Jack O' Judgment

eth gutter, and he was dead before the policeman on point duty

ks on a night of snow and st

ey found nothing except a little tin box of white powder whic

y in certain of his business enterprises. That was all. The colonel knew nothing of the young man's antecedents except that he had been an Oxford man who had come down in the world. The colonel added a few parti

ts, talked too much for the colonel's comfort, but people were very ready

ry of his fellow-countrymen returned a verdict of "W

until three months later there dawned upon Colonel

s he opened because it was marked "Private and Personal." It was not a letter a

ile assistant had long since passed from his mind. Then he saw w

O' JUD

ing

o' Jud

p his tired eyes as i

and dropped the pasteboard

d haggard, its lips parted in a little grin, the sm

ncerting happenings, and the colonel, taking counsel wi

s time for the past three years to smashing the Boundary Gang. He knew that this grave young man with the steady, grey eyes, who sat on the other side of the big Louis XV table in the ornate

the two protagonists--the refined, almost aesthetic chief of police on the

rus moustache, his double chin, his breadth and girth, his enormous hairy hands, now laid upon the table, mig

ay have been secretly amused at the man's sheer daring, but

remarkable in all the circumstances that I should ask for you? I dare say," he went on, "m

o reply. He sat erec

wfully. "I don't suppose there's anybody been libelled more than me--and my business associates. I've had the police nosing--I mean investigating--into my affairs, and I'll be straight wi

ent?" asked Stafford, with the

are the straightest and most honest police official in England, and possibly in the world

gh inviting an even closer inspectio

nd guessed a lot about its extraordinary ramifications. He was well aware, at any rate, that it was rich, and that this slow-speaking ma

a littl

tell me all about your hard lot, co

el shook

, Mr. King. I am told you do nothing but specialise on the Boundary enterprises, and I

pau

--and a great honour it is for a big police chief to spare time to see

d King

"and anything I can do to assist the law, why, I'm going t

Spillsbury Syndicate. This he opened and extracted a plain playing-card. It was

," said Stafford Ki

l gravely; "that is its name I under

lid nor did Sta

hief, "you received one before. Yo

lonel

s written u

to his eyes. The writing was

unpleasantness. Give back the pr

ed "Jack o'

down and looked ac

came?" he asked, "there was a bur

h I would not be guilty nor would any of my business associates. My friends and myself knowing nothing of any card game, we of course refused to pay Mr. Fetter, and I am sure Mr. Fetter would be the last person who would ask us to do so. As a matte

looked at th

y of the Spillsbur

of the Spillsbury de

--it was a trick which frequently gav

n Coventry. I admit it was a good bargain. There's no l

character. It was the kind of wildness which people do not talk about--at least, not nice people. He had inher

y's works. I also know that he sold you a property worth L300,000 in the

nel. "There's no law against

y fortunate with

rose and pic

th. You bought Lord Bethon's slate quarries for L12,000--their value in the open market was at least L100,00

lonel

et us get away from the object of your coming. I am reporting to you, as a police officer, that I have been threatened by a blackgu

r seen him?"

lonel

writing me letters? It is your job to pinch him. If you people down at Scot

kly and undisguisedly. His grey eye

!" he said admiringly, and with