"I _think_ I know why it is," she said, nodding her pretty head wisely. She paused, and as Thompson made no comment she continued: "It's because he's human, warm flesh and blood."

"But when I'm warm flesh and blood," objected Thompson, with corrugated brow, "you tell me not to be silly."

"Your idea of warmth, my dear man, was learnt on the upper reaches of the Thames after dark," was the scathing retort.

"Yes, but----" he began, when she interrupted him.

"Look what he did for Miss Blair. Had her at the office and then-- then--looked after her."

"And afterwards got her a job," remarked Thompson. "But that's just like the Chief," he added.

"Where did you meet him first, Tommy?" she enquired, as she leaned forward slightly to light her cigarette at the match he held out to her.

"In a bath," was the reply, as Thompson proceeded to light his own cigarette.

"You're not a bit funny," she retorted.

"But it was," he persisted.

"Was what?"

"In a bath. He hadn't had one before and----"

"Not had a bath!" she cried. "If you try to pull my leg like that, Tommy, you'll ladder my stockings."

"But I'm not," protested Thompson. "I met the Chief in a Turkish bath, and he went into the hottest room and crumpled, so I looked after him, and that's how I got to know him."

"Of course, you couldn't have happened to mention that it was a _Turkish_ bath, Tommy, could you?" she said. "That wouldn't be you at all. But what makes him do things like he did for Miss Blair?"

"I suppose because he's the Chief," was Thompson's reply.

Gladys Norman sighed elaborately. "There are moments, James Thompson," she said, "when your conversation is almost inspiring,"

and she relapsed into silence.

For the last half-hour Thompson had been conscious of a feeling of uneasiness. It had first manifested itself when he was engaged upon a lightly grilled cutlet; had developed as he tackled the lower joint of a leg of chicken; and become an alarming certainty when he was half-way through a plate of apple tart and custard. Gladys Norman's interest in Malcolm Sage had become more than a secretarial one.

Mentally he debated the appalling prospect. By the time coffee was finished he had reached an acute stage of mental misery. Suddenly life had become, not only tinged, but absolutely impregnated with wretchedness.

It was not until they had left the restaurant and were walking along Shaftesbury Avenue that he summoned up courage to speak.

"Gladys," he said miserably, "you're not----" then he paused, not daring to put into words his thought.

"He's so magnetic, so compelling," she murmured dreamily. "He knows so much. Any girl might----"

She did not finish the sentence; but stole a glance at Thompson's tragic face.

They walked in silence as far as Piccadilly Circus, then in the glare of light she saw the misery of his expression.

"You silly old thing," she laughed, as she slipped her arm through his. "You funny old thing," and she laughed again.

That laugh was a Boddy lifebelt to the sinking heart of Thompson.

CHAPTER IX THE HOLDING UP OF LADY GLANEDALE

I

"More trouble, Tommy," remarked Gladys Norman one morning as James Thompson entered her room. He looked across at her quickly, a keen flash of interest in his somnolent brown eyes.

"Somebody's pinched Lady Glanedale's jewels. Just had a telephone message. What a happy place the world would be without drink and crime----"

"And women," added Thompson, alert of eye, and prepared to dodge anything that was coming.

"Tommy, you're a beast. Get thee hence!" and, bending over her typewriter, she became absorbed in rattling words on to paper.

Thompson had just reached the third line of "I'm Sorry I Made You Cry," when his quick eye detected Malcolm Sage as he entered the outer office.

With a brief "Good morning," Malcolm Sage pa.s.sed into his room, and a minute later Gladys Norman was reading from her note-book the message that had come over the telephone to the effect that early that morning a burglar had entered Lady Glanedale's bedroom at the Home Park, Hyston, the country house of Sir Roger Glanedale, and, under threat from a pistol, had demanded her jewel-case, which she had accordingly handed to him.

As the jewels were insured with the Twentieth Century Insurance Corporation, Ltd., Malcolm Sage had been immediately communicated with, that he might take up the enquiry with a view to tracing the missing property.

One of Malcolm Sage's first cases had been undertaken for this company in connection with a burglary. He had been successful in restoring the whole of the missing property. . In consequence he had been personally thanked by the Chairman at a fully attended Board Meeting, and at the same time presented with a gold-mounted walking-stick, which, as he remarked to Sir John Dene, no one but a drum-major in full dress would dare to carry.

Having listened carefully as she read her notes, Malcolm Sage dismissed Gladys Norman with a nod, and for some minutes sat at his table drawing the inevitable diagrams upon his blotting pad.

Presently he rose, and walked over to a row of shelves filled with red-backed volumes, lettered on the back "Records," with a number and a date.

Every crime or curious occurrence that came under Malcolm Sage's notice was duly chronicled in the pages of these volumes, which contained miles of press-cuttings. They were rendered additionally valuable by an elaborate system of cross-reference indexing.

After referring to an index-volume, Malcolm Sage selected one of the folios, and returned with it to his table. Rapidly turning over the pages he came to a newspaper-cutting, which was dated some five weeks previously. This he read and pondered over for some time. It ran:

DARING BURGLARY Country Mansion Entered Burglar's Sang-froid

In the early hours of yesterday morning a daring burglary was committed at the Dower House, near Hyston, the residence of Mr.

Gerald Comminge, who was away from home at the time, by which the burglar was able to make a rich haul of jewels.

In the early hours of the morning Mrs. Comminge was awakened by the presence of a man in her room. As she sat up in bed, the man turned an electric torch upon her and, pointing a revolver in her direction, warned her that if she cried out he would shoot. He then demanded to know where she kept her jewels, and Mrs. Comminge, too terrified to do anything else, indicated a drawer in which lay her jewel-case.

Taking the jewel-case and putting it under his arm, the man threatened that if she moved or called out within a quarter of an hour he would return and shoot her. He then got out of the window on to a small balcony and disappeared.

It seems that he gained admittance by clambering up some ivy and thus on to the narrow balcony that runs the length of one side of the house.

Immediately on the man's disappearance, Mrs. Comminge fainted. On coming to she gave the alarm, and the police were immediately telephoned for. Although the man's footprints are easily discernible upon the mould and the soft turf, the culprit seems to have left no other clue.