He was counting the coins on the table, some of them gold—­for Jessica’s quick eyes caught the shimmer of it—­and he looked up half fiercely, half contemptuously as the girl entered.

“Well, where have been?  You’re like a cat or a policeman—­never to be found when you’re wanted.  There was a fine lady came to see you this morning—­a real swell, my girl.”  He laughed coarsely.  “But of course, you were out of the way.  Where had you got to?”

“Anywhere, nowhere,” replied Jessica, who did not fear him when he was sober, though she hated him always.

“Ah, that’s the style!  The swell lady ought to have heard you talk like that.  She’d say I was bringing you up well.  Come here and let’s have a look at you.”

Jessica did not move, but stared at him steadily.

“What!  You won’t come?” he said with a grin.  “Well, there’s something for your obstinacy, you little mule!”

He flung a half-crown across to her, and Jessica took it up, then looked him questioningly in the face.

“You’re thinking I’m mighty generous, eh?  So I am, my girl—­foolishly generous.”  He laughed mockingly, “Well, what do you say if all the lot’s for you, eh?”

“All for me!” repeated the girl, stopping short in her task of making the mantelshelf neat; “all for me!”

“Yes, when you get it, little cat!  All for you, indeed!  No! it’s for me; and I’ve a good mind to take the half-crown back.  A fool and his money’s soon parted; but he’s more idiotic to part with other people’s.  I’m going out.  I shall want some grub when I get back—­’arf a pound of steak, an’ a pot of porter, an’ don’t forget the gin.  Mind you remember now, or I’ll break every bone in your body.”  With which forcible admonition the man shuffled out.

After a few hours he returned, not blindly drunk, but spiteful, ill-tempered, and stupidly brutal.

About the same time on that day Adrien Leroy was making his way in the new car through the crowded thoroughfare of Oxford Street.

“Soho?  Yus, sir.  Crack’ell Court, fust turnin’ on the left.  I’ll show yer, sir,” piped the ragged urchin, whose heartfelt interest Leroy had purchased, along with his query, by means of a shilling.

Cracknell Court was small, evil-smelling, and teeming with children.  Bidding the chauffeur wait at the entrance to the court, Adrien, to whom dust, noises, and evil smells were things of absolute pain, entered one of the dens and asked for Mr. Wilfer.

“There he is,” said another urchin; and Leroy turned to face that individual, who was leaning against an open door.

“Am I speaking to Mr. Johann Wilfer?” he asked courteously.

“You are,” returned Wilfer, taking the begrimed pipe from his mouth, and staring with bloodshot eyes at the handsome, high-bred face before him.

“Can you tell me if a young girl named Jessica returned to you safely this morning?” Leroy enquired.