The Secret House

By
Edgar Wallace
 THE SECRET HOUSE

CHAPTER I

A man stood irresolutely before the imposing portals of Cainbury House, a large office
building let out to numerous small tenants, and harbouring, as the indicator on the tiled
wall of the vestibule testified, some thirty different professions. The man was evidently
poor, for his clothes were shabby and his boots were down at heel. He was as evidently a
foreigner. His clean-shaven eagle face was sallow, his eyes were dark, his eyebrows black
and straight.

He passed up the few steps into the hall and stood thoughtfully before the indicator.
Presently he found what he wanted. At the very top of the list and amongst the crowded
denizens of the fifth floor was a slip inscribed:

"THE GOSSIP'S CORNER"

He took from his waistcoat pocket a newspaper cutting and compared the two then
stepped briskly, almost jauntily, into the hall, as though all his doubts and uncertainties
had vanished, and waited for the elevator. His coat was buttoned tightly, his collar was
frayed, his shirt had seen the greater part of a week's service, the Derby hat on his head
had undergone extensive renovations, and a close observer would have noticed that his
gloves were odd ones.

He walked into the lift and said, "Fifth floor," with a slight foreign accent.

He was whirled up, the lift doors clanged open and the grimy finger of the elevator boy
indicated the office. Again the man hesitated, examining the door carefully. The upper
half was of toughened glass and bore the simple inscription:

"THE GOSSIP'S CORNER.

KNOCK."

Obediently the stranger knocked and the door opened through an invisible agent, much
to the man's surprise, though there was nothing more magical about the phenomenon
than there is about any electrically controlled office door.

He found himself in a room sparsely furnished with a table, a chair and a few copies of
papers. An old school map of England hung on one wall and a Landseer engraving on
the other. At the7 farthermost end of the room was another door, and to this he
gravitated and again, after a moment's hesitation, he knocked.
"Come in," said a voice.

He entered cautiously.

The room was larger and was comfortably furnished. There were shaded electric lamps
on either side of the big carved oak writing-table. One of the walls was covered with
books, and the litter of proofs upon the table suggested that this was the sanctorum.

But the most remarkable feature of the room was the man who sat at the desk. He was a
man solidly built and, by his voice, of middle age. His face the new-comer could not see
and for excellent reason. It was hidden behind a veil of fine silk net which had been
adjusted over the head like a loose bag and tightened under the chin.

The man at the table chuckled when he saw the other's surprise.

"Sit down," he said—he spoke in French—"and don't, I beg of you, be alarmed."

"Monsieur," said the new-comer easily, "be assured that I am not alarmed. In this world
nothing has ever alarmed me except my own distressing poverty and the prospect of
dying poor."

The veiled figure said nothing for a while.

"You have come in answer to my advertisement," he said after a long pause.

The other bowed.

"You require an assistant, Monsieur," said the new-comer, "discreet, with a knowledge
of foreign languages and poor. I fulfill all those requirements," he went on calmly; "had
you also added, of an adventurous disposition, with few if any scruples, it would have
been equally descriptive."

The stranger felt that the man at the desk was looking at him, though he could not see
his eyes. It must have been a long and careful scrutiny, for presently the advertiser said
gruffly:

"I think you'll do."

"Exactly," said the new-comer with cool assurance; "and now it is for you, dear
Monsieur, to satisfy me that you also will do. You will have observed that there are two
parties to every bargain. First of all, my duties?"

The man in the chair leant back and thrust his hands into his pockets.

"I am the editor of a little paper which circulates exclusively amongst the servants of the
upper classes," he said. "I receive from time to time interesting communications
concerning the aristocracy and gentry of this country, written by hysterical French
maids and revengeful Italian9 valets. I am not a good linguist, and I feel that there is
much in these epistles which I miss and which I should not miss."

The new-comer nodded.

"I therefore want somebody of discretion who will deal with my foreign correspondence,
make a fair copy in English and summarize the complaints which these good people
make. You quite understand," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, "that mankind is not
perfect, less perfect is womankind, and least perfect is that section of mankind which
employs servants. They usually have stories to tell not greatly to their masters' credit,
not nice stories, you understand, my dear friend. By the way, what is your name?"

The stranger hesitated.

"Poltavo," he said after a pause.

"Italian or Pole?" asked the other.

"Pole," replied Poltavo readily.

"Well, as I was saying," the editor went on, "we on this paper are very anxious to secure
news of society doings. If they are printable, we print them; if they are not printable"—
he paused—"we do not print them. But," he raised a warning forefinger, "the fact that
particulars of disgraceful happenings are not fit for publication must not induce you to
cast such stories into the wastepaper basket. We keep a record of such matters for our
own private amusement." He said this latter airily, but Poltavo was not deceived.

Again there was a long silence whilst the man at the table ruminated.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"On the fourth floor of a small house in Bloomsbury," replied Poltavo.

The veiled figure nodded.

"When did you come to this country?"

"Six months ago."

"Why?"

Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

"Why?" insisted the man at the table.

"A slight matter of disagreement between myself and the admirable chief of police of
Sans Sebastian," he said as airily as the other.

Again the figure nodded.

"If you had told me anything else, I should not have engaged you," he said.

"Why?" asked Poltavo in surprise.

"Because you are speaking the truth," said the other coolly. "Your matter of
disagreement with the police in Sans Sebastian was over the missing of some money in
the hotel where you were staying. The room happened to be next to yours and
communicating, if one had the ingenuity to11 pick the lock of the door. Also your
inability to pay the hotel bill hastened your departure."

"What an editor!" said the other admiringly, but without showing any signs of
perturbation or embarrassment.

"It is my business to know something about everybody," said the editor. "By the way,
you may call me Mr. Brown, and if at times I may seem absent-minded when I am so
addressed you must excuse me, because it is not my name. Yes, you are the kind of man
I want."

"It is remarkable that you should have found me," said Poltavo. "The cutting"—he
indicated the newspaper clip—"was sent to me by an unknown friend."

"I was the unknown friend," said "Mr. Brown"; "do you understand the position?"
Poltavo nodded.

"I understand everything," he said, "except the last and most important of all matters;
namely, the question of my salary."

The man named a sum—a generous sum to Poltavo, and Mr. Brown, eyeing him keenly,
was glad to note that his new assistant was neither surprised nor impressed.

"You will see very little of me at this office," the editor went on. "If you work well, and I
can12 trust you, I will double the salary I am giving you; if you fail me, you will be sorry
for yourself."

He rose.

"That finishes our interview. You will come here to-morrow morning and let yourself in.
Here is the key of the door and a key to the safe in which I keep all correspondence. You
will find much to incriminate society and precious little that will incriminate me. I
expect you to devote the whole of your attention to this business," he said slowly and
emphatically.

"You may be sure——" began Poltavo.

"Wait, I have not finished. By devoting the whole of your attention to the business, I
mean I want you to have no spare time to conduct any investigations as to my identity.
By a method which I will not trouble to explain to you I am able to leave this building
without any person being aware of the fact that I am the editor of this interesting
publication. When you have been through your letters I want you to translate those
which contain the most important particulars and forward them by a messenger who
will call every evening at five o'clock. Your salary will be paid regularly, and you will not
be bothered with any editorial duties. And now, if you will please go into the outer room
and wait a few moments, you13 may return in five minutes and begin on this
accumulation of correspondence."

Poltavo, with a little bow, obeyed, and closed the door carefully behind him. He heard a
click, and knew that the same electric control which had opened the outer door had now
closed the inner. At the end of five minutes, as near as he could judge, he tried the door.
It opened readily and he stepped into the inner office. The room was empty. There was a
door leading out to the corridor, but something told the new assistant that this was not
the manner of egress which his employer had adopted. He looked round carefully. There
was no other door, but behind the chair where the veiled man had sat was a large
cupboard. This he opened without, however, discovering any solution to the mystery of
Mr. Brown's disappearance, for the cupboard was filled with books and stationery. He
then began a systematic search of the apartment. He tried all the drawers of the desk
and found they were open, whereupon his interest in their contents evaporated, since he
knew a gentleman of Mr. Brown's wide experience was hardly likely to leave important
particulars concerning himself in an unlocked desk. Poltavo shrugged his shoulders,
deftly rolling a cigarette, which he lit, then pulling the chair up to the desk he began14 to
attack the pile of letters which awaited his attention.

For six weeks Mr. Poltavo had worked with painstaking thoroughness in the new
service. Every Friday morning he had found on his desk an envelope containing two
bank notes neatly folded and addressed to himself. Every evening at five o'clock a hard-
faced messenger had called and received a bulky envelope containing Poltavo's
translations.

The Pole was a keen student of the little paper, which he bought every week, and he had
noted that very little of the information he had gleaned appeared in print. Obviously
then Gossip's Corner served Mr. Brown in some other way than as a vehicle for scandal,
and the veil was partly lifted on this mysterious business on an afternoon when there
had come a sharp tap at the outer door of the office. Poltavo pressed the button on the
desk, which released the lock, and presently the tap was repeated on the inside door.

The door opened and a girl stood in the entrance hesitating.

"Won't you come in?" said Poltavo, rising.

"Are you the editor of this paper?" asked the girl, as she slowly closed the door behind
her.

Poltavo bowed. He was always ready to accept whatever honour chance bestowed upon
him. Had she asked him if he were Mr. Brown, he would also have bowed.

"I had a letter from you," said the girl, coming to the other side of the table and resting
her hand on its edge and looking down at him a little scornfully, and a little fearfully, as
Poltavo thought.
He bowed again. He had not written letters to anybody save to his employer, but his
conscience was an elastic one.

"I write so many letters," he said airily, "that I really forget whether I have written to you
or not. May I see the letter?"

She opened her bag, took out an envelope, removed the letter and passed it across to the
interested young man. It was written on the note-heading of Gossip's Corner, but the
address had been scratched out by a stroke of the pen. It ran:

"Dear Madam,—

"Certain very important information has come into my possession regarding the
relationships between yourself and Captain Brackly. I feel sure you cannot know that
your name is being associated with that officer. As the daughter and heiress of the late
Sir George Billk, you may imagine that16 your wealth and position in society relieves
you of criticism, but I can assure you that the stories which have been sent to me would,
were they placed in the hands of your husband, lead to the most unhappy consequences.

"In order to prevent this matter going any further, and in order to silence the voices of
your detractors, our special inquiry department is willing to undertake the suppression
of these scandal-mongers. It will cost you £,, which should be paid to me in notes. If you
agree, put an advertisement in the agony column of the Morning Mist, and I will arrange
a meeting where the money can be paid over. On no account address me at my office or
endeavour to interview me there.

"Yours very truly,

"J. Brown."

Poltavo read the letter and now the function of Gossip's Corner was very clear. He
refolded the letter and handed it back to the girl.

"I may not be very clever," said the visitor, "but I think I can understand what blackmail
is when I see it."

Poltavo was in a quandary, but only for a moment.

"I did not write that letter," he said suavely; "it was written without my knowledge.
When I17 said that I was the editor of this paper, I meant, of course, that I was the acting
editor. Mr. Brown conducts his business quite independently of myself. I know all the
circumstances," he added hastily, since he was very anxious that the girl should not
refuse him further information in the belief that he was an inconsiderable quantity, "and
I sympathize with you most sincerely."

A little smile curled the lips of the visitor.

Poltavo was ever a judge of men and women, and he knew that this was no yielding,
timid creature to be terrified by the fear of exposure.

"The matter can be left in the hands of Captain Brackly and my husband to settle," she
said. "I am going to take the letter to my solicitors. I shall also show it to the two men
most affected."

Now the letter had been written four days earlier, as Poltavo had seen, and he argued
that if it had not been revealed to these "two men most affected" in the first heat of the
lady's anger and indignation, it would never be shown at all.

"I think you are very wise," he said suavely. "After all, what is a little unpleasantness of
that character? Who cares about the publication of a few letters?"

"Has he got letters?" asked the girl quickly, with a change of tone.

Poltavo bowed again.

"Will they be returned?" she asked.

Poltavo nodded, and the girl bit her lips thoughtfully.

"I see," she said.

She looked at the letter again and without another word went out.

Poltavo accompanied her to the outer door.

"It is the prettiest kind of blackmail," she said at parting, and she spoke without heat. "I
have only now to consider which will pay me best."

The Pole closed the door behind her and walked back to his inner office, opened the
door and stood aghast, for sitting in the chair which he had so recently vacated was the
veiled man.

He was chuckling, partly at Poltavo's surprise, partly at some amusing thought.

"Well done, Poltavo," he said; "excellently fenced."

"Did you hear?" asked the Pole, surprised in spite of himself.

"Every word," said the other. "Well, what do you think of it?"

Poltavo pulled a chair from the wall and sat down facing his chief.

"I think it is very clever," he said admiringly, "but I also think I am not getting sufficient
salary."

The veiled man nodded.

"I think you are right," he agreed, "and I will see that it is increased. What a fool the
woman was to come here!"

"Either a fool or a bad actress," said Poltavo.

"What do you mean?" asked the other quickly.

Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

"To my mind," he said after a moment's thought, "there is no doubt that I have
witnessed a very clever comedy. An effective one, I grant, because it has accomplished
all that was intended."

"And what was intended?" asked Mr. Brown curiously.

"It was intended by you and carried out by you in order to convey to me the exact
character of your business," said Poltavo. "I judged that fact from the following
evidence." He ticked off the points one by one on his long white fingers. "The lady's
name was, according to the envelope, let us say, Lady Cruxbury; but the lady's real
name, according to some silver initials on her bag, began with 'G.' Those initials I also
noted on the little handkerchief she took from her bag. Therefore she was not the person
to whom the letter was addressed, or if she was, the letter was a blind. In such an
important matter Lady Cruxbury would come herself. My own view is that there is no20
Lady Cruxbury, that the whole letter was concocted and was delivered to me whilst you
were watching me from some hiding place in order to test my discretion, and, as I say, to
make me wise in the ways of your admirable journal."

Mr. Brown laughed long and softly.

"You are a clever fellow, Poltavo," he said admiringly, "and you certainly deserve your
rise of salary. Now I am going to be frank with you. I admit that the whole thing was a
blind. You now know my business, and you now know my raison d'être, so to speak. Are
you willing to continue?"

"At a price," said the other.

"Name it," said the veiled man quietly.

"I am a poor adventurer," began Poltavo; "my life——"

"Cut all that stuff out," said Mr. Brown roughly, "I am not going to give you a fortune. I
am going to give you the necessities of life and a little comfort."

Poltavo walked to the window and thrusting his hands deep into his trouser pockets
stared out. Presently he turned. "The necessities of life to me," he said, "are represented
by a flat in St. James's Street, a car, a box at the Opera——"

"You will get none of these," interrupted Mr. Brown. "Be reasonable."

Poltavo smiled.

"I am worth a fortune to you," he said, "because I have imagination. Here, for example."
He picked out a letter from a heap on the desk and opened it. The caligraphy was
typically Latin and the handwriting was vile. "Here is a letter from an Italian," he said,
"which to the gross mind may perhaps represent wearisome business details. To a mind
of my calibre, it is clothed in rich possibilities." He leaned across the table; his eyes
lighted up with enthusiasm. "There may be an enormous fortune in this," and he tapped
the letter slowly. "Here is a man who desires the great English newspaper, of which he
has heard (though Heaven only knows how he can have heard it), to discover the
whereabouts and the identity of a certain M. Fallock."

The veiled man started.

"Fallock," he repeated.

Poltavo nodded.

"Our friend Fallock has built a house 'of great wonder,' to quote the letter of our
correspondent. In this house are buried millions of lira—doesn't that fire your
imagination, dear colleague?"

"Built a house, did he?" repeated the other.

"Our friends tell me," Poltavo went on,—"did I tell you it was written on behalf of two
men?—that they have a clue and in fact that they know Mr. Fallock's address, and they
are sure he is engaged in a nefarious business, but they require confirmation of their
knowledge."

The man at the table was silent.

His fingers drummed nervously on the blotting pad and his head was sunk forward as a
man weighing a difficult problem.

"All child's talk," he said roughly, "these buried treasures!—I have heard of them before.
They are just two imaginative foreigners. I suppose they want you to advance their
fare?"

"That is exactly what they do ask," said Poltavo.

The man at the desk laughed uneasily behind his veil and rose.

"It's the Spanish prison trick," he said; "surely you are not deceived by that sort of
stuff?"

Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

"Speaking as one who has also languished in a Spanish prison," he smiled, "and who has
also sent out invitations to the generous people of England to release him from his sad
position—a release which could only be made by generous payments—I thoroughly
understand the delicate23 workings of that particular fraud; but we robbers of Spain,
dear colleague, do not write in our native language, we write in good, or bad, English.
We write not in vilely spelt Italian because we know that the recipient of our letter will
not take the trouble to get it translated. No, this is no Spanish prison trick. This is
genuine."

"May I see the letter?"

Poltavo handed it across the table, and the man turning his back for a moment upon his
assistant lifted his veil and read. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket.

"I will think about it," he said gruffly.

"Another privilege I would crave from you in addition to the purely nominal privilege of
receiving more salary," said Poltavo.

"What is it?"

The Pole spread out his hands in a gesture of self-depreciation.

"It is weak of me, I admit," he said, "but I am anxious—foolishly anxious—to return to

the society of well-clothed men and pretty women. I pine for social life. It is a weakness
of mine," he added apologetically. "I want to meet stockbrokers, financiers, politicians
and other chevaliers d'industrie on equal terms, to wear the grande habit, to listen to
soft music, to drink good wine."

"Well?" asked the other suspiciously. "What am I to do?"

"Introduce me to society," said Poltavo sweetly—"most particularly do I desire to meet

that merchant prince of whose operations I read in the newspapers, Mr. how-do-you-
call-him?—Farrington."

The veiled man sat in silence for a good minute, and then he rose, opened the cupboard
and put in his hand. There was a click and the cupboard with its interior swung back,
revealing another room which was in point of fact an adjoining suite of offices, also
rented by Mr. Brown. He stood silently in the opening, his chin on his breast, his hands
behind him, then:

"You are very clever, Poltavo," he said, and passed through and the cupboard swung
back in its place.
 CHAPTER II

"Assassin!"

This was the cry which rang out in the stillness of the night, and aroused the interest of
one inhabitant of Brakely Square who was awake. Mr. Gregory Farrington, a victim of
insomnia, heard the sound, and put down the book he was reading, with a frown. He
rose from his easy chair, pulled his velvet dressing gown lightly round his rotund form
and shuffled to the window. His blinds were lowered, but these were of the ordinary
type, and he stuck two fingers between two of the laths.

There was a moist film on the window through which the street lamps showed blurred
and indistinct, and he rubbed the pane clear with the tips of his fingers (he described
every action to T. B. Smith afterwards).

Two men stood outside the house. They occupied the centre of the deserted pavement,
and they were26 talking excitedly. Through the closed window Mr. Farrington could
hear the staccato rattle of their voices, and by the gesticulations, familiar to one who had
lived for many years in a Latin country, he gathered that they were of that breed.

He saw one raise his hand to strike the other and caught the flash of a pistol-barrel
excitedly flourished.

"Humph!" said Mr. Farrington.

He was alone in his beautiful house in Brakely Square. His butler, the cook, and one
sewing maid and the chauffeur were attending the servants' ball which the Manley-
Potters were giving. Louder grew the voices on the pavement.

"Thief!" shrilled a voice in French, "Am I to be robbed of——" and the rest was
indistinguishable.

There was a policeman on point duty at the other side of the square. Mr. Farrington's
fingers rubbed the glass with greater energy, and his anxious eyes looked left and right
for the custodian of the law.

He crept down the stairs, opened the metal flap of the letter-box and listened. It was not
difficult to hear all they said, though they had dropped their voices, for they stood at the
foot of the steps.
"What is the use?" said one in French. "There is a reward large enough for two—but for
him—my faith! there is money to be made, sufficient for27 twenty. It is unfortunate that
we should meet on similar errands, but I swear to you I did not desire to betray you——"
The voice sank.

Mr. Farrington chewed the butt of his cigar in the darkness of the hall and pieced
together the jigsaw puzzle of this disjointed conversation. These men must be associates
of Montague—Montague Fallock, who else?

Montague Fallock, the blackmailer for whom the police of Europe were searching, and
individually and separately they had arranged to blackmail him—or betray him.

The fact that T. B. Smith also had a house in Brakely Square, and that T. B. Smith was an
Assistant Commissioner of the police, and most anxious to meet Montague Fallock in
the flesh, might supply reason enough to the logical Mr. Farrington for this conversation
outside his respectable door.

"Yes, I tell you," said the second man, angrily, "that I have arranged to see M'sieur—you
must trust me——"

"We go together," said the other, definitely, "I trust no man, least of all a confounded
Neapolitan——"

Constable Habit had not heard the sound of28 quarrelling voices, as far as could be
gathered from subsequent inquiry. His statement, now in the possession of T. B. Smith,
distinctly says, "I heard nothing unusual."

But suddenly two shots rang out.

"Clack—clack!" they went, the unmistakable sound of an automatic pistol or pistols, then
a police whistle shrieked, and P. C. Habit broke into a run in the direction of the sound,
blowing his own whistle as he ran.

He arrived to find three men, two undoubtedly dead on the ground, and the third, Mr.
Farrington's unpicturesque figure, standing shivering in the doorway of his house, a
police whistle at his lips, and his grey velvet dressing-gown flapping in a chill eastern
wind.
Ten minutes later T. B. Smith arrived on the scene from his house, to find a crowd of
respectable size, half the bedroom windows of Brakely Square occupied by the morbid
and the curious, and the police ambulance already on the spot.

"Dead, sir," reported the constable.

T. B. looked at the men on the ground. They were obviously foreigners. One was well,
almost richly dressed; the other wore the shabby evening dress of a waiter, under the
long ulster which covered him from neck to foot.

The men lay almost head to head. One flat on his face (he had been in this position when
the constable found him, and had been restored to that position when the methodical P.
C. Habit found that he was beyond human assistance) and the other huddled on his side.

The police kept the crowd at a distance whilst the head of the secret police (T. B. Smith's
special department merited that description) made a careful examination. He found a
pistol on the ground, and another under the figure of the huddled man, then as the
police ambulance was backed to the pavement, he interviewed the shivering Mr.
Farrington.

"If you will come upstairs," said that chilled millionaire, "I will tell you all I know."

T. B. sniffed the hall as he entered, but said nothing. He had his olfactory sense
developed to an abnormal degree, but he was a tactful and a silent man.

He knew Mr. Farrington—who did not?—both as a new neighbour and as the possessor
of great wealth.

"Your daughter——" he began.

"My ward," corrected Mr. Farrington, as he switched on all the lights of his sitting-room,
"she is out—in fact she is staying the night with my30 friend Lady Constance Dex—do
you know her?"

T. B. nodded.

"I can only give you the most meagre information," said Mr. Farrington. He was white
and shaky, a natural state for a law-abiding man who had witnessed wilful murder. "I
heard voices and went down to the door, thinking I would find a policeman—then I
heard two shots almost simultaneously, and opened the door and found the two men as
they were found by the policeman."

"What were they talking about?"

Mr. Farrington hesitated.

"I hope I am not going to be dragged into this case as a witness?" he asked, rather than
asserted, but received no encouragement in the spoken hope from T. B. Smith.

"They were discussing that notorious man, Montague Fallock," said the millionaire; "one
was threatening to betray him to the police."

"Yes," said T. B. It was one of those "yesses" which signified understanding and
conviction.

Then suddenly he asked:

"Who was the third man?"

Mr. Farrington's face went from white to red, and to white again.

"The third man?" he stammered.

"I mean the man who shot those two," said31 T. B., "because if there is one thing more
obvious than another it is that they were both killed by a third person. You see," he went
on, "though they had pistols neither had been discharged—that was evident, because on
each the safety catch was raised. Also the lamp-post near which they stood was chipped
by a bullet which neither could have fired. I suggest, Mr. Farrington, that there was a
third man present. Do you object to my searching your house?"

A little smile played across the face of the other.

"I haven't the slightest objection," he said. "Where will you start?"

"In the basement," said T. B.; "that is to say, in your kitchen."

The millionaire led the way down the stairs, and descended the back stairway which led
to the domain of the absent cook. He turned on the electric light as they entered.

There was no sign of an intruder.

"That is the cellar door," indicated Mr. Farrington, "this the larder, and this leads to the
area passage. It is locked."

T. B. tried the handle, and the door opened readily.

"This at any rate is open," he said, and entered the dark passageway.

"A mistake on the part of the butler," said the puzzled Mr. Farrington. "I have given the
strictest orders that all these doors should be fastened. You will find the area door bolted
and chained."

T. B. threw the rays of his electric torch over the door.

"It doesn't seem to be," he remarked; "in fact, the door is ajar."

Farrington gasped.

"Ajar?" he repeated. T. B. stepped out into the well of the tiny courtyard. It was
approached from the street by a flight of stone stairs.

T. B. threw the circle of his lamp over the flagged yard. He saw something glittering and
stooped to pick it up. The object was a tiny gold-capped bottle such as forms part of the
paraphernalia in a woman's handbag.

He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it.

"That is it," he said.

"What?" asked Mr. Farrington, suspiciously.

"The scent I detected in your hall," replied T. B. "A peculiar scent, is it not?" He raised
the bottle to his nose again. "Not your ward's by any chance?"

Farrington shook his head vigorously.

"Doris has never been in this area in her life," he said; "besides, she dislikes perfumes."
T. B. slipped the bottle in his pocket.

Further examination discovered no further clue as to the third person, and T. B.

followed his host back to the study.

"What do you make of it?" asked Mr. Farrington.

T. B. did not answer immediately. He walked to the window and looked out. The little
crowd which had been attracted by the shots and arrival of the police ambulance had
melted away. The mist which had threatened all the evening had rolled into the square
and the street lamps showed yellow through the dingy haze.

"I think," he said, "that I have at last got on the track of Montague Fallock."

Mr. Farrington looked at him with open mouth.

"You don't mean that?" he asked incredulously.

T. B. inclined his head.

"The open door below—the visitor?" jerked the stout man, "you don't think Montague
Fallock was in the house to-night?"

T. B. nodded again, and there was a moment's silence.

"He has been blackmailing me," said Mr. Farrington, thoughtfully, "but I don't think——
"

The detective turned up his coat collar preparatory to leaving.

"I have a rather unpleasant job," he said. "I shall have to search those unfortunate men."

Mr. Farrington shivered. "Beastly," he said, huskily.

T. B. glanced round the beautiful apartment with its silver fittings, its soft lights and
costly panellings. A rich, warm fire burnt in an oxidized steel grate. The floor was a
patchwork of Persian rugs, and a few pictures which adorned the walls must have been
worth a fortune.
On the desk there was a big photograph in a plain silver frame—the photograph of a
handsome woman in the prime of life.

"Pardon me," said T. B., and crossed to the picture, "this is——"

"Lady Constance Dex," said the other, shortly—"a great friend of mine and my ward's."

"Is she in town?"

Mr. Farrington shook his head.

"She is at Great Bradley," he said; "her brother is the rector there."

"Great Bradley?"

T. B.'s frown showed an effort to recollect something.

"Isn't that the locality which contains the Secret House?"

"I've heard something about the place," said Mr. Farrington with a little smile.

"C. D.," said the detective, making for the door.

"What?"

"Lady Constance Dex's initials, I mean," said T. B.

"Yes—why?"

"Those are the initials on the gold scent bottle, that is all," said the detective. "Good
night."

He left Mr. Farrington biting his finger nails—a habit he fell into when he was seriously
perturbed.
 CHAPTER III

T. B. Smith sat alone in his office in Scotland Yard. Outside, the Embankment, the river,
even the bulk of the Houses of Parliament were blotted out by the dense fog. For two
days London had lain under the pall, and if the weather experts might be relied upon,
yet another two days of fog was to be expected.

The cheery room, with its polished oak panelling and the chaste elegance of its
electroliers, offered every inducement to a lover of comfort to linger. The fire glowed
bright and red in the tiled fireplace, a silver clock on the mantelpiece ticked musically,
and at his hand was a white-covered tray with a tiny silver teapot, and the paraphernalia
necessary for preparing his meal—that strange tea-supper which was one of T. B.
Smith's eccentricities.

He glanced at the clock; the hands pointed to twenty-five minutes past one.

He pressed a little button let into the side of the37 desk, and a few seconds later there
was a gentle tap at the door, and a helmetless constable appeared.

"Go to the record room and get me"—he consulted a slip of paper on the desk—"Number
G ."

The man withdrew noiselessly, and T. B. Smith poured out a cup of tea for himself.

There was a thoughtful line on his broad forehead, a look of unaccustomed worry on the
handsome face, tanned with the suns of Southern France. He had come back from his
holiday to a task which required the genius of a superman. He had to establish the
identity of the greatest swindler of modern times, Montague Fallock. And now another
reason existed for his search. To Montague Fallock, or his agent, must be ascribed the
death of two men found in Brakely Square the night before.

No man had seen Montague; there was no photograph to assist the army of detectives
who were seeking him. His agents had been arrested and interrogated, but they were but
the agents of agents. The man himself was invisible. He stood behind a steel network of
banks and lawyers and anonymities, unreachable.

The constable returned, bearing under his arm a little black leather envelope, and,
depositing it on the desk of the Assistant Commissioner, withdrew.
T. B. opened the envelope and removed three neat packages tied with red tape. He
unfastened one of these and laid three cards before him. They were three photographic
enlargements of a finger print. It did not need the eye of an expert to see they were of
the same finger, though it was obvious that they had been made under different
circumstances.

T. B. compared them with a smaller photograph he had taken from his pocket. Yes, there
was no doubt about it. The four pictures, secured by a delicate process from the almost
invisible print on the latest letter of the blackmailer, proved beyond any doubt the
identity of Lady Dex's correspondent.

He rang the bell again and the constable appeared in the doorway.

"Is Mr. Ela in his office?"

"Yes, sir. He's been taking information about that Dock case."

"Dock case? Oh yes, I remember; two men were caught rifling the Customs store; they
shot a dock constable and got away."

"They both got away, sir," said the man, "but one was shot by the constable's mate; they
found his blood on the pavement outside where their motor-car was waiting."

T. B. nodded.

"Ask Mr. Ela to come in when he is through," he said.

Mr. Ela was evidently "through," for almost immediately after the message had gone, the
long, melancholy face of the superintendent appeared in the doorway.

"Come in, Ela," smiled T. B.; "tell me all your troubles."

"My main trouble," replied Ela, as he sank wearily into the padded chair, "is to induce
eyewitnesses to agree as to details; there is absolutely no clue as to the identity of the
robbers, and nearly murderers. The number of the car was a spurious one, and was not
traced beyond Limehouse. I am up against a blank wall. The only fact I have to go upon
is the very certain fact that one of the robbers was either wounded or killed and carried
to the car by his friend, and that his body will have to turn up somewhere or other—then
we may have something to go on."
"If it should prove to be that of my friend Montague Fallock," said T. B. humorously, "I
shall be greatly relieved. What were your thieves after—bullion?"

"Hardly! No, they seem to be fairly prosaic pilferers. They engaged in going through a
few trunks—part of the personal baggage of the Mandavia40 which arrived from Coast
ports on the day previous. The baggage was just heavy truck; the sort of thing that a
passenger leaves in the docks for a day or two till he has arranged for their carriage. The
trunks disturbed, included one of the First Secretary to a High Commissioner in
Congoland, a dress basket of a Mrs. Somebody-or-other whose name I forget—she is the
wife of a Commissioner—and a small box belonging to Dr. Goldworthy, who has just
come back from the Congo where he has been investigating sleeping sickness."

"Doesn't sound thrilling," said T. B. thoughtfully; "but why do swagger criminals come
in their motor-cars with their pistols and masks—they were masked if I remember the
printed account aright?" Ela nodded. "Why do they come on so prosaic an errand?"

"Tell me," said Ela, laconically, then, "What is your trouble?"

"Montague," said the other, with a grim smile, "Montague Fallock, Esquire. He has been
demanding a modest ten thousand pounds from Lady Constance Dex—Lady Constance
being a sister of the Hon. and Rev. Harry Dex, Vicar of Great Bradley. The usual threat—
exposure of an old love affair.

"Dex is a large, bland aristocrat under the thumb41 of his sister; the lady, a masterful
woman, still beautiful; the indiscretion partly atoned by the death of the man. He died in
Africa. Those are the circumstances that count. The brother knows, but our friend
Montague will have it that the world should know. He threatens to murder, if necessary,
should she betray his demands to the police. This is not the first time he has uttered this
threat. Farrington, the millionaire, was the last man, and curiously, a friend of Lady
Dex."

