My Lady's Money

l to consult the police on the question of the missing money. He had previously sent information

he had been officially associated with cases of striking and notorious crime, in which Government had lent its assistance to discover and punish the criminals. The opinion of a person in this position might be of the greatest value to Mr. Troy, whose practice as a solicitor had thus far never brought him into collisio

d you do i

d quietly, "I should not waste time

lf understood? I am going to the Head Office; and I have got a letter of introduction to

ou have asked for my advice, and I give you my advice. Tear up your letter o

d. "You don't believe in th

g his (or her) wits fairly against the wits of the police-in other words, let the mystery really be a mystery-and cite me a case if you can (a really difficult and perplexing case) in which the criminal has not escaped. Mind! I don't charge the police with neglecting their work. No doubt they do their best, and take the greatest pains in following the routine to which they have been trained. It is their misfortune, not their fault, that there is no man of superior intelligence among them-I mean no man who is capable, in great emergencies, of placing himself above conventional methods, and following a new way of his own. There have been such me

e?" asked

gal profession," the friend answered. "You may, perh

ruck off the Roll of Attorneys,

you have lost your wife, or lost your cigar-case, Old Sharon is equally useful to you. He has an inbred capacity for reading the riddle the right way in cases of mystery,

" Mr. Troy objected. "He w

ses that may follow. I can tell you (this is, of course, strictly between ourselves) that the authorities at my office took his advice in a Government case that puzzled the police. We approached him, of course, through persons who were to be trusted to represent us, without b

oy's professional caution. He went on to Wh

sion to persons of ordinary capacity-th

l lover somewhere in the background, with ruin staring him in the face unless he could raise five hundred pounds. Lady Lydiard (who had only consented to the search under stress of persuasive argument from Mr. Troy) resented this ingenious idea as an insult. She declared that if Isabel was watched the girl should know of it instantly from her own lips. The police listened with perfect resignation and decorum, and politely shifted their ground. A certain suspicion (they remarked) always rested in cases of this sort on the servants. Would her Ladyship object to private inq

or to one of the servants, as the undiscovered thief. Thinking the matter over in the retirement of his own office-and not forgetting his promise to Isabel to leave no means untried of establishing her