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"Yes," she replied, looking at me very curiously, "to Singer Strasse, No. 16. I sent it ten minutes ago."

"You did!" said I. "Then there's the end of it." It was cruel, look at it as you like. There was the money, which would have done all for us, sent to a house which we dare not go near. I did not doubt that the police had got hold of it already; I was sure that, if we showed our faces to claim it, they would arrest us until the whole thing was explained. The mischief was that we dare not explain the whole thing. That would have been to have given ourselves away to King, who might have prosecuted us for obtaining money by false pretences. If ever two men had run into a blind alley, those two men were Hildebrand Bigg and Nicolas Steele.

Something of this must have showed itself in my face to Miss King, for she asked me suddenly if I were ill; and when I assured her that I was not, and managed to stammer out an excuse, I am sure that she thought she was dealing with a madman. Yet for what she thought, or what she did not think, I did not care a brass farthing; and the next thing I remember is that I was tearing up the street leading to the market-place, and that I never stopped until I was opposite our old quarters, and stood gaping up at the window of my master's sitting-room in the Singer Strasse. I had run along with the wild idea that I might overtake the messenger who had the money; but he was coming down the stairs when I