"It's weird—the whole business," mused Ela. "The two men you found in the square
didn't help you?"

T. B., pacing the apartment with his hand in his pocket, shook his head.

"Ferreira de Coasta was one, and Henri Sans the other. Both men undoubtedly in the
employ of Montague, at some time or other. The former was a well-educated man, who
may have acted as intermediary. He was an architect who recently got into trouble in
Paris over money matters. Sans was a courier agent, a more or less trusted messenger.
There was nothing on either body to lead me to Montague Fallock, save this."

He pulled open the drawer of his desk and produced a small silver locket. It was
engraved in42 the ornate style of cheap jewellery and bore a half-obliterated monogram.

He pried open the leaf of the locket with his thumbnail. There was nothing in its interior
save a small white disc.

"A little gummed label," explained T. B., "but the inscription is interesting."

Ela held the locket to the light, and read:

"Mor: Cot.
God sav the Keng."

"Immensely patriotic, but unintelligible and illiterate," said T. B., slipping the medallion
into his pocket, and locking away the dossier in one of the drawers of his desk.

Ela yawned.

"I'm sorry—I'm rather sleepy. By the way, isn't Great Bradley, about which you were
speaking, the home of a romance?"

T. B. nodded with a twinkle in his eye.

"It is the town which shelters the Secret House," he said, as he rose, "but the
eccentricities of lovesick Americans, who build houses equally eccentric, are not matters
for police investigation. You can share my car on a fog-breaking expedition as far as
Chelsea," he added, as he slipped into his overcoat and pulled on his gloves; "we may
have the luck to run over Montague."

"You are in the mood for miracles," said Ela, as they were descending the stairs.

"I am in the mood for bed," replied T. B. truthfully. Outside the fog was so thick that the
two men hesitated. T. B.'s chauffeur was a wise and patient constable, but felt in his
wisdom that patience would be wasted on an attempt to reach Chelsea.
"It's thick all along the road, sir," he said. "I've just 'phoned through to Westminster
Police Station, and they say it is madness to attempt to take a car through the fog."

T. B. nodded.

"I'll sleep here," he said. "You'd better bed down somewhere, David, and you, Ela?"

"I'll take a little walk in the park," said the sarcastic Mr. Ela.

T. B. went back to his room, Ela following.

He switched on the light, but stood still in the doorway. In the ten minutes' absence
some one had been there. Two drawers of the desk had been forced; the floor was
littered with papers flung there hurriedly by the searcher.

T. B. stepped swiftly to the desk—the envelope had gone.

A window was open and the fog was swirling into the room.

"There's blood here," said Mr. Ela. He pointed to the dappled blotting pad.

"Cut his hand on the glass," said T. B. and jerked his head to the broken pane in the
window. He peered out through the open casement. A hook ladder, such as American
firemen use, was hanging to the parapet. So thick was the fog that it was impossible to
see how long the ladder was, but the two men pulled it up with scarcely an effort. It was
made of a stout light wood, with short steel brackets affixed at intervals.

"Blood on this too," said Ela, then, to the constable who had come to his ring, he jerked
his orders rapidly: "Inspector on duty to surround the office with all the reserve—'phone
Cannon Row all men available to circle Scotland Yard, and to take into custody a man
with a cut hand—'phone all stations to that effect."

"There's little chance of getting our friend," said T. B. He took up a magnifying glass and
examined the stains on the pad.

"Who was he?" asked Ela.

T. B. pointed to the stain.

"Montague," he said, briefly, "and he now knows the very thing I did not wish him to
know."

"And that is?"

T. B. did not speak for a moment. He stood45 looking down at the evidence which the
intruder had left behind.

"He knows how much I know," he said, grimly, "but he may also imagine I know more—
there are going to be developments."
 CHAPTER IV

It was a bad night in London, not wild or turbulent, but swathed to the eyes like an
Eastern woman in a soft grey garment of fog. It engulfed the walled canyons of the city,
through which the traffic had roared all day, plugged up the maze of dark side-streets,
and blotted out the open squares. Close to the ground it was thick, viscous,
impenetrable, so that one could not see a yard ahead, and walked ghostlike, adventuring
into a strange world.

Occasionally it dispersed. In front of the Jollity Theatre numbers of arc-lights wrought a

wavering mist-hung yellow space, into which a constant line of vehicles, like monstrous
shiny beetles, emerged from the outer nowhere, disgorged their contents, and were
eclipsed again. And pedestrians in gay processional streamed across the rudy glistening
patch like figures on a slide.

Conspicuous in the shifting throng was a sharp-faced boy, ostensibly selling

newspapers, but with a keen eye upon the arriving vehicles. Suddenly he darted to the
curb, where an electric coupe had just drawn up. A man alighted heavily, and turned to
assist a young woman.

For an instant the lad's attention was deflected by the radiant vision. The girl, wrapped
in a voluminous cloak of ivory colour, was tall and slim, with soft white throat and
graceful neck; her eyes under shadowy lashes were a little narrow, but blue as autumn
mist, and sparkling now with amusement.

"Watch your steps, auntie," she warned laughingly, as a plump, elderly, little lady
stepped stiffly from the coupe. "These London fogs are dangerous."

The boy stood staring at her, his feet as helpless as if they had taken root to the ground.
Suddenly he remembered his mission. His native impudence reasserted itself, and he
started forward.

"Paper, sir?"

He addressed the man. For a moment it seemed as though he were to be rebuffed, then
something in the boy's attitude changed his mind.

As the man fumbled in an inner pocket for change, the lad took a swift inventory. The
face beneath the tall hat was a powerful oval, paste-coloured, with thin lips, and heavy
lines from nostril to jaw. The eyes were close set and of a turbid grey.
"It's him," the boy assured himself, and opened his mouth to speak.

The girl laughed amusedly at the spectacle of her companion's passion for news in this
grimy atmosphere, and turned to the young man in evening dress who had just
dismissed his taxi and joined the group.

It was the diversion the boy had prayed for. He took a quick step toward the older man.

"T. B. S.," he said, in a soft but distinct undertone.

The man's face blanched suddenly, and a coin which he held in his large, white-gloved
palm slipped jingling to the pavement.

The young messenger stooped and caught it dexterously.

"T. B. S.," he whispered again, insistently.

"Here?" the answer came hoarsely. The man's lips trembled.

"Watchin' this theatre—splits[ by the million," finished the boy promptly, and with
satisfaction. Under cover of returning the coin, he thrust a slip of white paper into the
other's hand.

[Footnote Splits: detectives.

Then he wheeled, ducked to the girl with a gay49 little swagger of impudence, threw a
lightning glance of scrutiny at her young escort, and turning, was lost in the throng.

The whole incident occupied less than a minute, and presently the four were seated in
their box, and the gay strains from the overture of The Strand Girl came floating up to
them.

"I wish I were a little street gamin in London," said the girl pensively, fingering the
violets at her corsage. "Think of the adventures! Don't you, Frank?"

Frank Doughton looked across at her with smiling significant eyes, which brought a
flush to her cheeks.

"No," he said softly, "I do not!"

The girl laughed at him and shrugged her round white shoulders.
"For a young journalist, Frank, you are too obvious—too delightfully verdant. You
should study indirection, subtlety, finesse—study our mutual friend Count Poltavo!"

She meant it mischievously, and produced the effect she desired.

At the name the young man's brow darkened.

"He isn't coming here to-night?" Doughton asked, in aggrieved tones.

The girl nodded, her eyes dancing with laughter.

"What can you see in that man, Doris?" he50 protested. "I'll bet you anything you like
that the fellow's a rogue! A smooth, soft-smiling rascal! Lady Dinsmore," he appealed to
the elder woman, "do you like him?"

"Oh, don't ask Aunt Patricia!" cried the girl. "She thinks him quite the most fascinating
man in London. Don't deny it, auntie!"

"I shan't," said the lady, calmly, "for it's true! Count Poltavo"—she paused, to inspect
through her lorgnette some new-comers in the opposite box, where she got just a
glimpse of a grey dress in the misty depths of the box, the whiteness of a gloved hand
lying upon the box's edge—"Count Poltavo is the only interesting man in London. He is a
genius." She shut her lorgnette with a snap. "It delights me to talk with him. He smiles
and murmurs gay witticisms and quotes Talleyrand and Lucullus, and all the while, in
the back of his head, quite out of reach, his real opinions of you are being tabulated and
ranged neatly in a row like bottles on a shelf."

Doris nodded thoughtfully.

"I'd like to take down some of those bottles," she said. "Some day perhaps I shall."

"They're probably labelled poison," remarked Frank viciously. He looked at the girl with
a growing sense of injury. Of late she had seemed51 absolutely changed towards him;
and from being his good friend, with established intimacies, she had turned before his
very eyes into an alien, almost an enemy, more beautiful than ever, to be true, but
perverse, mocking, impish. She flouted him for his youth, his bluntness, his guileless
transparency. But hardest of all to bear was the delicate derision with which she treated
his awkward attempts to express his passion for her, to speak of the fever which had
taken possession of him, almost against his will. And now, he reflected bitterly, with this
velvet fop of a count looming up as a possible rival, with his savoir faire, and his absurd
penchant for literature and art, what chance had he, a plain Briton, against such odds?—
unless, as he profoundly believed, the chap was a crook. He determined to sound her
guardian.

"Mr. Farrington," he asked aloud, "what do you think—hallo!" He sprang up suddenly

and thrust out a supporting arm.

Farrington had risen, and stood swaying slightly upon his feet. He was frightfully pale,
and his countenance was contracted as if in pain. He lifted a wavering hand to his head.

With a supreme effort he steadied himself.

"Doris," he asked quickly, "I meant to ask you—where did you leave Lady Constance?"

The girl looked up in surprise.

"I haven't seen her to-day—she went down to Great Bradley last night—didn't she,
auntie?"

The elder woman nodded.

"Mannish, and not a little discourteous I think," she said, "leaving her guests and
motoring through the fog to the country. I sometimes think Constance Dex is a trifle
mad."

"I wish I could share your views," said Farrington, grimly.

He turned abruptly to Doughton.

"Look after Doris," he said. "I have remembered—an engagement."

He beckoned Frank, with a scarcely perceptible gesture, and the two men passed out of
the box.

"Have you discovered anything?" he asked, when they were outside.

"About what?" asked Frank, innocently.

A grim smile broke the tense lines of Mr. Farrington's face.

"Really!" he said, drily, "for a young man engaged in most important investigations you
are casual."

"Oh!—the Tollington business," said the other. "No, Mr. Farrington, I have found
nothing. I don't think it is my game really—investigating and discovering people. I'm a
pretty53 good short story writer but a pretty rotten detective. Of course, it is awfully
kind of you to have given me the job——"

"Don't talk nonsense," snapped the older man. "It isn't kindness—it's self-interest.
Somewhere in this country is the heir to the Tollington millions. I am one of the trustees
to that estate and I am naturally keen on discovering the man who will relieve me of my
responsibility. There is a hundred pounds awaiting the individual who unearths this
heir."

He glanced at his watch.

"There is one other thing I want to speak to you about—and that is Doris."

They stood in the little corridor which ran at the back of the boxes, and Frank wondered
why he had chosen this moment to discuss such urgent and intimate matters. He was
grateful enough to the millionaire for the commission he had given him—though with
the information to go upon, looking for the missing Tollington heir was analogous to
seeking the proverbial needle—but grateful for the opportunity which even this
association gave him for meeting Doris Gray, he was quite content to continue the
search indefinitely.

"You know my views," the other went on—he glanced at his watch again. "I want Doris
to54 marry you. She is a dear girl, the only human being in the world for whom I have
any affection." His voice trembled, and none could doubt his sincerity. "Somehow I am
getting nervous about things—that shooting which I witnessed the other night has made
me jumpy—go in and win."

He offered a cold hand to the other, and Frank took it, then, with a little jerk of his head,
and a muttered "shan't be gone long," he passed into the vestibule, and out into the
foggy street. A shrill whistle brought a taxi from the gloom.

"The Savoy," said Farrington. He sprang in, and the cab started with a jerk.

A minute later he thrust his head from the window.

"You may drop me here," he called. He descended and paid his fare. "I'll walk the rest of
the way," he remarked casually.

"Bit thickish on foot to-night, sir," offered the driver respectfully. "Better let me set you
down at the hotel." But his fare was already lost in the enveloping mist.

Farrington wrapped his muffler closely about his chin, pulled down his hat to shadow
his eyes, and hurried along like a man with a set destination.

Presently he halted and signalled to another cab, crawling along close to the curb.
 CHAPTER V

The fog was still heavy, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the yellow mist,
when the little newsboy messenger, the first half of his mission performed, struck
briskly riverward to complete his business. He disposed of his papers by the simple
expedient of throwing them into a street refuse-bin. He jumped on a passing 'bus, and
after half an hour's cautious drive reached Southwark. He entered one of the narrow
streets leading from the Borough. Here the gas lamps were fewer, and the intersecting
streets more narrow and gloomy.

He plunged down a dark and crabbed way, glancing warily behind him now and then to
see if he was being followed.

Here, between invisible walls, the fog hung thick and warm and sticky, crowding up
close, with a kind of blowsy intimacy that whispered the atmosphere of the place.
Occasionally, close to his ear, snatches of loose song burst out, or a coarse face loomed
head-high through the reek.

But the boy was upon his native heath and scuttled along, whistling softly between
closed teeth, as, with a dexterity born of long practice, he skirted slush and garbage
sinks, slipped around the blacker gulfs that denoted unguarded basement holes, and
eluded the hideous shadows that lurched by in the gloom.

Hugging the wall, he presently became aware of footsteps behind him. He rounded a
corner, and, turning swiftly, collided with something which grabbed him with great
hands. Without hesitation, the lad leaned down and set his teeth deep into the hairy
arm.

The man let go with a hoarse bellow of rage and the boy, darting across the alley, could
hear him stumbling after him in blind search of the narrow way.

As he sped along a door suddenly opened in the blank wall beside him, and a stream of
ruddy light gushed out, catching him square within its radiance, mud-spattered, starry-
eyed, vivid.

A man stood framed in the doorway.

"Come in," he commanded, briefly.

The boy obeyed. Surreptitiously he wiped the57 wet and mud from his face and tried to
reduce his wild breathing.
The room which he entered was meagre and stale-smelling, with bare floor and stained
and sagging wall-paper; unfurnished save for a battered deal table and some chairs.

He sank into one of them and stared with frank curiosity past his employer, who had
often entrusted him with messages requiring secrecy, past his employer's companion, to
the third figure in the room—a prostrate figure which lay quite still under the heavy
folds of a long dark ulster with its face turned to the wall.

"Well?" It was a singularly agreeable voice which aroused him, soft and well-bred, but
with a faint foreign accent. The speaker was his employer, a slender dark man, with a
finely carved face, immobile as the Sphinx. He had laid aside his Inverness and top hat,
and showed himself in evening dress with a large—perhaps a thought too large—
buttonhole of Parma violets, which sent forth a faint fragrance.

Of the personality of the man the messenger knew nothing more than that he was
foreign, eccentric in a quiet way, lived in a grand house near Portland Place, and
rewarded him handsomely for his occasional services. That the grand58 house was an
hotel at which Poltavo had run up an uncomfortable bill he could not know.

The boy related his adventures of the evening, not omitting to mention his late pursuer.

The man listened quietly, brooding, his elbows upon the table, his inscrutable face
propped in the crotch of his hand. A ruby, set quaintly in a cobra's head, gleamed from a
ring upon his little finger. Presently he roused.

"That's all to-night, my boy," he said, gravely.

He drew out his purse, extracted a sovereign, and laid it in the messenger's hand.

"And this," he said, softly, holding up a second gold piece, "is for—discretion! You
comprehend?"

The boy shot a swift glance, not unmixed with terror, at the still, recumbent figure in the
corner, mumbled an assent and withdrew. Out in the dampness of the fog, he took a
long, deep breath.

As the door closed behind him, the door of an inner room opened and Farrington came
out. He had preceded the messenger by five minutes. The young exquisite leaned back in
his chair, and smiled into the sombre eyes of his companion.
"At last!" he breathed, softly. "The thing moves. The wheels are beginning to revolve!"

The other nodded gloomily, his glance straying off toward the corner of the room.

"They've got to revolve a mighty lot more before the night's done!" he replied, with
heavy significance.

