ands
chanced to find her. He studied her anxiously and decided that it was
best to keep her talking while they trudged along.

"Will you tell me how you came to be masquerading as Miss Williams?" he
asked. "Or is that something you'd rather not----?"

"Oh, no," she laughed. "That was Mr. Wade's bright suggestion. You
know, he's been helping me in my work quite a lot. I have had to keep
Daddy in the dark about it for fear he'd put his foot down on the whole
thing; so I made a confidant of Mr. Wade."

"Then I've got a bone to pick with him," said Phil. "Why in the
dickens didn't he tell me about you being at Ferguson's office when we
were both on the same trail?"

"It's just like him not to, Mr. Kendrick. Probably he thought your
work and my own would not cross at all and the less either of us knew
about the other the safer it would be. Why, he even refused pointblank
to tell me what he was going to do with that money--the envelope--that
is----"

He saw that she hesitated as if she had said too much.

"You mean the fifty thousand dollars, stolen from the Alderson
concern?" asked Phil quickly. "I was going to ask you about that. You
mean that Mr. Wade _really_ has that money? You can trust me, Miss
Lawson. Surely you know that," he urged. "He said he was piecing
together a puzzle of some kind and would tell me all about it soon.
How did he come to have that money?"

She studied him keenly before she spoke.

"I gave it to him to take care of," she said slowly.

"You! And where did you get it?"

"From Jimmy Stiles."

"Jim--my Stiles? Great Scott! And where did he get it?"

"He--stole it."

CHAPTER XVI

THE TAN SATCHEL ONCE MORE

She told him about it. He was much cleverer than most people thought,
young Jimmy Stiles, and he was overpoweringly anxious to help the
Lawsons. There was no length to which his loyalty to them would not
carry him. Kendrick nodded, recalling the boy's story as he had heard
it from her father.

"I had no hesitation in taking Jimmy into my confidence from the
first," said Cristy, "and it has been a big help to have someone
watching Nickleby from the inside. He is a great, little actor, that
boy, and has succeeded in fooling our friend, Nickleby, into the belief
that all he has to do is to snap his fingers and the frightened Jimmy
will perform his bidding without question. Daddy told you about
Stiles' early indiscretion, you said. Well, Jimmy has been pr