."

"So soon as that?" cries Mr. Jay, looking very much astonished. "Well,
I'm ready, if you are. But, I say, Jack, is somebody else ready too? Are
you quite sure of that?"

He smiled as he spoke--a frightful smile--and laid a very strong
emphasis on those two words, "Somebody else." There is evidently a third
ruffian, a nameless desperado, concerned in the business.

"Meet us to-morrow," says Jack, "and judge for yourself. Be in the
Regent's Park at eleven in the morning, and look out for us at the
turning that leads to the Avenue Road."

"I'll be there," says Mr. Jay. "Have a drop of brandy and water? What
are you getting up for? You're not going already?"

"Yes I am," says Jack. "The fact is, I'm so excited and agitated that I
can't sit still anywhere for five minutes together. Ridiculous as it may
appear to you, I'm in a perpetual state of nervous flutter. I can't, for
the life of me, help fearing that we shall be found out. I fancy that
every man who looks twice at me in the street is a spy--"

At these words I thought my legs would have given way under me. Nothing
but strength of mind kept me at my peep-hole--nothing else, I give you
my word of honour.

"Stuff and nonsense!" cries Mr. Jay, with all the effrontery of a
veteran in crime. "We have kept the secret up to this time, and we will
manage cleverly to the end. Have a drop of brandy and water, and you
will feel as certain about it as I do."

Jack steadily refused the brandy and water, and steadily persisted in
taking his leave.

"I must try if I can't walk it off," he said. "Remember to-morrow
morning--eleven o'clock, Avenue Road, side of the Regent's Park."

With those words he went out. His hardened relative laughed desperately
and resumed the dirty clay pipe.

I sat down on the side of my bed, actually quivering with excitement.

It is clear to me that no attempt has yet been made to change the stolen
bank-notes, and I may add that Sergeant Bulmer was of that opinion also
when he left the case in my hands. What is the natural conclusion to
draw from the conversation which I have just set down? Evidently that
the confederates meet to-morrow to take their respective shares in the
stolen money, and to decide on the safest means of getting the notes
changed the day after. Mr. Jay is, beyond a doubt, the leading criminal
in this business, and he will probably run the chief risk--that of
changing the fifty-pound note. I shall, therefore, still make