"I needn't tell you," he continued, "that we must move in this venture with extreme
caution. A single misstep at the outset, the slightest breath of suspicion, and pff! the
entire superstructure falls to the ground."

"That is doubtless true, Mr. Farrington," murmured his companion, pleasantly. He

leaned down to inhale the fragrant scent of the violets. "But you forget one little thing.
This grand superstructure you speak of—so mysteriously"—he hid a slight smile—"I
don't know it—all. You have seen fit, in your extreme caution, to withhold complete
information from me."

He paused, and regarded his companion with a level, steady gaze. A faint, ironical smile
played about the corners of his mouth; he spoke with a slightly foreign accent, which
was at once pleasant and piquant.

"Is it not so, my friend?" he asked, softly. "I am—how you say—left out in the cold—I do
not even know your immediate plans."

His countenance was serene and unruffled, and it was only by his slightly quickened
breathing that the conversation held any unusual significance.

The other stirred uneasily in his chair.

"There are certain financial matters," he said, with a light air.

"There are others immediately pressing," interrupted his companion. "I observe, for
example, that your right hand is covered by a glove which is much larger than that on
your left. I imagine that beneath the white kid there is a thin silk bandage. Really, for a
millionaire, Mr. Farrington, you are singularly—shall I say—'furtive'?"

"Hush!" whispered Farrington, hoarsely. He glanced about half-fearfully.

The younger man ignored the outburst. He laid a persuasive hand upon his companion's
arm.

"My friend," he said gravely, "let me give you a bit of good advice. Believe me, I speak
disinterestedly. Take me into your counsel. I think you need assistance—and I have
already given you a taste of my quality in that respect. This afternoon when I called
upon you in your home in Brakely Square, suggesting that a man of my standing might
be of immense value to you, you were at first innocently dull, then suspicious. After I
told you of my adventures in the office of a certain Society journal you were angry.
Frankly," the young man shrugged his shoulders, "I am a penniless adventurer—can I be
more frank than that? I call myself Count Poltavo—yet the good God knows that my
family can give no greater justification to the claim of nobility than the indiscretions of
lovely Lydia Poltavo, my grandmother, can offer. For the matter of that I might as well
be prince on the balance of probability. I am living by my wits: I have cheated at cards, I
have hardly stopped short of murder—I need the patronage of a strong wealthy man,
and you fulfill all my requirements."

He bowed slightly to the other, and went on:

"You challenged me to prove my worth—I accepted that challenge. To-night, as you

entered the theatre, you were told by a messenger that T. B. Smith—a most admirable
man—was watching you—that he had practically surrounded the Jollity with detectives,
and, moreover, I chose as my messenger a small youth who has served you more than
once. Thus at one stroke I proved that not only did I know what steps authority was
taking to your undoing, but also that I had surprised this splendid rendezvous—and
your secret."

He waived his hand around the sordid room, and his eyes rested awhile upon the silent,
ulster-covered figure on the bed; his action was not without intent.

"You are an interesting man," said Farrington, gruffly. He looked at his watch. "Join
my62 party at the Jollity," he said; "we can talk matters over. Incidentally, we may
challenge Mr. Smith." He smiled, but grew grave again. "I have lost a good friend
there"—he looked at the form on the bed; "there is no reason why you should not take
his place. Is it true—what you said to-day—that you know something of applied
mechanics?"

"I have a diploma issued by the College of Padua," said the other promptly.
 CHAPTER VI

At precisely ten o'clock, as the curtain came reefing slowly down upon the first act of The
Strand Girl, Lady Dinsmore turned with outstretched hand to greet the first of the two
men who had just entered the box.

"My dear Count," she exclaimed, "I am disappointed in you! Here I have been paying
you really quite tremendous compliments to these young people. I presume you are on
Gregory's 'business'?"

"I am desolated!"

Count Poltavo had a way of looking at one gravely, with an air of concentrated attention,
as if he were seeing through the words, into the very soul of the speaker. He was, indeed,
a wonderful listener, and this quality, added to a certain buoyancy of temperament,
accounted perhaps for his popularity in such society as he had been able to penetrate.

"Before I ask you to name the crime, Lady64 Dinsmore," he said, "permit me to offer my
humblest apologies for my lateness."

Lady Dinsmore shook her head at him and glanced at Farrington, but that dour man had
drawn a chair to the edge of the box, and was staring moodily down into the great
auditorium.

"You are an incorrigible!" she declared, "but sit down and make your excuses at your
leisure. You know my niece, and I think you have met Mr. Doughton. He is one of our
future leaders of thought!"

The Count bowed, and sank into a chair beside his hostess.

Frank, after a frigidly polite acknowledgement, resumed his conversation with Doris,
and Lady Dinsmore turned to her companion.

"Now for the explanation," she exclaimed, briskly. "I shall not let you off! Unpunctuality
is a crime, and your punishment shall be to confess its cause."

Count Poltavo bent toward her with bright, smiling eyes.

"A very stupid and foolish business engagement," he replied, "which required my
personal attendance, and unfortunately that of Mr. Farrington."
Lady Dinsmore threw up a protesting hand.

"Business has no charms to soothe my savage breast! Mr. Farrington," she lowered her
voice confidentially, "can talk of nothing else. When he was staying with us he was for
ever telegraphing, cabling to America, or decoding messages. There was no peace in the
house, by day or by night. Finally I made a stand. 'Gregory,' I said, 'you shall not pervert
my servants with your odious tips, and turn my home into a public stock-exchange. Take
your bulls and bears over to the Savoy and play with them there, and leave Doris to me.'
And he did!" she concluded triumphantly.

Count Poltavo looked about, as if noting for the first time Farrington's preoccupation.
"Is he quite well?" he inquired, in an undertone.

Lady Dinsmore shrugged her shoulders.

"Frankly, I think he had a slight indisposition, and magnified it in order to escape small
talk. He hates music. Doris has been quite distrait ever since. The child adores her
uncle—you know, of course, that she is his niece—the daughter of my sister. Gregory was
her father's brother—we are almost related."

Her companion glanced across to the subject of their remarks. The girl sat in the front of
the box, slim and elegant, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. She was watching the
brilliant scene66 with a certain air of detachment, as if thinking of other things. Her
usual lightness and gay banter seemed for the moment to have deserted her, leaving a
soft brooding wistfulness that was strangely appealing.

The Count looked at her.

"She is very beautiful," he murmured under his breath.

Something in his voice caught Lady Dinsmore's attention. She eyed him keenly.

The Count met her look frankly.

"Is—is she engaged to her young friend?" he asked quietly. "Believe me, it is not vulgar
curiosity which prompts the question. I—I am—interested." His voice was as composed
as ever.

Lady Dinsmore averted her gaze hurriedly and thought with lightning rapidity.
"I have not her confidence," she replied at length, in a low tone; "she is a wise young
woman and keeps her own counsel." She appeared to hesitate. "She dislikes you," she
said. "I am sorry to wound you, but it is no secret."

Count Poltavo nodded. "I know," he said, simply. "Will you be my good friend and tell
me why?"

Lady Dinsmore smiled. "I will do better than that," she said kindly. "I will be your very
good67 friend and give you a chance to ask her why. Frank,"—she bent forward and
tapped the young man upon the shoulder with her fan,—"will you come over here and
tell me what your editor means?"

The Count resigned his seat courteously, and took the vacant place beside the girl. A
silence fell between them, which presently the man broke.

"Miss Gray," he began, seriously, "your aunt kindly gave me this opportunity to ask you
a question. Have I your permission also?"

The girl arched her eyebrows. Her lip curled ever so slightly.

"A question to which you and my Aunt Patricia could find no answer between you! It
must be subtle indeed! How can I hope to succeed?"

He ignored her sarcasm. "Because it concerns yourself."

"Ah!" She drew herself up and regarded him with sparkling eyes. One small foot began
to tap the floor ominously. Then she broke into a vexed little laugh.

"I am no match for you with the foils, Count. I admit it freely. I should have learned by
this time that you never say what you mean, or mean what you say."

"Forgive me, Miss Gray, if I say that you mistake me utterly. I mean always what I
say68—most of all to you. But to say all that I mean—to put into speech all that one
hopes or dreams—or dares,"—his voice dropped to a whisper—"to turn oneself inside
out like an empty pocket to the gaze of the multitude—that is—imbecile." He threw out
his hands with an expressive gesture.

"But to speak concretely—I have unhappily offended you, Miss Gray. Something I have
done, or left undone—or my unfortunate personality does not engage your interest. Is it
not true?"
There was no mistaking his sincerity now.

But the girl still held aloof, her blue eyes cool and watchful. For the moment, her face, in
its young hardness, bore a curious resemblance to her uncle's.

"Is that your question?" she demanded.

The Count bowed silently.

"Then I will tell you!" She spoke in a low voice surcharged with emotion. "I will give you
candour for candour, and make an end of all this make-believe."

"That," he murmured, "is what I most desire."

Doris continued, heedless of the interruption. "It is true that I dislike you. I am glad to
be able to tell you as much openly. And yet, perhaps, I should use another word. I dislike
your secrecy69—something dark and hidden within you—and I fear your influence over
my uncle. You have known me less than a fortnight—Mr. Farrington, less than a week—
yet you have made what I can only conceive to be impertinent proposals of marriage to
me. To-day you were for three hours with my uncle. I can only guess what your business
has been."

"You would probably guess wrong," he said coolly.

Farrington, at the other end of the box, shot a swift, suspicious glance across. Poltavo
turned to the girl again.

"I want only to be a friend of yours in the day of your need," he said, in a low voice;
"believe me, that day is not far distant."

"That is true?" She leaned toward him, a little troubled.

He bowed his head in assent.

"If I could believe you," she faltered. "I need a friend! Oh, if you could know how I have
been torn by doubts—beset by fears—oppressions." Her voice quivered. "There is
something wrong somewhere—I can't tell you everything—if you would help me—wait.
May I test you with a question?"
"A thousand if you like."

"And you will answer—truthfully?" In her eagerness she was like a child.

He smiled. "If I answer at all, be sure it will be truthful."

"Tell me then, is Dr. Fall your friend?"

"He is my dearest enemy," he returned, promptly.

He had only the dimmest notion as to the identity of Dr. Fall, but it seemed that a lie
was demanded—Poltavo could lie very easily.

"Or Mr. Gorth?" she asked, and he shook his head.

She drew a deep breath of relief. "And my uncle?" The question was a whisper. She
appeared to hang upon his reply.

The Count hesitated. "I do not know," he admitted finally. "If he were not influenced by
Dr. Fall, I believe he would be my friend." It was a bow at a venture. He was following
the bent of her inclination.

For the first time that evening Doris looked at him with interest.

"May I ask how your uncle came to know Gorth?"

He asked the question with the assurance of one who knew all that was to be known save
on this point.

She hesitated awhile.

"I don't quite know. The doctor we have always known. He lives in the country, and we
only see him occasionally. He is——" She hesitated and then went on rapidly: "I think he
has rather dreadful work. He is in charge of a lunatic."

Poltavo was interested.

"Please go on," he said.

The girl smiled. "I am afraid you are an awful gossip," she rallied, but became more
serious. "I don't like him very much, but uncle says that is my prejudice. He is one of
those quiet, sure men who say very little and make one feel rather foolish. Don't you
know that feeling? It is as though one were dancing the tango in front of the Sphinx."

Poltavo showed his white teeth in a smile.

"I have yet to have that experience," he said.

She nodded.

"One of these days you will meet Dr. Fall and you will know how helpless one can feel in
his presence."

A remarkable prophecy which was recalled by Poltavo at a moment when he was

powerless to profit by the warning.

"Mr. Gorth?"

Again she hesitated and shrugged her shoulders.

"Well," she said frankly, "he is just a common man. He looks almost like a criminal to
my mind. But apparently he has been a loyal servant to uncle for many years."

"Tell me," asked Poltavo, "on what terms is Dr. Fall with your uncle? On terms of
equality?"

She nodded.

"Naturally," she said with a look of surprise, "he is a gentleman, and is, I believe, fairly
well off."

"And Gorth?" asked Poltavo.

He was interested for many reasons as one who had to take the place of that silent figure
which lay in the fog-shrouded house.
"I hardly know how to describe uncle's relations with Gorth," she answered, a little
puzzled. "There was a time when they were on terms of perfect equality, but sometimes
uncle would be very angry with him indeed. He was rather a horrid man really. Do you
know a paper called Gossip's Corner?" she asked suddenly.

Poltavo had heard of the journal and had found a certain malicious joy in reading its
scandalous paragraphs.

"Well," she said in answer to his nod, "that was Mr. Gorth's idea of literature. Uncle
would never have the paper in his house, but whenever73 you saw Mr. Gorth—he
invariably waited for uncle in the kitchen—you would be sure to find him chuckling over
some of the horrid things which that paper published. Uncle used to get more angry
about this than anything else, Mr. Gorth took a delight in all the unpleasant things
which this wretched little paper printed. I have heard it said that he had something to do
with its publication; but when I spoke to uncle about it, he was rather cross with me for
thinking such a thing."

Poltavo was conscious that the eyes of Farrington were searching his face narrowly, and
out of the corner of his eye he noted the obvious disapproval. He turned round
carelessly.

"An admirable sight—a London theatre crowd."

"Very," said the millionaire, drily.

"Celebrities on every hand—Montague Fallock, for instance, is here."

Farrington nodded.

"And that wise-looking young man in the very end seat of the fourth row—he is in the
shadow, but you may see him."

"T. B. Smith," said Farrington, shortly. "I have seen him—I have seen everybody but——"

"But——?"

"The occupant of the royal box. She keeps in the shadow all the time. She is not a
detective, too, I suppose?" he asked, sarcastically. He looked round. Frank Doughton,
his niece and Lady Dinsmore were engrossed in conversation.
"Poltavo," he said, dropping his voice, "I want to know who that woman is in the
opposite box—I have a reason."

The orchestra was playing a soft intermezzo, and of a sudden the lights went down in the
house, hushed to silence as the curtain went slowly up upon the second act.

There was a shifting of chairs to distribute the view, a tense moment of silence as the
chorus came down a rocky defile and then—a white pencil of flame shot out from the
royal box and a sharp crash of a pistol report.

"My God!" gasped Mr. Farrington, and staggered back.

There was a loud babble of voices, a stentorian voice from the back of the stalls shouted,
"House lights—quick!" The curtain fell as the house was bathed in the sudden glare of
lights.

T. B. saw the flash and leapt for the side aisle: two steps and he was at the door which
led to the royal box. It was empty. He passed quickly through the retiring room—empty
also, but the private entrance giving on to the street was open and the fog was drifting
through in great wreaths.

He stepped out into the street and blew a shrill whistle. Instantly from the gloom came a
plain clothes policeman—No, he had seen nobody pass. T. B. went back to the theatre,
raced round to the box opposite and found it in confusion.

"Where is Mr. Farrington?" he asked, quickly.

He addressed his remark to Poltavo.

"He is gone," said the other, with a shrug.

"He was here when the pistol was fired—at this box, my friend, as the bullet will testify."
He pointed to the mark on the enamelled panel behind. "When the lights came he had
gone—that is all."

"He can't have gone," said T. B. shortly. "The theatre is surrounded. I have a warrant for
his arrest."

A cry from the girl stopped him. She was white and shaking.
"Arrest!" she gasped, "on what charge?"

"On a charge of being concerned with one Gorth in burglary at the Docks—and with an
attempted murder."

"Gorth!" cried the girl, vehemently. "If any man is guilty, it is Gorth—that evil man——"

"Speak softly of the dead," said T. B. gently. "Mr. Gorth, as I have every reason to
believe, received wounds from which he died. Perhaps you can enlighten me, Poltavo?"

But the Count could only spread deprecating hands.

T. B. went out into the corridor. There was an emergency exit to the street, but the door
was closed. On the floor he found a glove, on the door itself the print of a bloody hand.

But there was no sign of Farrington.

 CHAPTER VII

Two days later, at the stroke of ten, Frank Doughton sprang from his taxi in front of the
office of the Evening Times.

He stood for a moment, drawing in the fresh March air, sweet with the breath of
approaching spring. The fog of last night had vanished, leaving no trace. He caught the
scent of Southern lilacs from an adjoining florist shop.

He took the stairs three at a time.

"Chief in yet?" he inquired of Jamieson, the news editor, who looked up in astonishment
at his entrance, and then at the clock.

