the--er--fortunate occupant of the flat they were
evidently trying to burgle. I only learnt of it because the manager of
the club, who gets information of this character, thought I would be
interested."

"Anyway I'm glad they didn't succeed," said Jean after a while. "The
possibility of their trying rather worried me. The Hoggins type is such
a bungler that it was almost certain they would fail."

It was a curious fact that whilst her father made the most guarded
references to all their exploits and clothed them with garments of
euphemism, his daughter never attempted any such disguise. The
psychologist would find in Mr. Briggerland's reticence the embryo of a
once dominant rectitude, no trace of which remained in his daughter's
moral equipment.

"I have been trying to place this man Jaggs," she went on with a little
puzzled frown, "and he completely baffles me. He arrives every night in
a taxicab, sometimes from St. Pancras, sometimes from Euston, sometimes
from London Bridge Station."

"Do you think he is a detective?"

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "If he is, he has been imported
from the provinces. He is not a Scotland Yard man. He may, of course, be
an old police pensioner, and I have been trying to trace him from that
source."

"It should not be difficult to find out all about him," said Mr.
Briggerland easily. "A man with his afflictions should be pretty
well-known."

He looked at his watch.

"My appointment at Norwood is at eleven o'clock," he said. He made a
little grimace of disgust.

"Would you rather I went?" asked the girl.

Mr. Briggerland would much rather that she had undertaken the
disagreeable experience which lay before him, but he dare not confess as
much.

"You, my dear? Of course not! I would not allow you to have such an
experience. No, no, I don't mind it a bit."

Nevertheless, he tossed down two long glasses of brandy before he left.

His car set him down before the iron gates of a squat and ugly stucco
building, surrounded by high walls, and the uniformed attendant, having
examined his credentials, admitted him. He had to wait a little while
before a second attendant arrived to conduct him to the medical
superintendent, an elderly man who did not seem overwhelmed with joy at
the honour Mr. Briggerland was paying him.

"I'm sorry I shan't be able to show you round, Mr. Briggerland," he
said. "I have an engagement in town, but my assistant, Dr. Carew, will
conduct yo