all you will have to do is to go to Ogden, play a short scene as Chicago Ed., escort him to the car, and then go back to bed and have a good sleep.  Once Ogden thinks you are a professional kidnapper, you won’t have any difficulty at all.  Get it into your head that he wants to be kidnapped.  Surely you can tackle this light and attractive job?  Why, it will be a treat for you to do a bit of character acting once more!”

Jimmy had struck the right note.  His father’s eyes began to gleam with excitement.  The scent of the footlights seemed to dilate his nostrils.

“I was always good at that rough-neck stuff,” he murmured meditatively.  “I used to eat it!”

“Exactly,” said Jimmy.  “Look at it in the right way, and I am doing you a kindness in giving you this chance.”

Mr. Crocker rubbed his cheek with his forefinger.

“You’d want me to make up for the part?” he asked wistfully.

“Of course!”

“You want me to do it to-night?”

“At about two in the morning, I thought.”

“I’ll do it, Jim!”

Jimmy grasped his hand.

“I knew I could rely on you, dad.”

Mr. Crocker was following a train of thought.

“Dark wig . . . blue chin . . . heavy eyebrows . . .  I guess I can’t do better than my old Chicago Ed. make-up.  Say, Jimmy, how am I to get to the kid?”

“That’ll be all right.  You can stay in my room till the time comes to go to him.  Use it as a dressing-room.”

“How am I to get him out of the house?”

“Through this room.  I’ll tell Jerry to wait out on the side-street with the car from two o’clock on.”

Mr. Crocker considered these arrangements.

“That seems to be about all,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s anything else.”

“I’ll slip downtown and buy the props.”

“I’ll go and tell Jerry.”

A thought struck Mr. Crocker.

“You’d better tell Jerry to make up, too.  He doesn’t want the kid recognising him and squealing on him later.”

Jimmy was lost in admiration of his father’s resource.

“You think of everything, dad!  That wouldn’t have occurred to me.  You certainly do take to Crime in the most wonderful way.  It seems to come naturally to you!”

Mr. Crocker smirked modestly.

CHAPTER XX

CELESTINE IMPARTS INFORMATION

Plit is only as strong as its weakest link.  The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang agley if one of the mice is a mental defective or if one of the men is a Jerry Mitchell. . . .

Celestine, Mrs. Pett’s maid—­she who was really Maggie O’Toole and whom Jerry loved with a strength which deprived him of even that small amount of intelligence which had been bestowed upon him by Nature—­came into the house-keeper’s room at about ten o’clock that night.  The domestic staff had gone in a body to the moving-pictures, and the only occupant of the room was the new parlourmaid, who was sitting in a hard chair, reading Schopenhauer.