ou
might now be Mrs. Ralph Meiklejohn, eh?"

He was playing with her with the affable gambols of a cat toying with a
doomed mouse. Each instant Fowle was becoming more perturbed. He did not
like the way in which the detective ignored him. Was he to be swallowed
at a gulp when his turn came?

Even Rachel Craik was silenced by this last shot. She wrung her hands;
this stern, implacable woman seemed to be on the point of bursting into
tears. All the plotting and devices of years had failed her suddenly. An
edifice of deception, which had lasted half a generation, had crumbled
into nothingness. This man had callously exposed her secret and her
shame. At that moment her heart was bitter against Voles.

The detective, skilled in the phases of criminal thought, knew exactly
what was passing through the minds of both Rachel and Fowle. Revenge in
the one case, safety in the other, was operating quickly, and a crisis
was at hand.

But just then the angry voice of the East Orange plumber reached him:
"Just imagine Petch turnin' up; him, of all men in the world! An' of
course you talked nicey-nicey, an' he's such an obligin' feller that he
beats it after the car! Petch, indeed!"

There was a snort of jealous fury. Polly's voice was raised in protest.

"Jim, don't be stupid. How could I tell who it was?"

"I'll back you against any girl in East Orange to find another string to
your bow wherever you may happen to be," was the enraged retort.

The detective hastened to stop this lovers' quarrel, which had broken
out after a whispered colloquy. He was too late. Miss Polly was on her
dignity.

"Well, Mr. Petch is a real man, anyhow," came her stinging answer. "He's
after them now, and he won't let them slip through his fingers like you
did."

The sheer injustice of this statement rendered Jim incoherent. Petch was
an old rival. When next they met, gore would flow in East Orange. But
the detective's angry whisper restored the senses of both.

"Can't you two shut up?" he hissed. "Your miserable quarrel has warned
our prisoners. They were on the very point of confessing everything when
you blurted out that the chief rascal had escaped. I'm ashamed of you,
especially after you had behaved so well."

His rebuke was merited; they were abashed into silence--too late. When
he returned to the pair in the corner of the room he saw Rachel Craik's
sour smile and Fowle's downcast look of calculation.

"A lost opportunity!" he muttere