"No, he's not down yet. You've broken your record."

Frank nodded.

"I've got to get away early."

Tossing his hat upon his desk, he sat down and went methodically through his papers.
He unfolded his Times, his mind intent upon the problem78 of the missing millionaire.
He had not seen Doris since that night in the box. The first paper under his hand was an
early edition of a rival evening journal.

He glanced down at the headlines on the front page, then with a horrified cry he sprang
to his feet. He was pale, and the hand which gripped the paper shook.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed.

Jamieson swung round in his swivel chair.

"What's up?" he inquired.

"Farrington!" said Frank, huskily. "Farrington has committed suicide!"

"Yes, we've a column about it," remarked Jamieson, complacently. "A pretty good story."
Then suddenly: "You knew him?" he asked.

Frank Doughton lifted a face from which every vestige of colour had been drained. "I—I
was with him at the theatre on the night he disappeared," he said.
Jamieson whistled softly.

Doughton rose hurriedly and reached for his hat.

"I must go to them. Perhaps something can be done. Doris——" he broke off, unable to
continue, and turned away sharply.

Jamieson looked at him sympathetically.

"Why don't you go round to Brakely Square?" he suggested. "There may be new
developments—possibly a mistake. You note that the body has not been discovered."

Out upon the pavement, Frank caught a passing taxi.

He drove first to the city offices which were Farrington's headquarters. A short talk with
the chief clerk was more than enlightening. A brief note in the handwriting of the
millionaire announced his intention, "tired of the world," to depart therefrom.

"But why?" asked the young man, in bewilderment.

"Mr. Doughton, you don't seem to quite realize the importance of this tragedy," said the
chief clerk, quietly. "Mr. Farrington was a financial king—a multi-millionaire. Or at
least, he was so considered up till this morning. We have examined his private books,
and it now appears that he had speculated heavily during the last few weeks—he has lost
everything, every penny of his own and his ward's fortune. Last night, in a fit of despair,
he ended his life. Even his chief clerk had no knowledge of his transactions."

Doughton looked at him in a kind of stupefaction. Was it of Farrington the man was
talking such drivel? Farrington, who only the week before had80 told him in high
gratification that within the last month he had added a cool million to his ward's
marriage portion. Farrington, who had, but two days ago, hinted mysteriously of a
gigantic financial coup in the near future. And now all that fortune was lost, and the
loser was lying at the bottom of the Thames!

"I think I must be going mad," he muttered. "Mr. Farrington wasn't the kind to kill
himself."

"It is not as yet known to the public, but I think I may tell you, since you were a friend of
Farrington's, that Mr. T. B. Smith has been given charge of the matter. He will probably
wish to know your address. And in the meantime, if you run across anything——"
"Certainly! I will let you know. Smith is an able man, of course." Doughton gave the
number of his chambers, and retreated hastily, glad that the man had questioned him no
further.

He found his cab and flung himself wearily against the cushions. And now for Doris!

But Doris was not visible. Lady Dinsmore met him in the morning room, her usually
serene countenance full of trouble. He took her hand in silence.

"It is good of you, my dear Frank, to come so quickly. You have heard all?"

He nodded.

"How is Doris?"

She sank into a chair and shook her head.

"The child is taking it terribly hard! Quite tearless, but with a face like frozen marble!
She refused to believe the news, until she saw his own writing. Then she fainted."

Lady Dinsmore took out her lace handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

"Doris," she continued, in a moment, "has sent for Count Poltavo."

Frank stared at her.

"Why?" he demanded.

Lady Dinsmore shook her head.

"I cannot say, definitely," she replied, with a sigh. "She is a silent girl. But I fancy she
feels that the Count knows something—she believes that Gregory met with foul play."

Frank leaned forward.

"My own idea!" he said, quietly.

Lady Dinsmore surveyed him with faint, good-humoured scorn.

"You do not know Gregory," she said, after a pause.

"But—I do not follow you! If it was not murder it must have been suicide. But why
should Mr. Farrington kill himself?"

"I am sure that he had not the slightest idea of doing anything so unselfish," returned
Lady Dinsmore, composedly.

"Then what——"

"Why are you so absolutely sure that he is dead?" she asked softly.

Frank stared at her in blank amazement.

"What do you mean?" he gasped. Was she mad also?

"Simply that he is no more dead than you or I," she retorted, coolly. "What evidence
have we? A letter, in his own handwriting, telling us gravely that he has decided to die!
Does it sound probable? It is a safe presumption that that is the farthest thing from his
intentions. For when did Gregory ever tell the truth concerning his movements? No,
depend upon it, he is not dead. For purposes of his own, he is pretending to be. He has
decided to exist—surreptitiously."

"Why should he?" asked the bewildered young man. This was the maddest theory of all.
His head swam with a riot of conflicting impressions. He seemed to have been hurled
headlong into a frightful nightmare, and he longed to emerge again into the light of the
prosaic, everyday world.

The door at the farther end of the room opened. He looked up eagerly, half expecting to
see Farrington himself, smiling upon the threshold.

It was Doris. She stood there for a moment, uncertain, gazing at them rather strangely.
In her white morning dress, slightly crumpled, and her dark hair arranged in smooth
bandeaux, she was amazingly like a child. The somewhat cold spring sunlight which
streamed through the window showed that the event of the night had already set its
mark upon her. There were faint violet shadows beneath her eyes, and her face was pale.
Frank came forward hastily, everything blotted from his mind but the sight of her white,
grief-stricken face. He took both her hands in his warm clasp.

The girl gave him a long, searching scrutiny, then her lips quivered, and with a
smothered sob she flung herself into his arms and hid her face on his shoulder.

Frank held her tenderly. "Don't," he whispered unsteadily—"don't cry, dear."

In her sorrow, she was inexpressibly sweet and precious to him.

He bent down and smoothed with gentle fingers the soft, dusky hair. The fragrance of it
filled his nostrils. Its softness sent a delicious ecstasy thrilling from his finger-tips up his
arm. All his84 life he would remember this one moment. He gazed down at her tenderly,
a wonderful light in his young face.

"Dear!" he whispered again.

She lifted a pallid face to him. Her violet eyes were misty, and tiny drops of dew were
still tangled in her lashes.

"You—you are good to me," she murmured.

At his answering look, a faint colour swept into her cheeks. She gently disengaged
herself and sat down.

Lady Dinsmore came forward, and seating herself beside the girl upon the divan, drew
her close within the shelter of her arms.

"Now, Frank," she said, cheerily, indicating a chair opposite, "sit down, and let us take
counsel together. And first of all,"—she pressed the girl's cold hand—"let me speak my
strongest conviction. Gregory is not dead. Something tells me that he is safe and well."

Doris turned her eyes to the young man wistfully. "You have heard something—later?"
she asked.

He shook his head. "There has been no time for fresh developments yet. Scotland Yard is
in charge of the affair, and T. B. Smith has been put upon the case."

She shuddered and covered her face with her hands.

"He said he was going to arrest him—how strange and ghastly it all is!" she whispered.
"I—I cannot get it out of my head. The dark river—my poor uncle—I can see him there—
" She broke off.

Lady Dinsmore looked helplessly across to the young man.

It was at that moment that a servant brought a letter.

Lady Dinsmore arched her eyebrows significantly. "Poltavo!" she murmured.

Doris darted forward and took the letter from the salver. She broke the seal and tore out
the contents, and seemed to comprehend the message at a glance. A little cry of joy
escaped her. Her face, which had been pale, flushed a rosy hue. She bent to read it again,
her lips parted. Her whole aspect breathed hope and assurance. She folded the note,
slipped it into her bosom, and, without a word, walked from the room.

Frank stared after her, white to the lips with rage and wounded love.

Lady Dinsmore rose briskly to her feet.

"Excuse me. Wait here!" she said, and rustled after her niece.

Frank Doughton paced up and down the room distractedly, momentarily expecting her
reappearance. Only a short half-hour ago, with Doris' head upon his breast, he had felt
supremely happy; now he was plunged into an abyss of utter wretchedness. What were
the contents of that brief note which had affected her so powerfully? Why should she
secrete it with such care unless it conveyed a lover's assurance? His foot came into
contact with a chair, and he swore under his breath.

The servant, who had entered unobserved, coughed deprecatingly.

"Her ladyship sends her excuses, sir," he said, "and says she will write you later."

He ushered the young man to the outer door.

Upon the top step Frank halted stiffly. He found himself face to face with Poltavo.

The Count greeted him gravely.

"A sad business!" he murmured. "You have seen the ladies? How does Miss Gray bear it?
She is well?"

Frank gazed at him darkly.

"Your note recovered her!" he said, quietly.

"Mine!" Surprise was in the Count's voice. "But I have not written. I am come in
person."

Frank's face expressed scornful incredulity. He87 lifted his hat grimly and descended
the steps, and came into collision with a smiling, brown-faced man.

"Mr. Smith!" he said, eagerly, "is there any news?"

T. B. looked at him curiously.

"The Thames police have picked up the body of a man bearing upon his person most of
Mr. Farrington's private belongings."

"Then it is true! It is suicide?"

T. B. looked past him.

"If a man cut his own head off before jumping into the river, it was suicide," he said
carefully, "for the body is headless. As for myself, I have never witnessed such a
phenomenon, and I am sceptical."

A train drew into the arrival platform at Waterloo and a tall man alighted. Nearer at
hand he did not appear to be so young as the first impression suggested. For there was a
powdering of grey at each temple and certain definite lines about his mouth.

His face was tanned brown, and it required no great powers of observation and
deduction to appreciate the fact that he had recently returned to England after residence
in a hot climate.
He stood on the edge of the curb outside the new entrance of the station, hesitating
whether he should take his chance of finding a cab or whether he should pick up one in
the street, for the night was wet and cold and his train had been full.

Whilst he stood a big taxi came noiselessly to the curb and the driver touched his cap.

"Thank you," said the man with a smile. "You can drive me to the Metropole."

He swung the door open and his foot was on the step when a hand touched him lightly,
and he turned to meet the scrutiny of a pair of humorous grey eyes.

"I think you had better take another cab, Dr. Goldworthy," said the stranger.

"I am afraid——" began the doctor.

The driver of the car, after a swift glance at the new-comer, would have driven off, but
an unmistakable detective-officer had jumped on to the step by his side.

"I am sorry," said T. B. Smith, for he it was who had detained the young doctor, "but I
will explain. Don't bother about the taxi driver; my men will see after him. You have had
a narrow escape of being kidnapped," he added.

He drove the puzzled doctor to Scotland Yard, and piece by piece he extracted the story
of one89 George Doughton who had died in his arms, of a certain box containing papers
which the doctor had promised to deliver to Lady Constance, and of how that lady learnt
the news of her sometime lover's death.

"Thank you," said T. B. when the other had finished. "I think I understand."
 CHAPTER VIII

It was the morning after the recovery of Farrington's body that T. B. Smith sat in his big
study overlooking Brakely Square. He had finished his frugal breakfast, the tray had
been taken away, and he was busy at his desk when his man-servant announced Lady
Constance Dex. T. B. looked at the card with an expressionless face.

"Show the lady up, George," he said, and rose to meet his visitor as she came sweeping
through the doorway.

A very beautiful woman was his first impression. Whatever hardness there was in the
face, whatever suggestion there might be of those masterful qualities about which he
had heard, there could be no questioning the rare clearness of the skin, the glories of
those hazel eyes, or the exquisite modelling of the face. He judged her to be on the right
side of thirty, and was not far out, for Lady Constance Dex at that time was twenty-
seven.

She was well, even richly, dressed, but she did not at first give this impression. T. B.
imagined that she might be an authority on dress, and in this he took an accurate view,
for though not exactly a leader of fashion, Lady Constance had perfect taste in such
matters.

He pulled forward a chair to the side of his desk.

"Won't you sit down?" he said.

She gave a brief smile as she seated herself.

"I am afraid you will think I am a bore, disturbing you, Mr. Smith, especially at this hour
of the morning, but I wanted to see you about the extraordinary happenings of the past
few days. I have just come up to town," she went on; "in fact, I came up the moment I
heard the news."

"Mr. Farrington is, or was, a friend of yours?" said T. B.

She nodded.

"He and I have been good friends for many years," she replied, quietly; "he is an
extraordinary man with extraordinary qualities."
"By the way," said T. B., "his niece was staying with you a few nights ago, was she not?"

Lady Constance Dex inclined her head.

"She came to a ball I was giving, and stayed the night," she said. "I motored back to
Great Bradley after the dance, so that I have not seen92 her since I bade her good night.
I am going along to see what I can do for her," she concluded. She had been speaking
very deliberately and calmly, but now it was with an effort that she controlled her voice.

"I understand, Mr. Smith," she said suddenly, "that you have a small scent bottle which
is my property; Mr. Farrington wrote to me about it."

T. B. nodded.

"It was found in the area of Mr. Farrington's house," he said, "on the night that the two
men were killed in Brakely Square."

"What do you suggest?" she asked.

"I suggest that you were at Mr. Farrington's house that night," said T. B. bluntly. "We
are speaking now, Lady Constance, as frankly as it is possible for man and woman to
speak. I suggest that you were in the house at the time of the shooting, and that when
you heard the shots you doubled back into the house, through the kitchen, and out again
by a back way."

He saw her lips press tighter together, and went on carelessly:

"You see, I was not satisfied with the examination I made that night. I came again in the
early hours of the morning, when the fog had risen a little, and there was evidence of
your retirement plainly93 to be seen. The back of the house opens into Brakely Mews,
and I find there are four motor-cars located in the various garages in that interesting
thoroughfare, none of which correspond with the tire tracks which I was able to pick up.
My theory is that you heard the altercation before the house, that you came out to listen,
not to make your escape, and that when you had satisfied yourself you hurried back to
the mews, got into the car which was waiting for you, and drove off through the fog."

"You are quite a real detective," she drawled. "Can you tell me anything more?"

"Save that you drove yourself and that the car was a two-seater, with a self-starting
arrangement, I can tell you nothing." She laughed.
"I am afraid you have been all the way to Great Bradley making inquiries," she mocked
him. "Everybody there knows I drive a car, and everybody who takes the trouble to find
out will learn that it is such a car as you describe."

"But I have not taken that trouble," said T. B. with a smile. "I am curious to know, Lady
Constance, what you were doing in the house at that time. I do not for one moment
suspect that you shot these men; indeed, I have plenty of evidence that the shots were
fired from some other place than the area."

"Suppose I say," she countered, "that I was giving a party that night, that I did not leave
my house."

"If you said that," he interrupted, "you would be contradicting something you have
already said; namely, that you did leave the house, a journey in the middle of the night
as far as I can gather, and evidently one which was of considerable moment."

She looked past him out of the window, her face set, her brows knit in a thoughtful
frown.

"I can tell you a lot of things that possibly you do not know," she said, turning to him
suddenly. "I can explain my return to Great Bradley very simply. There is a friend of
mine, or rather a friend of my friend," she corrected herself, "who has recently returned
from West Africa. I received news that he had gone to Great Bradley to carry a message
from some one who was very dear to me."

There was a little tremor in her voice, and, perfect actress as she might be, thought T. B.,
there was little doubt that here she was speaking the truth.

"It was necessary for me that I should not miss this visitor," said Lady Constance,
quietly, "though I do not wish to make capital out of that happening."

"I must again interrupt you," said T. B. easily. "The person you are referring to was Dr.
Thomas Goldworthy, who has recently returned from an95 expedition organized by the
London School of Tropical Medicine, in Congoland; but your story does not quite tally
with the known fact that Dr. Goldworthy arrived in Great Bradley the night before your
party, and you interviewed him then. He brought with him a wooden box which he had
collected at the Custom House store at the East India Docks. An attempt was made by
two burglars to obtain possession of that box and its contents, a fact that interested me
considerably, since a friend of mine is engaged upon that somewhat mysterious case of
attempted burglary. But that is confusing the issue. These are the facts." He tapped the
table slowly as he enumerated them. "Dr. Goldworthy brought this box to Great Bradley,
telegraphed to you that he was coming, and you interviewed him. It was subsequent to
the interview that you returned to London for your party. Really, Lady Constance, your
memory is rather bad."

She faced him suddenly resolute, defiant.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "You do not accuse me of the murder of your two
friends; you cannot even accuse me of the attempt on Mr. Farrington. You know so
much of my history," she went on, speaking rapidly, "that you may as well know more.
Years ago, Mr. Smith, I was96 engaged to a man, and we were passionately fond of one
another. His name was George Doughton."

