sh_ bath, Tommy, could you?" she said. "That wouldn't be you
at all. But what makes him do things like he did for Miss Blair?"

"I suppose because he's the Chief," was Thompson's reply.

Gladys Norman sighed elaborately. "There are moments, James
Thompson," she said, "when your conversation is almost inspiring,"
and she relapsed into silence.

For the last half-hour Thompson had been conscious of a feeling of
uneasiness. It had first manifested itself when he was engaged upon
a lightly grilled cutlet; had developed as he tackled the lower
joint of a leg of chicken; and become an alarming certainty when he
was half-way through a plate of apple tart and custard. Gladys
Norman's interest in Malcolm Sage had become more than a secretarial
one.

Mentally he debated the appalling prospect. By the time coffee was
finished he had reached an acute stage of mental misery. Suddenly
life had become, not only tinged, but absolutely impregnated with
wretchedness.

It was not until they had left the restaurant and were walking along
Shaftesbury Avenue that he summoned up courage to speak.

"Gladys," he said miserably, "you're not----" then he paused, not
daring to put into words his thought.

"He's so magnetic, so compelling," she murmured dreamily. "He knows
so much. Any girl might----"

She did not finish the sentence; but stole a glance at Thompson's
tragic face.

They walked in silence as far as Piccadilly Circus, then in the
glare of light she saw the misery of his expression.

"You silly old thing," she laughed, as she slipped her arm through
his. "You funny old thing," and she laughed again.

That laugh was a Boddy lifebelt to the sinking heart of Thompson.

CHAPTER IX THE HOLDING UP OF LADY GLANEDALE

I

"More trouble, Tommy," remarked Gladys Norman one morning as James
Thompson entered her room. He looked across at her quickly, a keen
flash of interest in his somnolent brown eyes.

"Somebody's pinched Lady Glanedale's jewels. Just had a telephone
message. What a happy place the world would be without drink and
crime----"

"And women," added Thompson, alert of eye, and prepared to dodge
anything that was coming.

"Tommy, you're a beast. Get thee hence!" and, bending over her
typewriter, she became absorbed in rattling words on to paper.

Thompson had just reached the third line of "I'm Sorry I Made You
Cry," when his quick eye detected Malcolm Sage as he entered the
outer office.

W