k with you, or alone?" asked Blunt.

"It's a little private investigation," replied Hawke, "and as I have to
leave town to-night, and spend a couple of months on the Continent, you
are the very man. I am afraid to appear in the thing myself, as I am
well known to the other parties, and so I fear being followed over
the Channel. I'm back again in the army." Jack's eyes grew larger in a
trice.

"Here comes the grub," gayly said Blunt. "You can trust the wine here.
The crib is square, too. Now, my boy, fire away. We are alone, and
no listeners here." Before Jack Blunt had put away a pint of best
"beeswing" sherry, he was aware of all Alan Hawke's intentions. His keen
brain was working all its "cylinders."

"Give me just five minutes to think it over, Governor," said the
sparkling-eyed, dark-faced, swell cracksman. "I know Jersey like a
book. I worked the 'summer racket' there once. The excursion boats, the
farmers' races, the Casino balls, the Military games, and the whole lay.
I think I can cook up a plan. You don't show up just yet. I am to do the
'downy cove.'"

"Not till I can double on my track, and you have piped the whole
situation off," said Hawke. "The game is a queer one. I may want to come
over later and show up and make a little society play on the girl. I
may, however, join you and help you secretly, or I may have to stay away
altogether. But I must act at once. There's money in it. If you have to
make the running yourself, you can get your own help."

"And, you have the real stuff?" agnostically demanded Jack Blunt.

"What do you want for a starter as your pay for the report to be sent
to me at the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland?" Hawke was eager and
disposed to be liberal.

"Oh! A hundred sovs for the job, as you lay it out--and fifty for my
little incidentals," laughed Jack Blunt. "Of course, if it goes on to
anything serious, you'll have to put away the real 'boodle,' where
I have something to run with, if I have to cut it. I might run up a
dangerous plant!"

"Bah!" decisively said Hawke. "Only an old fool to dodge, who is
over seventy--a dotard--and a foolish girl of eighteen--a simple
boarding-school miss!"

"Yes, but she has a million, you say. There's always some one to love
a girl with that money! Love comes in by the door, and the window, too,
you know!"

"She has never been five minutes alone with a man in her life!" cried
Hawke. "You are safe--dead sure safe!" Blunt's roving black