"The explorer," nodded T. B.

"He went abroad," she continued, "suddenly and unexpectedly, breaking off our
engagement for no reason that I could ascertain, and all my letters to him, all my
telegrams, and every effort I made to get in touch with him during the time he was in
Africa were without avail. For four years I had no communication from him, no
explanation of his extraordinary behaviour, and then suddenly I received news of his
death. At first it was thought he had died as a result of fever, but Dr. Goldworthy who
came to see me convinced me that George Doughton was poisoned by somebody who
was interested in his death."

Her voice trembled, but with an effort she recovered herself.

"All these years I have not forgotten him, his face has never left my mind, he has been as
precious to me as though he were by my side in the flesh. Love dies very hard in women
of my age, Mr. Smith," she said, "and love injured and outraged as mine has been
developed all the tiger passion which women can nurture. I have learnt for the first time
why George Doughton went out to his death. He used to tell me," she said, as she97 rose
from her chair, and paced the room slowly, "that when you are shooting wild beasts you
should always shoot the female of the species first, because if she is left to the last she
will avenge her slaughtered mate. There is a terrible time coming for somebody," she
said, speaking deliberately.

"For whom?" asked T. B.

She smiled.
"I think you know too much already, Mr. Smith," she said; "you must find out all the rest
in your own inimitable way; so far as I am concerned, you must leave me to work out my
plan of vengeance. That sounds horribly melodramatic, but I am just as horribly in
earnest, as you shall learn. They took George Doughton from me and they murdered
him; the man who did this was Montague Fallock, and I am perhaps the only person in
the world who has met Montague Fallock in life and have known him to be what he is."

She would say no more, and T. B. was too cautious a man to force the pace at this
particular moment. He saw her to the door, where her beautiful limousine was awaiting
her.

"I hope to meet you again very soon, Lady Constance."

"Without a warrant?" she smiled.

"I do not think it will be with a warrant," he98 said, quietly, "unless it is for your friend
Fallock."

He stood in the hall and watched the car disappear swiftly round the corner of the
square. Scarcely was it out of sight than from the little thoroughfare which leads from
the mews at the back of the houses shot a motor-cyclist who followed in the same
direction as the car had taken.

T. B. nodded approvingly; he was leaving nothing to chance. Lady Constance Dex would
not be left day or night free from observation.

"And she did not mention Farrington!" he said to himself, as he mounted the stairs.
"One would almost think he was alive."

It was nine o'clock that evening when the little two-seated motor-car which Lady
Constance drove so deftly came spinning along the broad road which runs into Great
Bradley, skirted the town by a side road and gained the great rambling rectory which
stood apart from the little town in its own beautiful grounds. She sprang lightly out of
the car.

The noise of the wheels upon the gravel walk had brought a servant to the door, and she
brushed past the serving man without a word; ran upstairs to her own room and closed
and locked the door behind her before she switched on the electric light. The electric
light was an unusual possession99 in so small a town, but she owed its presence in the
house to her friendship with that extraordinary man who was the occupant of the Secret
House.

Three miles away, out of sight of the rectory in a fold of the hill was this great gaunt
building, erected, so popular gossip said, by one who had been crossed in love and
desired to live the life of a recluse, a desire which was respected by the superstitious
town-folk of Great Bradley. The Secret House had been built in the hollow which was
known locally as "Murderers' Valley," a pretty little glen which many years before had
been the scene of an outrageous crime. The house added to, rather than detracted from,
the reputation of the glen; no man saw the occupant of the Secret House; his secretary
and his two Italian servants came frequently to Great Bradley to make their purchases;
now and again his closed car would whizz through the streets; and Great Bradley,
speculating as to the identity of its owner, could do no more than hope that one of these
fine days a wheel would come off that closed car and its occupant be forced to disclose
himself.

But in the main the town was content to allow the eccentric owner of the Secret House
all the privacy he desired. He might do things which were unheard of, as indeed he did,
and Great Bradley, standing aloof, was content to thank God that it was not cast in the
same bizarre mould as this wealthy unknown, and took comfort from the reflection.

For he did many curious things. He had a power house of his own; you could see the
chimney showing over Wadleigh Copse, with dynamos of enormous power which
generated all that was necessary for lighting and heating the big house.

There were honest British working men in Great Bradley who spoke bitterly of the
owner's preference for foreign labour, and it was a fact that the men engaged in the
electrical works were without exception of foreign origin. They had their quarters and
lived peacefully apart, neither offering nor desiring the confidence of their fellow-
townsmen. They were, in fact, frugal people of the Latin race who had no other wish
than to work hard and to save as much of their salaries as was possible in order that at
some future date they might return to their beloved Italy, and live in peace with the
world; they were well paid for their discretion, a sufficient reason for its continuance.

Lady Constance Dex had been fortunate in that she had secured one of the few favours
which the Secret House had shown to the town. An underground cable had been laid to
her house, and she101 alone of all human beings in the world was privileged to enter the
home of this mysterious stranger without challenge.

She busied herself for some time changing her dress and removing the signs of her hasty
journey from London. Her maid brought her dinner on a tray, and when she had
finished she went again into her boudoir, and opening the drawer of her bureau she took
out a slender-barrelled revolver. She looked at it for some time, carefully examined the
chambers and into each dropped a nickel-tipped cartridge. She snapped back the hinged
chamber and slipped the pistol into a pocket of her woollen cloak. She locked the bureau
again and went out through the door and down the stairs. Her car was still waiting, but
she turned to the servant who stood deferentially by the door.

"Have the car put in the garage," she said; "I am going to see Mrs. Jackson."

"Very good, my lady," said the man.

 CHAPTER IX

T. B. Smith came down to Great Bradley with only one object in view. He knew that the
solution to the mystery, not only of Farrington's disappearance, but possibly the identity
of the mysterious Mr. Fallock, was to be found rather in this small town than in the
metropolis. Scotland Yard was on its mettle. Within a space of seven days there had
been two murders, a mysterious shooting, and a suicide so full of extraordinary features
as to suggest foul play, without the police being in the position to offer a curious and
indignant public the slightest resemblance of a clue. This, following as it had upon a
shooting affray at the Docks, had brought Scotland Yard to a position of defence.

"There are some rotten things being said about us," said the Chief Commissioner on the
morning of T. B.'s departure. He threw a paper across the table, and T. B. picked it up
with an enigmatic103 smile. He read the flaring column in which the intelligence of the
police department was called into question, without a word, and handed the paper back
to his chief.

"I think we might solve all these mysteries in one swoop," he said. "I am going down to-
day to inspect the Secret House—that is where one end of the solution lies."

The Chief Commissioner looked interested.

"It is very curious that you should be talking about that," he said. "I have had a report
this morning from the chief constable of the county on that extraordinary menage."

"And what has he to say about it?"

Sir Gordon Billings shrugged his shoulders.

"It is one of those vague reports which chief constables are in the habit of furnishing," he
said, drily. "Apparently the owner is an American, an invalid, and is eccentric. More
than this—and this will surprise you—he has been certified by competent medical
authorities as being insane."

"Insane?" T. B. repeated in surprise.

"Insane," nodded the chief; "and he has all the privileges which the Lunacy Act confers
upon a man. That is rather a facer."

T. B. looked thoughtful.
"I had a dim idea that I might possibly discover104 in the occupant one who was, at any
rate, a close relative to Fallock."

"You are doomed to disappointment," smiled the chief; "there is no doubt about that. I
have had all the papers up. The man was certified insane by two eminent specialists, and
is under the care of a doctor who lives on the premises, and who also acts as secretary to
this Mr. Moole. The secret of the Secret House is pretty clear; it is a private lunatic
asylum,—that, and nothing else."

T. B. thought for a while.

"At any rate no harm can be done by interviewing this cloistered Mr. Moole, or by
inspecting the house," he said.

He arrived in Great Bradley in the early part of the afternoon, and drove straight away to
the Secret House. The flyman put him down at some distance from the big entrance
gate, and he made a careful and cautious reconnaissance of the vicinity. The house was a
notable one. It made no pretence at architectural beauty, standing back from the road,
and in the very centre of a fairly uncultivated patch of ground. All that afternoon he
measured and observed the peculiarities of the approach, the lie of the ground, the
entrances, and the exits, and had obtained too a cautious and careful observation of the
great electrical power105 house, which stood in a clump of trees about a hundred yards
from the house itself.

The next morning he paid a more open visit. This time his fly put him down at the
gateway of the house, and he moved slowly up the gravel pathway to the big front
entrance door. He glanced at the tip of the power house chimney which showed over the
trees, and shook his head in some doubt. He had furtively inspected the enormous plant
which the eccentric owner of the Secret House had found it necessary to lay down.

"Big enough to run an electric railway," was his mental comment. He had seen, too, the
one-eyed engineer, a saturnine man with a disfiguring scar down one side of his face,
and a trick of showing his teeth on one side of his mouth when he smiled.

T. B. would have pursued his investigations further, but suddenly he had felt something
click under his feet, as he stood peering in at the window, and instantly a gong had
clanged, and a shutter dropped noiselessly behind the window, cutting off all further
view.

T. B. had retired hastily and had cleared the gates just before they swung to, obviously
operated by somebody in the power house.
His present visit was less furtive and it was in broad daylight, with two detectives
ostentatiously106 posted at the gates, that he made his call—for he took no unnecessary
risks.

He walked up the four broad marble steps to the portico of the house, and wiped his feet
upon a curious metal mat as he pressed the bell. The door itself was half hidden by a
hanging curtain, such as one may see screening the halls of suburban houses, made up
of brightly coloured beads or lengths of bamboo. In this case it was made by suspending
thousands of steel beads upon fine wire strings from a rod above the door. It gave the
impression that the entrance itself was of steel, but when in answer to his summons the
door was opened, the chick looped itself up on either side in the manner of a stage
curtain, and it seemed to work automatically on the opening of the door.

There stood in the entrance a tall man, with a broad white face and expressionless eyes.
He was dressed soberly in black, and had the restrained and deferential attitude of the
superior man-servant.

"I am Mr. Smith, of Scotland Yard," said T. B. briefly, "and I wish to see Mr. Moole."

The man in black looked dubious.

"Will you come in?" he asked, and T. B. was shown into a large comfortably furnished
sitting-room.

"I am afraid you can't see Mr. Moole," said the107 man, as he closed the door behind
him; "he is, as you probably know, a partial invalid, but if there is anything I can do——"

"You can take me to Mr. Moole," said T. B. with a smile; "short of that—nothing."

The man hesitated.

"If you insist," he began.

The detective nodded.

"I am his secretary and his doctor—Doctor Fall," the other introduced himself, "and it
may mean trouble for me—perhaps you will tell me your business?"

"My business is with Mr. Moole."

The doctor bowed.

"Come this way," he said, and he led the detective across the broad hall. He opened a
plain door, and disclosed a small lift, standing aside for the other to enter.

"After you," said T. B. politely.

Dr. Fall smiled and entered, and T. B. Smith followed.

The lift shot swiftly upward and came to a rest at the third floor.

It was not unlike an hotel, thought T. B., in the general arrangement of the place.

Two carpeted corridors ran left and right, and the wall before him was punctured with
doorways at108 regular intervals. His guide led him to the left, to the end of the passage,
and opened the big rosewood door which faced him. Inside was another door. This he
opened, and entered a big apartment and T. B. followed. The room contained scarcely
any furniture. The panelling on the walls was of polished myrtle; a square of deep blue
carpet of heavy pile was set exactly in the centre, and upon this stood a silver bedstead.
But it was not the furnishing or the rich little gilt table by the bedside or the hanging
electrolier which attracted T. B.'s attention; rather his eyes fell instantly upon the man
on the bed.

A man with an odd yellow face, who, with his steady unwinking eyes might have been a
figure of wax save for the regular rise and fall of his breast, and the spasmodic twitching
of his lips. T. B. judged him to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of seventy, and, if
anything, older. His face was without expression; his eyes, which turned upon the
intruder, were bright and beady.

"This is Mr. Moole," said the suave secretary. "I am afraid if you talk to him you will get
little in the way of information."

T. B. stepped to the side of the bed and looked down. He nodded his head in greeting,
but the other made no response.

"How are you, Mr. Moole?" said T. B. gently. "I have come down from London to see
you."

There was still no response from the shrunken figure under the bedclothes.
"What is your name?" asked T. B. after a while.

For an instant a gleam of intelligence came to the eyes of the wreck. His mouth opened
tremulously and a husky voice answered him.

"Jim Moole," it croaked, "poor old Jim Moole; ain't done nobody harm."

Then his eyes turned fearfully to the man at T. B.'s side; the old lips came tightly
together and no further encouragement from T. B. could make him speak again.

A little later T. B. was ushered out of the room.

"You agree with me," said the doctor smoothly, "Mr. Moole is not in a position to carry
on a very long conversation."

T. B. nodded.

"I quite agree," he said, pleasantly. "An American millionaire—Mr. Moole—is he not?"

Dr. Fall inclined his head. His black eyes never left T. B.'s face.

"An American millionaire," he repeated.

"He does not talk like an American," said T. B.; "even making allowances that one must
for his110 mental condition, there is no inducement to accept the phenomenon."

"Which phenomenon?" asked the other, quickly.

"That which causes an American millionaire, a man probably of some refinement and
education, at any rate of some lingual characteristics, to talk like a Somerset farm
labourer."

"What do you mean?" asked the other harshly.

"Just what I say," said T. B. Smith; "he has the burr of a man who has been brought up
in Somerset. He is obviously one who has had very little education. My impression of
him does not coincide with your description."

"I think, Mr. Smith," said the other, quietly, "that you have had very little acquaintance
with people who are mentally deficient, otherwise you would know that those
unfortunate fellow-creatures of ours who are so afflicted are very frequently as
unrecognizable from their speech as from their actions."

He led the way to the lift door, but T. B. declined its service.

"I would rather walk down," he said.

He wanted to be better acquainted with this house, to have a larger knowledge of its
topography than the ascent and descent by means of an electric lift would allow him. Dr.
Fall offered no objection, and led the way down the red carpeted stairs.

"I am well acquainted with people of unsound mind," T. B. went on, "especially that
section of the insane whose lunacy takes the form of dropping their aitches."

"You are being sarcastic at my expense," said the other, suddenly turning to him with a
lowered brow. "I think it is only right to tell you that, in addition to being Mr. Moole's
secretary, I am a doctor."

"That is also no news to me," smiled T. B. "You are an American doctor with a
Pennsylvania degree. You came to England in eighteen hundred and ninety-six, on
board the Lucania. You left New York hurriedly as the result of some scandal in which
you were involved. It is, in fact, much easier to trace your movements since the date of
your arrival than it is to secure exact information concerning Mr. Moole, who is
apparently quite unknown to the American Embassy."

The large face of the secretary flushed to a deep purple.

"You are possibly exceeding your duty," he said, gratingly, "in recalling a happening of
which I was but an innocent victim."

"Possibly I am," agreed T. B.

He bowed slightly to the man, and descended112 the broad steps to the unkempt lawn in
front of the house. He was joined at the gate by the two men he had brought down. One
of these was Ela.

"What did you find?" asked that worthy man.

"I found much that will probably be useful to us in the future," said T. B., as he stepped
into the fly, followed by his subordinate.
He turned to the third detective.

"You had better wait here," he said, "and report on who arrives and who departs. I shall
be back within a couple of hours."

The man saluted, and the fly drove off.

"I have one more call to make," said T. B. Smith, "and I had better make that alone, I
think. Tell the flyman to drop me at Little Bradley Rectory."

Lady Constance Dex was not unprepared for the visit of the detective. She had seen him
from the window of her room, driving past the rectory in the direction of the Secret
House, and he found her expectantly waiting him in the drawing-room.

He came straight to the heart of the matter.

"I have just been to visit a man who I understand is a friend of yours," he said.

She inclined her head.

"You mean Mr. Moole?"

"That is the man," said the cheerful T. B.

She thought for a long time before she spoke again. She was evidently making up her
mind as to how much she would tell this insistent officer of the law.

"I suppose you might as well know the whole facts of the case," she said; "if you will sit
over there, I will supplement the information I gave you in Brakely Square a few days
ago."

T. B. seated himself.

"I am certainly a visitor to the Secret House," she said, after a while. She did not look at
the detective as she spoke, but kept her gaze fixed upon the window and the garden
without.

