ain, Mo?"

"Not since that last time I told you about. What M'riar told me of. When
he showed his knife to frighten her. I couldn't be off telling Sim Rowe,
at the Station, about it, because of the children; and he's keeping an
eye. But the beggar's not been anigh the Court since. Nor I don't
suppose he'll come."

"But when ever does he see M'riar, to get at her savings?--that's what
I'd like to know. Eh, Mo?"

"M'riar ain't tied to the house. She's free to come and go. I don't take
kindly to prying and spying on her."

A long chat which followed evolved a clear view of the position. After
Mo's interview with Aunt M'riar just before Gwen's visit, he had applied
to his friend the Police-Inspector, with the result that the Court had
been the subject of a continuous veiled vigilance. He had, however, been
so far swayed by the distress of Aunt M'riar at the possibility that she
might actually witness the capture of her criminal husband, that he
never revealed to Simeon Rowe that she had an interest in defeating his
enterprise. The consequence was that every plain-clothes emissary put
himself into direct personal communication with her, thereby ensuring
the absence of Daverill from Sapps Court. She was of course guilty of a
certain amount of duplicity in all this, and it weighed heavily on her
conscience. But there was something to be said by way of excuse. He
was--or had been--her husband, and she did _not_ know the worst of his
crimes. Had she done so, she might possibly have been ready to give him
up to justice. But as Mo had told her this much, that his last
achievement might lead him to the condemned cell, and its sequel, and
she nevertheless shrank from betraying him, probably nothing short of
the knowledge of the age and sex of his last victim would have caused
her to do so. She had in her mind an image of a good, honest,
old-fashioned murder; a strained episode in some burglary; perhaps not
premeditated, but brought about by an indiscreet interruption of a fussy
householder. There are felonies and felonies.

Mr. Jerry's conversation with Uncle Mo in the Sun parlour gave him an
insight into this. "Look'ee here, Mo," said he. "So long as the Court's
watched, so long this here gentleman won't come anigh it. He's dodged
the London police long enough to be too clever for that. But so long as
he keeps touch with M'riar, you've got touch of him."

Uncle Mo seemed to consider this profoundly. "Not if I keep square with