justice to-day?" I asked.

"Thank Number Two again," says Mr. Dark. "I was put up to asking after
it by what she told me. While we were talking about the advertisement, I
made so bold as to inquire what first set her thinking that her husband
and the Mr. James Smith whom we wanted might be one and the same man.
'Nothing,' says she, 'but seeing him come home with his hair cut short
and his whiskers shaved off, and finding that he could not give me any
good reason for disfiguring himself in that way. I had my suspicions
that something was wrong, and the sight of your advertisement
strengthened them directly.' The hearing her say that suggested to
my mind that there might be a difficulty in identifying him after the
change in his looks, and I asked him what he had done with the loose
hair before we left London. It was found in the pocket of his traveling
coat just as he had huddled it up there on leaving the Hall, worry,
and fright, and vexation, having caused him to forget all about it. Of
course I took charge of the parcel, and you know what good it did as
well as I do. So to speak, William, it just completed this beautifully
neat case. Looking at the matter in a professional point of view, I
don't hesitate to say that we have managed our business with Mr. James
Smith to perfection. We have produced him at the right time, and we are
going to get rid of him at the right time. By to-night he will be on
his way to foreign parts with Number Two, and he won't show his nose in
England again if he lives to the age of Methuselah."

It was a relief to hear that and it was almost as great a comfort to
find, from what Mr. Dark said next, that my mistress need fear nothing
that Josephine could do for the future.

The charge of theft, on which she was about to be tried, did not afford
the shadow of an excuse in law any more than in logic for alluding to
the crime which her master had committed. If she meant to talk about it
she might do so in her place of transportation, but she would not have
the slightest chance of being listened to previously in a court of law.

"In short," said Mr. Dark, rising to take his leave, "as I have told you
already, William, it's checkmate for marmzelle. She didn't manage the
business of the robbery half as sharply as I should have expected. She
certainly began well enough by staying modestly at a lodging in the
village to give her attendance at the examinations, as it might be
required; nothing coul