"I told you that I have had one love affair in my life; that affair," she went on steadily,
"was with George Doughton; you probably know his son."
T. B. nodded.

"It was a case of love at first sight. George Doughton was a widower, a good-natured,
easy-going, lovable man. He was a brave and brilliant man too, famous as an explorer as
you know. I met him first in London; he introduced me to the late Mr. Farrington, who
was a friend of his, and when Mr. Farrington came to Great Bradley and took a house
here for the summer, George Doughton came down as his guest, and I got to114 know
him better than ever I had known any human being before in my life."

She hesitated again.

"We were lovers," she went on, defiantly,—"why should I not confess to an experience of
which I am proud?—and our marriage was to have taken place on the very day he sailed
for West Africa. George Doughton was the very soul of honour, a man to whom the
breath of scandal was as a desert wind, withering and terrible. He was never in
sympathy with the modern spirit of our type, was old-fashioned in some respects, had
an immense and beautiful conception of women and their purity, and carried his
prejudices against, what we call smart society, to such an extent that, if a man or woman
of his set was divorced in circumstances discreditable to themselves, he would cut them
out of his life."

Her voice faltered, and she seemed to find difficulty in continuing, but she braced
herself to it.

"I had been divorced," she went on, in a low voice; "in my folly I had been guilty of an
indiscretion which was sinless as it was foolish. I had married a cold, rigid and
remorseless man when I was little more than a child, and I had run away from him with
one who was never more to me than a brother. A chivalrous, kindly soul who115 paid for
his chivalry dearly. All the evidence looked black against me, and my husband had no
difficulty in securing a divorce. It passed into the oblivion of forgotten things, yet in
those tender days when my love for George Doughton grew I lived in terror least a
breath of the old scandal should be revived. I had reason for that terror, as I will tell you.
I was, as I say, engaged to be married. Two days before the wedding George Doughton
left me without a word of explanation. The first news that I received was that he had
sailed for Africa; thereafter I never heard from him." She dropped her voice until she
was hardly audible.

T. B. preserved a sympathetic silence. It was impossible to doubt the truth of all she was
saying, or to question her anguish. Presently she spoke again.
"Mr. Farrington was most kind, and it was he who introduced me to Dr. Fall."

"Why?" asked T. B. quickly.

She shook her head.

"I never understood until quite lately," she said. "At the time I accepted as a fact that Dr.
Fall had large interests in West Africa, and would enable me to get into communication
with George Doughton. I clutched at straws, so to speak; I116 became a constant visitor
to the Secret House, the only outside visitor that extraordinary domain has ever had
within memory. I found that my visits were not without result. I was enabled to trace the
movements of my lover; I was enabled, too, to send letters to him in the certainty that
they would reach him. I have reason now to know that Mr. Farrington had another
object in introducing me; he wanted me kept under the closest observation lest I should
get into independent communication with George Doughton. That is all the story so far
as my acquaintance with the Secret House is concerned. I have only seen Mr. Moole on
one occasion."

"And Farrington?" asked T. B.

She shook her head.

"I have never seen Mr. Farrington in the house," she replied.

"Or Montague Fallock?" he suggested.

She raised her eyebrows.

"I have never seen Montague Fallock," she said slowly, "though I have heard from him.
He, too, knew of the scandal; he it was who blackmailed me in the days of my
courtship."

"You did not tell me about that," said T. B.

"There is little to tell," she said, with a weary gesture; "it was this mysterious
blackmailer who117 terrified me, and to whose machinations I ascribe George
Doughton's discovery, for now I know that he was told of my past, and was told by
Montague Fallock. He demanded impossible sums. I gave him as much as I could,
almost ruined myself to keep this blackmailer at bay, but all to no purpose."

She rose and paced the room.

"I have not finished with Montague Fallock," she said.

She turned her white face to the detective, and he saw a hard gleam in her eye.

"There is much that I could tell you, Mr. Smith, which would enable you perhaps to
bring to justice the most dastardly villain that has ever walked the earth."

"May I suggest," said T. B. gently, "that you place me in possession of those facts?"

She smiled, implying a negative.

"I have my own plans for avenging the murder of my lover and the ruin of my life," she
said hardly. "When Montague Fallock dies, I would rather he died by my hand."
 CHAPTER X

Count Poltavo, a busy man of affairs in these days, walked up the stairs of the big block
of flats in which he had his modest dwelling with a little smile upon his lips and a sense
of cheer in his heart. There were many reasons why this broken adventurer, who had
arrived in London only a few months before with little more than his magnificent
wardrobe, should feel happy. He had been admitted suddenly into the circle of the elect.
Introductions had been found which paved a way for further introductions. He was the
confidential adviser of the most beautiful woman in London, was the trusted of
aristocrats. If there was a wrathful and suspicious young newspaper man obviously and
undisguisedly thirsting for his blood that was not a matter which greatly affected the
Count. It had been his good fortune to surprise the secret of the late Mr. Farrington; by
the merest of chances he had happened upon the true financial position of this alleged
millionaire; had discovered119 him to be a swindler and in league, so he guessed, with
the mysterious Montague Fallock. All this fine position which Farrington had built up
was a veritable house of cards. It remained now for the Count to discover how far
Farrington's affection for his niece had stayed his hand in his predatory raid upon the
cash balances of his friends and relatives. Anyway, the Count thought, as he fitted a tiny
key into the lock of his flat, he was in a commanding position. He had all the winning
cards in his hand, and if the prizes included so delectable a reward as Doris Gray might
be, the Count, a sentimental if unscrupulous man, was perfectly satisfied. He walked
through his sitting-room to the bedroom beyond and stood for a moment before the
long mirror. It was a trick of Count Poltavo to commune with himself, and when he was
rallied on this practice, suggestive of vanity to the uninitiated, he confirmed rather than
disabused that criticism by protesting that there was none whom he could trust with
such absence of fear of consequence as his own bright worthy image.

He had reason for the smile which curved his thin lips. Every day he was making
progress which placed Doris Gray more and more, if not in his power, at least under his
influence.

He lived alone without any servants save for the old woman who came every morning to
tidy his flat, and when the bell rang as he stood before the mirror, he answered it himself
without any thought as to the importance of the summons. For Count Poltavo was not
above taking in the milk or chaffering with tradesmen over the quality of a cabbage. It
was necessary that he must jealously husband his slender resources until fate placed
him in possession of a larger and a more generous fortune than that which he now
possessed. He opened the door, and took a step back, then with a little bow:
"Come in, Mr. Doughton," he said.

Frank Doughton strode across the tiny hall, waited until the Count had closed the door,
and opened another, ushering the visitor into his study.

"To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?" asked Poltavo, as he pushed
forward a chair.

"I wanted to see you on a matter which deeply affects you and me," said the young man
briskly, even rudely.

Count Poltavo inclined his head. He recognized all the disagreeable portents, but he was
not in any way abashed or afraid. He had had experience of many situations less
pleasant than this threatened to be and had played his part worthily.

"I can give you exactly a quarter of an hour," he said, looking at his watch; "at the end of
that period I must leave for Brakely Square. You understand there is to be a reading of
the will of our departed friend, and——"

"I know all about that," interrupted Frank, roughly; "you are not the only person who
has been invited to that pleasant function."

"You also?" The Count was a little surprised. He himself went as friend and adviser to
the bereaved girl, a position which a certain letter had secured for him. That letter in
three brief lines had told the girl to trust Poltavo. It was about this letter that Frank had
come, and he came straight to the point.

"Count Poltavo," he said, "the day after Mr. Farrington's disappearance a messenger
brought a letter for Miss Gray."

Poltavo nodded.

"So I understand," he said, smoothly.

"So you know," challenged the other, "because it concerned you. It was a letter in which
Doris was told to trust you absolutely; it was a letter also which gave her hope that the
man whose body was found in the Thames was not that of Farrington."

Poltavo frowned.
"That is not a view that has been accepted by the authorities," he said quickly. "The jury
had122 no doubt that this was the body of Mr. Farrington, and brought in a verdict
accordingly."

Frank nodded.

"What a jury thinks and what Scotland Yard thinks," he said, drily, "are not always in
agreement. As a result of that letter," he went on, "Miss Gray has reposed a great deal of
trust in you, Count, and day by day my efforts to serve her have been made more
difficult by her attitude. I am a plain-speaking Englishman, and I am coming to the
point, right now,"—he thumped the table: "Doris Gray's mind is becoming poisoned
against one who has no other object in life than to serve her faithfully."

Count Poltavo shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"My dear young man," he said, smoothly, "you do not come to me, I trust, to act as your
agent in order to induce Miss Gray to take any other view of you than she does. Because
if you do," he went on suavely, "I am afraid that I cannot help you very much. There is
an axiom in the English language to which I subscribe most thoroughly, and it is that 'all
is fair in love and war.'"

"In love?" repeated Frank, looking the other straight in the eyes.

"In love," the Count asserted, with a nod of his head, "it is not the privilege of any
human being123 to monopolize in his heart all the love in the world, or to say this thing
I love and none other shall love it. Those qualities in Miss Gray which are so adorable to
you are equally adorable to me."

He spread out his hands in deprecation.

"It is a pity," he said, with his little smile, "and I would do anything to avoid an
unpleasant outcome to our rivalry. It is a fact that cannot be gainsaid that such a rivalry
exists. I have reason to know that the late Mr. Farrington had certain views concerning
his niece and ward, and I flatter myself that those views were immensely favourable to
me."

"What do you mean?" asked Frank, harshly.

The Count shrugged again.

"I had a little conversation with Mr. Farrington in the course of which he informed me
that he would like nothing better than to see the future of Doris assured in my hands."

Frank went white.

"That is a lie," he said, hoarsely. "The views of Mr. Farrington were as well known to me
as they are to you—better, if that is your interpretation of them."

"And they were?" asked the Count, curiously.

"I decline to discuss the matter with you," said Frank. "I want only to tell you this. If
by124 chance I discover that you are working against me by your lies or your cunning, I
will make you very sorry that you ever came into my life."

"Allow me to show you the door," said Count Poltavo. "People of my race and of my
family are not usually threatened with impunity."

"Your race I pretty well know," said Frank, coolly; "your family is a little more obscure.
If it is necessary for me to go any farther into the matter, and if I am so curious that I am
anxious for information, I shall know where to apply."

"And where will that be?" asked the Count softly, his hand upon the door.

"To the Governor of Alexandrovski Prison," said Frank.

The Count closed the door behind his visitor, and stood for some moments in thought.

It was a depressed little party which assembled an hour later in the drawing-room of the
Brakely Square house. To the Count's annoyance, Frank was one of these, and he had
contrived to secure a place near the sad-faced girl and engage her in conversation. The
Count did not deem it advisable at this particular moment to make any attempt to
separate them: he was content to wait.

T. B. Smith was there.

He had secured an invitation by the simple process of informing those responsible for
the arrangements that if that courtesy was not offered to him he would come in another
capacity than that of a friend.

The senior partner of Messrs. Debenham & Tree, the great city lawyers, was also
present, seated at a table with his clerk, on which paper and ink was placed, and where
too, under the watchful eyes of his assistant, was a bulky envelope heavily sealed.

There were many people present to whom the reading of this will would be a matter of
the greatest moment. Farrington had left no private debts. Whatever plight the
shareholders of the company might be in, he himself, so far as his personal fortune was
concerned, was certainly solvent.

T. B.'s inquiries had revealed, to his great astonishment, that the girl's fortune was
adequately secured. Much of the contents of the will, which was to astonish at least three
people that day, was known to T. B. Smith, and he had pursued his investigations to the
end of confirming much which the dead millionaire had stated.

Presently, when Doris left the young man to go to the lawyer for a little consultation, T.
B. made his way across the room and sat down by the side of Frank Doughton.

"You were a friend of Mr. Farrington's, were you not?" he asked.

Frank nodded.

"A great friend?"

"I hardly like to say that I was a great friend," said the other; "he was very kind to me."

"In what way was he kind?" asked T. B. "You will forgive me for asking these somewhat
brutal questions, but as you know I have every reason to be interested."

Frank smiled faintly.

"I do not think that you are particularly friendly disposed toward him, Mr. Smith," he
said; "in fact, I rather wonder that you are present, after what happened at the theatre."

"After my saying that I wanted to arrest him," smiled T. B. "But why not? Even
millionaires get mixed up in curious illegal proceedings," he said; "but I am rather
curious to know what is the reason for Mr. Farrington's affection and in what way he
was kind to you."

Frank hesitated. He desired most of all to be loyal to the man who, with all his faults,
had treated him with such kindness.

"Well, for one thing," he said, "he gave me a jolly good commission, a commission which
might127 easily have brought me in a hundred thousand pounds."

T. B.'s interest was awakened.

"What was that?" he asked.

In as few words as possible Frank told the story of the search for the heir to the
Tollington millions.

"Of course," he said, with an apologetic smile, "I was not the man for the job—he should
have given it to you. I am afraid I am not cut out for a detective, but he was very keen on
my taking the matter in hand."

T. B. bit his lips thoughtfully.

"I know something of the Tollington millions," he said; "they were left by the timber
king of America who died without issue, and whose heir or heirs were supposed to be in
this country. We have had communications about the matter."

He frowned again as he conjured to his mind all the data of this particular case.

"Of course, Farrington was one of the trustees; he was a friend of old Tollington. That
money would not be involved," he said, half to himself, "because the four other trustees
are men of integrity holding high positions in the financial world of the United States.
Thank you for telling me; I will look up the matter, and if I can be of any128 assistance
to you in carrying out Mr. Farrington's wishes you may be sure that I will."

There was a stir at the other end of the room. With a preliminary cough, the lawyer rose,
the papers in his hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, and a silence fell upon the room, "it is my duty to read
to you the terms of the late Mr. Farrington's will, and since it affects a great number of
people in this room, I shall be glad if you will retain the deepest silence."
There was a murmur of agreement all round, and the lawyer began reading the
preliminary and conventional opening of the legal document. The will began with one or
two small bequests to charitable institutions, and the lawyer looking over his glasses
said pointedly:

"I need hardly say that there will be no funds available from the estate for carrying out
the wishes of the deceased gentleman in this respect, since they are all contingent upon
Mr. Farrington possessing a certain sum at his death which I fear he did not possess.
The will goes on to say," he continued reading:

"'Knowing that my dear niece and ward is amply provided for, I can do no more than
leave her an expression of my trust and love, and it may129 be taken as my last and final
request that she marries with the least possible delay the person whom it is my most
earnest desire she should take as a husband.'"

Two people in the audience felt a sudden cold thrill of anticipation.

"'That person,'" continued the lawyer, solemnly, "'is my good friend, Frank Doughton.'"

There was a gasp from Frank; a startled exclamation from the girl. Poltavo went red and
white and his eyes glowed. T. B. Smith, to whom this portion of the will was known,
watched the actors keenly. He saw the bewildered face of the girl, the rage in Poltavo's
eyes, and the blank astonishment on the face of Frank as the lawyer went on:

"'Knowing the insecurity of present-day investments, and seized with the fear that the
fortune entrusted to my keeping might be dissipated by one of those strange accidents of
finance with which we are all acquainted, I have placed the whole of her fortune, to the
value of eight hundred thousand pounds, in a safe at the London Safe Deposit, and in
the terms of the power vested in me as trustee by her late father I have instructed my
lawyers to hand her the key and the authority to open the safe on the day she marries
the aforesaid Frank Doughton. And if she should refuse or through any130 cause or
circumstance decline to carry out my wishes in this respect, I direct that the fortune
contained therein shall be withheld from her for the space of five years as from the date
of my death.'"

There was another long silence. T. B. saw the change come over the face of Poltavo.
From rage he had passed to wonder, from wonder to suspicion, and from suspicion to
anger again. T. B. would have given something substantial to have known what was
going on inside the mind of this smooth adventurer. Again the lawyer's voice insisted
upon attention.
"'To Frank Doughton,'" he read, "'I bequeath the sum of a thousand pounds to aid him
in his search for the Tollington heir. To T. B. Smith, the assistant commissioner at
Scotland Yard with whom I have had some acquaintance, and whose ability I hold in the
highest regard, I leave the sum of a thousand pounds as a slight reward for his service to
civilization, and I direct that on the day he discovers the most insidious enemy to
society, Montague Fallock, he shall receive a further sum of one thousand pounds from
the trustees of my estate.'"

