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"I have some very interesting news for you people this morning," he said, almost jovially, as, without invitation, he pulled out a chair and sat down to the breakfast table. "We've got the devil!"

"Good business," murmured his lordship. "I hope you will fasten the customary chains to his legs and cast him down into his jolly old pit."

"Which particular devil are you talking about, Mr. Hamon?" asked the girl, with a sinking of her heart.

"Morlake. He was caught red-handed last night, burglaring a house at Blackheath."

She jumped to her feet.

"You don't mean that!" she gasped. "Mr. Morlake ... oh, no, it isn't true!"

"It is delightfully true," said Hamon. (She thought he smacked his lips.) "He was caught red-handed in the act of breaking into the house of a man who has a collection of antique jewellery. Fortunately, two police officers who have had him under observation for some time had shadowed him, and took him just as he was running out of the house, having been disturbed in his work by the owner, a Colonel Paterson."