you get on. Now, superintendent, we'll get to work."
Outside the Scarnham Arms, Starmidge looked at his companion with a sly smile.
"Are you anything of a betting man?" he asked.
"Naught much—odd half-crown now and then," replied Polke. "Why?"
"Lay you a fiver to a shilling Miss Fosdyke won't see anything of Horbury's—nor get any information!" answered Starmidge, more slyly than ever. "She won't be allowed!"
Polke gave the detective a shrewd look.
"I dare say!" he said. "Whew!—it's a queer game, this, Starmidge. First moves of it, anyway."
"Let's get on to the next," counselled Starmidge. "Where's this journalist?"
Mr. Parkinson, a high-browed, shock-headed young man, who combined the duties of editor and reporter with those of advertisement canvasser and business manager of the one four-page sheet which Scarnham boasted, received the two police officials in a small office in which there was just room for himself and his visitors to squeeze themselves.
"I was about coming round to you, Mr. Polke," he said. "Can you let me have the facts of this Horbury affair?"
"We've come to save you the trouble," answered Polke. "This gentleman—Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the C.I.D., Mr. Parkinson—wants to have a bit of a transaction with you."
Parkinson eyed the famous detective with as much wonder as Neale had felt on the previous evening.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Pleased to meet you, sir—
