apprehensive-like, to make sure that none of the servants had heard her.  She noticed me and she laughed.  ‘It’s all right, Hill,’ she said.  ’I’m not going to tell on you.  I’ve just brought you a message from an old friend—­Fred Birchill—­he wants to see you to-night at this address.’  And with that she put a bit of paper into my hand.  I was so upset and excited that I said I’d be there, and she went away.

“This Fred Birchill was a man I’d met in prison, and he was in the cell next to me.  How he’d got on my tracks I had no idea, but I seemed to see all my new life falling to pieces now he knew.  I’d tried to run straight since I served my sentence, and I knew Sir Horace would stand to me, but he couldn’t afford to have any scandal about it, and I knew that if there was any possibility of my past becoming known I should have to leave his employ.  And then there was my poor wife and child, and this little business, sir.  Nothing was known about my past here.  So I determined to go and see this Birchill, sir.  The address she had given me was in Westminster, and, as my time was practically my own when Sir Horace wasn’t home, I went down that same evening, and when I got up the flight of stairs and knocked at the door it was a woman’s voice that said ’Come in,’ I thought I recognised the voice.  When I opened the door, you can imagine my surprise when I saw the young woman to be Doris Fanning, who had had the quarrel with Sir Horace that night and had brought me the note that morning.  Birchill was sitting in a corner of the room, with his feet on another chair, smoking a pipe.  ‘Come in, No. 21,’ he says, with an unpleasant smile, ’come in and see an old friend.  Put a chair for him, Doris, and leave the room.’

“The girl did so, and as soon as the door was closed behind her Birchill turned round to me and burst out, ’Hill, that damned employer of yours has served me a nasty trick, but I’m going to get even with him, and you’re going to help me!’ I was taken back at his words, but I wanted to hear more before I spoke.  Then he told me that the young woman I had seen had been brutally treated by Sir Horace.  She had been living in a little flat in Westminster on a monthly allowance which Sir Horace made her, but he’d suddenly cut off her allowance and she’d have to be turned out in the street to starve because she couldn’t pay her rent.  ‘A nice thing,’ said Birchill fiercely, ’for this high-placed loose liver to carry on like this with a poor innocent girl whose only fault was that she loved him too well.  If I could show him up and pull him down, I would.  But I’ve done time, like you, Hill.  He was the judge who sentenced me, and if I tried to injure him that way my word would carry no weight; but I’ll put up a job on him that’ll make him sorry the longest day he lives, and you’ll help me.  Sir Horace is in Scotland, Hill, and you’re in charge of his place.  Get rid of the servants, Hill, and we’ll burgle his house.  We can easily do it between us.’”