Superintendent Mansus had a little office in Scotland Yard proper, which, he complained, was not so much a private bureau, as a waiting-room to which repaired every official of the police service who found time hanging on his hands.

On the afternoon of Miss Holland's surprising adventure, a plainclothes man of "D" Division brought to Mr.Mansus's room a very scared domestic servant, voluble, tearful and agonizingly penitent.

It was a mood not wholly unfamiliar to a police officer of twenty years experience and Mr.Mansus was not impressed.
"If you will kindly shut up," he said, blending his natural politeness with his employment of the vernacular, "and if you will also answer a few questions I will save you a lot of trouble.

You were Lady Bartholomew's maid weren't you ?" "Yes, sir," sobbed the red-eyed Mary Ann.
"And you have been detected trying to pawn a gold bracelet, the property of Lady Bartholomew ?" The maid gulped, nodded and started breathlessly upon a recital of her wrongs.
"Yes, sir--but she practically gave it to me, sir, and I haven't had my wages for two months, sir, and she can give that foreigner thousands and thousands of pounds at a time, sir, but her poor servants she can't pay--no, she can't.

And if Sir William knew especially about my lady's cards and about the snuffbox, what would he think, I wonder, and I'm going to have my rights, for if she can pay thousands to a swell like Mr.Kara she can pay me and--" Mansus jerked his head.
"Take her down to the cells," he said briefly, and they led her away, a wailing, woeful figure of amateur larcenist.
In three minutes Mansus was with T.X.and had reduced the girl's incoherence to something like order.
"This is important," said T.X.; "produce the Abigail." "The-- ?" asked the puzzled officer.
"The skivvy--slavey--hired help--get busy," said T.X.