tones—“Prime Minister of England.”

[Pg 11]

“So!” murmured Westerham, and he nodded his head.

“Yes,” said Captain Melun, “and if it is of any interest to you to know it, I propose to marry Lady Kathleen.”

“Indeed,” said Westerham.

He folded the paper and placed it carefully in his breast-pocket.

“You must forgive my being rude,” he added, “but I should not now be on my way to England if I had not every intention of marrying the lady myself.”

[Pg 12]

[Pg 12]

 CHAPTER IISIR PAUL WESTERHAM BUYS THE CRIME SYNDICATE

SIR PAUL WESTERHAM BUYS THE CRIME SYNDICATE

Captain Melun was a man used to being hard hit. He was steeled against cunningly and swiftly-dealt blows, such as he himself administered, but this declaration of Sir Paul Westerham, that he intended to marry the Lady Kathleen, took him quite aback.

“Oh!” he exclaimed softly, and his voice had a certain note of puzzlement and anxiety in it. “Oh!” he repeated, and again he said “Oh!”

The baronet smiled a little grimly in his red beard, but his duck's-egg green eyes were as serene and as cold as ever.

The three gently ejaculated “Ohs” of the captain had told him much. His quick brain realised that he had dealt the captain an exceedingly well-landed blow. Then the baronet's smile died, for, following the train of his suspicious thoughts, he instinctively grasped and held on to the idea that just as Melun had been searching his kit-bag for the purpose of blackmail, so that individual purposed marriage with the Prime Minister's daughter to the same end.

This notion disquieted him greatly.

It disturbed him so much that the hard eyes hardened. Only the baronet's friends knew that they sometimes 

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