ked up in the
street, fighting drunk, and taken to the police station, where he
developed delirium tremens. Apparently he has been on the jag all the
week, and to-day's booze finished him off. The local inspector in
searching him found this piece of paper in his pocket and connected it
with the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, the matter being fresh in his
mind, as only this morning we had circulated a new description
throughout the home counties. He got me on the 'phone and sent a
constable up to town with the paper this afternoon."

"H'm," said Beale, biting his lips thoughtfully, "she evidently gave the
man the telegram, telling him to dispatch it. She probably gave him
money, too, which was the explanation of his final drunk."

"I don't think that is the case," said McNorton, "he had one lucid
moment at the station when he was cross-examined as to where he got the
money to get drunk, and he affirmed that he found it wrapped up in a
piece of paper. That sounds true to me. She either dropped it from a car
or threw it from a house."

"Is the man very ill?"

"Pretty bad," said the other, "you will get nothing out of him before
the morning. The doctors had to dope him to get him quiet, and he will
be some time before he is right."

He looked up at the other occupant of the room.

"Well, Parson, you are helping Mr. Beale, I understand?"

"Yes," said the other easily.

"Returning to your old profession, I see," said McNorton.

Parson Homo drew himself up a little stiffly.

"If you have anything against me you can pull me for it," he said
insolently: "that's your business. As to the profession I followed
before I started on that career of crime which brought me into contact
with the crude representatives of what is amusingly called 'the law,' is
entirely my affair."

"Don't get your wool off, Parson," said the other good-humouredly. "You
have lost your sense of humour."

"That's where you are wrong," said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my
sense of decency."

McNorton turned to the other.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"'I am imprisoned at Deans,'" repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in
this country?"

"There are a dozen of them," replied the police chief: "there's
Deansgate in Manchester, Deanston in Perth, Deansboro', Deans
Abbey--I've been looking them up, there is a whole crowd of them."

"Are there any 'Deans' near Kingston?"

"None," replied the other.

"Then it is obviously the