man! No--and now the thing is, Mr.
Allerdyke--prompt action! What do you think, sir?"

"You mean--go and tell everything to your people at headquarters?" asked
Allerdyke.

"I shall have to," answered Chettle. "There's no option for me--now. What
I meant was--are you prepared to tell them all you know?"

"Yes!" replied Allerdyke. "At least, I will be in the morning--first
thing. I'll just tell you how things have gone to-day. Now," he
continued, when he had given Chettle a full account of the recent
happenings, "you stay here to-night--you can have my chauffeur's room,
next to mine--and in the morning I'll telephone to Appleyard to meet us
outside of New Scotland Yard, and after a word or two with him, we'll see
your chief, and then--"

Chettle shook his head.

"If that woman got a night's start, Mr. Allerdyke--" he began.

"Can't help it now," said Allerdyke decisively. "Besides, you don't know
what Appleyard mayn't have learned during the night."

But when Appleyard met them in Whitehall next morning, in response to
Allerdyke's telephone summons, his only news was that neither Rayner nor
Miss Slade had returned to the Pompadour, and without another word
Allerdyke motioned Chettle to lead the way to the man in authority.

CHAPTER XXX

THE PACKET IN THE SAFE

It was to a hastily called together gathering of high police officials
that the three visitors told all they knew. One after another they
related their various stories--Chettle of his doings and discoveries at
Hull, Allerdyke of what had gone on at the hotel, Appleyard of the
mysterious double identity of the woman who was Miss Slade in one place
and Mrs. Marlow in another. The officials listened quietly and
absorbedly, rarely interrupting the narrators except to ask a searching
question. And in the end they talked together apart, after which all went
away except the man who had kept his hands on the reins from the
beginning. He turned to his visitors with an air of decision.

"Well, of course, there's but one thing to be done, now," he said. "We
must get a warrant for this woman's arrest at once. We must also get a
search warrant and examine her belongings at that private hotel you've
told us of, Mr. Appleyard. All that shall be done immediately. But first
I want you to tell me one or two things. What are those two men you spoke
of doing--the Gaffneys?"

"One of them, the chauffeur, is hanging about the Pompadour," replied
Appleyard. "The oth