He could only gaze in stupified silence.

"You!" he said wonderingly.

The girl was pale and her eyes never left his face.

She nodded.

"Yes, it is I," she said in a low voice.

"You!" he said again and walked towards her.

He held out his hand and she gave him the wallet without a word.

"Sit down," he said kindly.

He thought she was going to faint.

"I hope I didn't hurt you? I hadn't the slightest idea ——”

She shook her head.

"Oh, I'm not hurt," she said wearily, "not hurt in the way you mean."

She drew a chair to the table and dropped her face upon her hands and he stood by, embarrassed, almost terrified, by this unexpected development.

"So you were the visitor on the bicycle," he said at last. "I didn't suspect ——”

It struck him at that moment that it was not an offence for Odette Rider to go up to her mother's house on a bicycle, or even to take away a wallet which was probably hers. If there was any crime at all, he had committed it in retaining something to which he had no right. She looked up at his words.

"I? On the bicycle?" she asked. "No, it was not I."

"Not you?"

She shook her head.

"I was in the grounds — I saw you using your lamp and I was quite close to you when you picked up the wallet," she said listlessly, "but I was not on the bicycle."

"Who was it?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"May I have that please?"

She held out her hand and he hesitated.

After all, he had no right or title to this curious purse. He compromised by putting it on the table and she did not attempt to take it.

"Odette," he said gently and walked round to her, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" she asked, without looking up.

"Tell me all there is to be told," he said. "I could help you. I want to help you."

She looked up at him.

"Why do you want to help me?" she asked simply.

He was tongue-tied for a second.

"Because I love you," he said, and his voice shook.

It did not seem to him that he was talking. The words came of their own volition. He had no more intention of telling her he loved her, indeed he had no more idea that he did love her, than Whiteside would have had. Yet he knew he spoke the truth and that a power greater than he had framed the words and put them on his lips.

The effect on the girl seemed extraordinary to him. She did not shrink back, she did not look surprised. She showed no astonishment whatever. She just brought her eyes back to the table and said: "Oh!"

That calm, almost uncannily calm acceptance of a fact which Tarling had not dared to breathe to himself, was the second shock of the evening.

It was as though she had known it all along. He was on his knees by her side and his arm was about her shoulders, even before his brain had willed the act.

"My girl, my girl," he said gently. "Won't you please tell me?"

Her head was still bent and her voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.

"Tell you what?" she asked.

"What you know of this business," he said. "Don't you realise how every new development brings you more and more under suspicion?"

"What business do you mean?"

He hesitated.

"The murder of Thornton Lyne? I know nothing of that."

She made no response to that tender arm of his, but sat rigid. Something in her attitude chilled him and he dropped her hand and rose. When she looked up she saw that his face was white and set. He walked to the door and unlocked it.

"I'm not going to ask you any more," he said quietly. "You know best why you came to me to-night — I suppose you followed me and took a room. I heard somebody going upstairs soon after I arrived."

She nodded.

"Do you want — this?" she asked and pointed to the wallet on the table.

"Take it away with you."

She got up to her feet unsteadily and swayed toward him. In a second he was by her side, his arms about her. She made no resistance, but rather he felt a yielding towards him which he had missed before. Her pale face was upturned to his and he stooped and kissed her.

"Odette! Odette!" he whispered. "Don't you realise that I love you and would give my life to save you from unhappiness? Won't you tell me everything, please?"

"No, no, no," she murmured with a little catch in her voice. "Please don't ask me! I am afraid. Oh, I am afraid!"

He crushed her in his arms, his cheek against hers, his lips tingling with the caress of her hair.

"But there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing," he said eagerly. "If you were as guilty as hell, I would save you! If you are shielding somebody I would shield them because I love you, Odette!"

"No, no!" she cried and pushed him back, both her little hands pressing against his chest. "Don't ask me, don't ask me ——”

"Ask me!"

Tarling swung round. There was a man standing in the doorway, in the act of closing the door behind him.

"Milburgh!" he said between his teeth.

"Milburgh!" smiled the other mockingly. "I am sorry to interrupt this beautiful scene, but the occasion is a desperate one and I cannot afford to stand on ceremony, Mr. Tarling."

Tarling put the girl from him and looked at the smirking manager. One comprehensive glance the detective gave him, noted the cycling clips and the splashes of mud on his trousers, and understood.

"So you were the cyclist, eh?" he said.

"That's right," said Milburgh, "it is an exercise to which I am very partial."

"What do you want?" asked Tarling, alert and watchful.

"I want you to carry out your promise, Mr. Tarling," said Milburgh smoothly.

Tarling stared at him.

"My promise," he said, "what promise?"

"To protect, not only the evil-doer, but those who have compromised themselves in an effort to shield the evil-doer from his or her own wicked act."

Tarling started.

"Do you mean to say ——” he said hoarsely. "Do you mean to accuse ——?"

"I accuse nobody," said Milburgh with a wide sweep of his hands. "I merely suggest that both Miss Rider and myself are in very serious trouble and that you have it in your power to get us safely out of this country to one where extradition laws cannot follow."

Tarling took one step towards him and Milburgh shrank back.

"Do you accuse Miss Rider of complicity in this murder?" he demanded.

Milburgh smiled, but it was an uneasy smile.

"I make no accusation," he said, "and as to the murder?" he shrugged his shoulders. "You will understand better when you read the contents of that wallet which I was endeavouring to remove to a place of safety."

Tarling picked up the wallet from the table and looked at it.

"I shall see the contents of this wallet to-morrow," he said. "Locks will present very little difficulty — "

"You can read the contents to-night," said Milburgh smoothly, and pulled from his pocket a chain, at the end of which dangled a small bunch of keys. "Here is the key," he said. "Unlock and read to-night."

Tarling took the key in his hand, inserted it in first one tiny lock and then in the other. The catches snapped open and he threw back the flap. Then a hand snatched the portfolio from him and he turned to see the girl's quivering face and read the terror in her eyes.

"No, no!" she cried, almost beside herself, "no, for God's sake, no!"

Tarling stepped back. He saw the malicious little smile on Milburgh's face and could have struck him down.

"Miss Rider does not wish me to see what is in this case," he said.

"And for an excellent reason," sneered Milburgh.

"Here!"

It was the girl's voice, surprisingly clear and steady. Her shaking hands held the paper she had taken from the wallet and she thrust it toward the detective.

"There is a reason," she said in a low voice. "But it is not the reason you suggest."

Milburgh had gone too far. Tarling saw his face lengthen and the look of apprehension in his cold blue eyes. Then, without further hesitation, he opened the paper and read.

The first line took away his breath.

"The Confession of Odette Rider."

"Good God!" he muttered and read on. There were only half a dozen lines and they were in the firm caligraphy of the girl.

"I, Odette Rider, hereby confess that for three years I have been robbing the firm of Lyne's Stores, Limited, and during that period have taken the sum of £25,000."

Tarling dropped the paper and caught the girl as she fainted.