Narkom--I say plump and plain the thing's an outrage, a disgrace to the
police, an indignity upon the community at large; and for Scotland Yard
to permit itself to be defied, bamboozled, mocked at in this appalling
fashion by a paltry burglar--"

"Uncle, dear, pray don't excite yourself in this manner. I am quite sure
that if Mr. Narkom could prevent the things--"

"Hold your tongue, Ailsa--I will not be interfered with! It's time that
somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the
public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes
for--and devilish high ones they are, too, b'gad--if it's not to
maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to
have the whole blessed country terrorised, the police defied, and
people's houses invaded with impunity by a gutter-bred brute of a
cracksman is nothing short of a scandal and a shame! Call this sort of
tomfoolery being protected by the police? God bless my soul! one might
as well be in charge of a parcel of doddering old women and be done with
it!"

It was an hour and a half after that exciting affair at "Dead Man's
Corner." The scene was Superintendent Narkom's private room at
headquarters, the dramatis personae, Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, Sir
Horace Wyvern, and Miss Ailsa Lome, his niece, a slight, fair-haired,
extremely attractive girl of twenty, the only and orphaned daughter of a
much-loved sister, who, up till a year ago, had known nothing more
exciting in the way of "life" than that which is to be found in a small
village in Suffolk, and falls to the lot of an underpaid vicar's only
child. A railway accident had suddenly deprived her of both parents,
throwing her wholly upon her own resources, without a penny in the