"I've been out taking a look at her to-day," she said, and the colonel scowled at her.
"You were out taking a look at something else if I remember rightly," he said quietly. "I told you to get after Stafford King."
"And I got after him," she said, "and after the girl too."
"What do you mean?"
"That's a bit of news for you, isn't it?" She was delighted to drop the bombshell: "you can't shadow Stafford King without crossing the tracks of Maisie White."
The colonel uttered an exclamation.
"What do you mean?" he asked again.
"Didn't you know they were acquainted? Didn't you know that Stafford King goes down to Horsham to see her, and takes her to dinner twice a week?"
They looked at one another in consternation. Maisie White was the daughter of a man who, next to the colonel, had been the most daring member of the gang, who had organised more coups than any other man, save its leader. The news that the daughter of Solomon White was meeting the Chief of the Criminal Intelligence Department, was incredible and stunning.
"So that's it, is it?" said the colonel, licking his dry lips. "That's why Solomon White's fed up with the life and wants to break away."