it were true, as he swore so vehemently that the
articles which were found in his room had been planted there.

The colonel was not present, nor were any other members of the gang,
save little Selby, who had been summoned to the colonel's presence and
had arrived in the early morning.

"He hasn't a ghost of a chance," reported Selby, who