The lawyer looked up from his reading.

"That again, Mr. Smith, is contingent upon certain matters."

T. B. smiled.

"I quite understand that," he said, drily, "though possibly you don't," he added under his
breath.

This was a portion of the will about which he knew nothing for the document had been
executed but a few days before the tragedy which had deprived the world of Gregory
Farrington. There were a few more paragraphs to read; certain jewelleries had been left
to his dear friend Count Ernesto Poltavo, and the reading was finished.

"I have only to say now," said the lawyer, as he carefully folded his glasses and put them
away in his pocket, "that there is a very considerable sum of money at Mr. Farrington's
bank. It will be for the courts to decide in how so far that money is to be applied to the
liquidation of debts incurred by the deceased as director of a public company. That is to
say, that it will be a question for the supreme judicature whether the private fortune of
the late Mr. Farrington will be seized to satisfy his other creditors."

There was a haze and a babble of talk. Poltavo crossed with quick steps to the lawyer,
and for a moment they were engaged in quick conversation; then suddenly the
adventurer turned and left the room. T. B. had seen the move and followed with132
rapid steps. He overtook the Count in the open doorway of the house.

"A word with you, Count," he said, and they descended the steps together into the street.
"The will was rather a surprise to you?"
Count Poltavo was now all smooth equanimity. You might not have thought from his
smooth face and his smile, and his gentle drawling tone, that he had been affected by the
reading of this strange document.

"It is a surprise, I confess," he said. "I do not understand my friend Farrington's action
in regard to——" he hesitated.

"In regard to Miss Gray," smiled T. B.

Of a sudden the self-control of the man left him, and he turned with a snarling voice on
the detective, but his wrath was not directed toward the cool man who stood before him.

"The treacherous dog!" he hissed, "to do this—to me. But it shall not be, it shall not be, I
tell you; this woman is more to me than you can imagine." He struck his breast violently.
"Can I speak with you privately?"

"I thought you might wish to," said T. B.

He lifted his hand and made an almost imperceptible signal, and a taxicab which had
stood on the opposite side of the road, and followed them slowly133 as they walked
along Brakely Square, suddenly developed symptoms of activity, and came whirring
across the road to the sidewalk.

T. B. opened the door and Poltavo stepped in, the detective following. There was no
need to give any instructions, and without any further order the cab whirled its way
through the West End until it came to the arched entrance of Scotland Yard, and there
the man alighted. By the time they had reached T. B.'s room, Poltavo had regained
something of his self-possession. He walked up and down the room, his hands thrust
into his pockets, his head sunk upon his breast.

"Now," said T. B., seating himself at his desk, "what would you like to say?"

"There is much I would like to say," said Poltavo, quietly, "and I am now considering
whether it will be in my interest to tell all at this moment or whether it would be best
that I should maintain my silence longer."

"Your silence in regard to Farrington I presume you are referring to," suggested T. B.
Smith easily; "perhaps I can assist you a little to unburden your mind."

"I think not," said Poltavo, quickly; "you cannot know as much about this man as I. I had
intended," he said, frankly, "to tell you much that would have134 surprised you; at
present it is advisable that I should wait for one or two days in order that I may give
some interested people an opportunity of undoing a great deal of mischief which they
have done. I must go to Paris at once."

T. B. said nothing; there was no purpose to be served in hastening the issue at this
particular moment. The man had recovered his self-possession, he would talk later, and
T. B. was content to wait, and for the moment to entertain his unexpected guest.

"It is a strange place," said the Count calmly, scrutinizing the room; "this is Scotland
Yard! The Great Scotland Yard! of which all criminals stand in terror, even with which
our local criminals in Poland have some acquaintance."

"It is indeed a strange place," said T. B. "Shall I show you the strangest place of all?"

"I should be delighted," said the other.

T. B. led the way along the corridor, rang for the lift, and they were shot up to the third
floor. Here at the end of a long passage, was a large room, in which row after row of
cabinets were methodically arrayed.

"This is our record department," said T. B.; "it will have a special interest for you, Count
Poltavo."

"Why for me?" asked the other, with a smile.

"Because I take it you are interested in the study of criminal detection," replied T. B.
easily.

He walked aimlessly along one extensive row of drawers, and suddenly came to a halt.

"Here, for instance, is a record of a remarkable man," he said. He pulled open a drawer
unerringly, ran his fingers along the top of a batch of envelopes and selected one. He
nodded the Count to a polished table near the window, and pulled up two chairs.

"Sit down," he said, "and I will introduce you to one of the minor masters of the criminal
world."

Count Poltavo was an interested man as T. B. opened the envelope and took out two
plain folders, and laid them on the table.
He opened the first of these; the photograph of a military-looking man in Russian
uniform lay upon the top. Poltavo saw it, gasped, and looked up, his face livid.

"That was the Military Governor of Poland," said T. B., easily; "he was assassinated by
one who posed as his son many years ago."

The Count had risen quickly, and stood shaking from head to foot, his trembling hand at
his mouth.

"I have never seen him," he muttered. "I136 think your record office is very close—you
have no ventilation."

"Wait a little," said T. B., and he turned to the second dossier.

Presently he extracted another photograph, the photograph of a young man, a singularly

good-looking youth, and laid it on the table by the side of the other picture.

"Do you know this gentleman?" asked T. B.

There was no reply.

"It is the photograph of the murderer," the detective went on, "and unfortunately this
was not his only crime. You will observe there are two distinct folders, each filled with
particulars of our young friend's progress along the path which leads to the gallows."

He sorted out another photograph. It was a beautiful girl in a Russian peasant costume;
evidently the portrait of some one taken at a fancy dress ball, because both the refined
face and the figure of the girl were inconsistent with the costume.

"That is the Princess Lydia Bontasky," said T. B., "one of the victims of our young
friend's treachery. Here is another."

The face of the fourth photograph was plain, and marked with sorrow.

"She was shot at Kieff by our young and high-spirited friend, and died of her wounds.
Here are particulars of a bank robbery organized five years ago by a number of people
who called themselves anarchists, but who were in reality very commonplace,
conventional thieves unpossessed of any respect for human life. But I see this does not
interest you."
He closed the dossier and put it back into its envelope, before he looked up at the
Count's face. The man was pale now, with a waxen pallor of death.

"They are very interesting," he muttered.

He stumbled rather than walked the length of the room, and he had not recovered when
they reached the corridor.

"This is the way out," said T. B., as he indicated the broad stairs. "I advise you, Count
Poltavo, to step warily. It will be my duty to inform the Russian police that you are at
present in this country. Whether they move or do not move is a problematical matter.
Your fellow-countrymen are not specially energetic where crimes of five years' standing
are concerned. But this I warn you,"—he dropped his hand upon the other's shoulder,—
"that if you stand in my way I shall give you trouble which will have much more serious
consequences for you."

Three minutes later Poltavo walked out of Scotland Yard like a man in a dream. He
hailed the first cab that came past and drove back to his flat. He was there for ten
minutes and emerged with a handbag.

He drove to the Grand Marylebone Hotel, and detective inspector Ela, who had watched
his every movement, followed in another taxi. He waited until he saw Poltavo enter the
hotel, then the officer descended some distance from the door, and walked nonchalantly
to the entrance.

There was no sign of Poltavo.

Ela strolled carelessly through the corridor, and down into the big palm court. From the
palm court another entrance led into the Marylebone Road. Ela quickened his steps,
went through the big swing doors to the vestibule.

Yes, the porter on duty had seen the gentleman; he had called a taxi and gone a few
minutes before.

Ela cursed himself for his folly in letting the man out of his sight.

He reported the result of his shadowing to T. B. Smith over the telephone, and T. B. was
frankly uncomplimentary.
"However, I think I know where we will pick him up," he said. "Meet me at Waterloo; we
must catch the : to Great Bradley."
 CHAPTER XI

"You want to see Mr. Moole?" Dr. Fall asked the visitor.

"I wish to see Mr. Moole," replied Poltavo. He stood at the door of the Secret House, and
after a brief scrutiny the big-faced doctor admitted him, closing the door behind him.

"Tell me, what do you want?" he asked. He had seen the curious gesture that Poltavo
had made—the pass sign which had unbarred the entrance to many strange people.

"I want to see Farrington!" replied Poltavo, coolly.

"Farrington!" Fall's brow knit in a puzzled frown.

"Farrington," repeated Poltavo, impatiently. "Do not let us have any of this nonsense,
Fall. I want to see him on a matter of urgency. I am Poltavo."

"I know just who you are," said Fall, calmly, "but why you should come here under the
impression that the late Mr. Farrington is an inmate of this establishment I do not
understand. We are a lunatic asylum, not a mortuary," he said, with heavy humour.

Still, he led the way upstairs to the drawing-room on the first floor.

"What is the trouble?" he asked, as he closed the door behind him.

Poltavo chose to tell the story of his identification by T. B. Smith rather than the real
object of his journey. Fall listened in silence.

"I doubt very much whether he will see you," he said: "he is in his worst mood. However,
I will go along and find out what his wishes are."

He was absent for ten minutes, and when he returned he beckoned to the visitor.

Poltavo followed him up the stairs till he came to the room in which the bedridden Mr.
Moole lay.

A man turned as the two visitors came in—it was Farrington in the life, Farrington as he
had seen him on the night of his disappearance from the box at the Jollity. The big man
nodded curtly.
"Why have you come down here," he asked, harshly, "leading half the detectives in
London to me?"

"I do not think you need bother about half the detectives in London," said Poltavo. He
looked at Fall. "I want to see you alone," he said.

Farrington nodded his head and the other departed, closing the door behind him.

"Now," said Poltavo,—he crossed the room with two strides,—"I want to know what you
mean—you treacherous dog—by this infernal will of yours!"

"You can sit down," said Farrington, coolly, "and you can learn right now, Poltavo, that I
do not stand for any man questioning me as to why I should do this or that, and I
certainly do not stand for any human being in the world speaking to me as you are
doing."

"You know that you are in my power," said Poltavo, viciously. "Are you aware that I
could raise my finger and tumble your precious plot into the dust?"

"There are many things I know," said Farrington, "and if you knew them too you would
keep a civil tongue in your head. Sit down. What is the trouble?"

"Why did you leave that instruction in your will? That Doris was to marry this infernal
Doughton?"

"For a very good reason."

"Explain the reason!" stormed the angry man.

"I shall do nothing so absurd," smiled Farrington, crookedly; "it is enough when I say I
want this girl's happiness. Don't you realize," he went on rapidly, "that the only thing I
have in my life, that is at all clean, or precious, or worth while, is my affection for my
niece? I want to see her happy; I know that her happiness lies with Doughton."

"You are mad," snarled the other; "the girl is half in love with me."
"With you," Farrington's eyes narrowed; "that is absolutely impossible."

"Why impossible?" demanded Poltavo loudly; "why impossible?" He thumped the table
angrily.

"For many reasons," said Farrington. "First, because you are unworthy to be her under-
gardener, much less her husband. You are, forgive my frankness, a blackguard, a thief, a
murderer, a forger and a bank robber, so far as I know." He smiled. "Yes, I was an
interested listener to your conversation with Fall. I have all sorts of weird instruments
here by which I can pick up unguarded items of talk, but fortunately I have no need to be
informed on this subject. I have as complete a record of your past as our friend Smith,
and I tell you, Poltavo, that whilst I am willing that you shall be143 my agent, and that
you shall profit enormously by working hand in hand with me, I would sooner see
myself dead than I should hand Doris over to your tender mercies."

An ugly smile played about the lips of Poltavo.

"That is your last word?" he asked.

"That is my last word," said Farrington; "if you will be advised by me, you will let the
matter stand where it is. Leave things as they are, Poltavo. You are on the way to making
a huge fortune; do not let this absurd sentiment, or this equally absurd ambition of
yours, step in and spoil everything."

"And whatever happens you would never allow Doris to marry me?"

"That is exactly what I meant, and exactly what I still say," said Farrington, firmly.

"But, suppose,"—Poltavo's hands caressed his little moustache, and he was smiling
wickedly,—"suppose I force your hand?"

Farrington's eyebrows rose. "How?" he demanded.

"Suppose I take advantage of the fact that Miss Doris Gray, an impressionable young
English girl, receptive to sympathetic admiration and half in love with me—suppose, I
say, I took advantage of this fact, and we marry in the face of your will?"
"You would be sorry," said Farrington, grimly; "you may be sorry that you even
threatened as much."

"I not only threaten," snarled Poltavo, "but I will carry out my threat, and you interfere
with me at your peril!" He shook his clenched fist in Farrington's face. The elder man
looked at him with a long, earnest glance in which his keen eyes seemed to search the
very soul of the Russian.

"I wish this had not happened," he said, half to himself. "I had hoped that there was the
making of a useful man in you, Poltavo, but I have been mistaken. I never thought that
sentiment would creep in. Is it money—her fortune?" he asked, suddenly.

Poltavo shook his head.

"Curse the money," he said, roughly; "I want the girl. I tell you, Farrington, every day
she grows more precious and more desirable to me."

"Other women have become precious and desirable to you," said Farrington in a low,
passionate voice, "and they have enjoyed the fleeting happiness of your favour for—how
long? Just as long as you wanted, Poltavo, and when you have been satisfied and sated
yourself with joy, you have cast them out as they had been nothing to you. I know your
record, my man," he said. "All that145 I want now is to assure myself that you are in
earnest, because if you are——" He paused.

"If I am——?" sneered Poltavo.

"You will not leave this house alive," said Farrington.

He said it in a matter-of-fact tone, and the full significance of his speech did not dawn
upon the Russian until long after he had said it.

For the space of a second or two his lips were smiling, and then the smile suddenly
froze. His hand went back to his hip pocket and reappeared, holding a long-barrelled
automatic pistol.

"Don't you try any of your tricks on me," he breathed. "I am quite prepared for all
eventualities, Mr. Farrington; you make a mistake to threaten me."

"Not such a mistake as you have made," smiled Farrington. "You may fire your pistol to
see if it will go off. My own impression is that the magazine has been removed."
One glance at the weapon was sufficient to demonstrate to the other that the man had
spoken the truth. He went deathly white.

"Look here," he said, genially, "let us make an end to this absurd breach of friendship. I
have come down to see what I can do for you."

"You have come down now to force me to grant146 your wishes regarding Doris," said
Farrington. "I think the matter had better end." He pressed the bell, and Fall came in
after a few moments' interval.

"Give the Count some refreshment before he goes," he said; "he is going to London."

The very matter-of-factness of the instructions reassured Count Poltavo, who for one
moment had stood in a panic of fear; there was that in this big silent house which
terrified him. And with the removal of this fear his insolent assurance returned. He
stood in the doorway.

"You have made up your mind about Doris?" he said.

"Absolutely," said Farrington.

"Very good," said Poltavo.

He followed Fall along the corridor, and the doctor opened a small door and illuminated
a tiny lift inside, and Poltavo stepped in. As he did so the door clicked.

"How do I work this lift?" he asked through the ornamental ironwork of the doorway.

"I work it from outside," said Dr. Fall, cheerfully, and pressed a button. The lift sank. It
passed one steel door—that was the first floor; and another—that was the ground floor,
but still the lift did not stop. It went on falling slowly, evenly, without jar or haste, and
suddenly it came147 to a stop before a door made of a number of thin steel bars placed
horizontally. As the lift stopped, the steel-barred doorway opened noiselessly. All
Poltavo's senses were now alert; he, a past master in the art of treachery, had been at
last its victim. He did not leave the tiny lift for a moment, but prepared for eventualities.
He took a pencil out of his pocket and wrote rapidly on the wooden panelling of the
elevator, and then he stepped out into the semi-darkness. He saw a large apartment, a
bed and chair, and above a large table one dim light. A number of switches on the wall
facing him promised further illumination. Anyway, if the worst came to the worst, he
could find a way by the lift well to safety again. He searched his pockets with feverish
haste. He usually carried one or two pistol cartridges in case of necessity, and he was
rewarded, for, in his top waistcoat pocket, he discovered two nickel-pointed shapes.
Hastily he removed the dummy magazine from the butt of his pistol. The removal of the
magazine must have been effected by his servant, and the servant, now he came to give
the matter consideration, was possibly in the pay of Farrington, and had probably
warned the occupants of the Secret House of Poltavo's departure.

It was but natural that the big man would take148 no chances, and Poltavo cursed
himself for a fool for allowing himself to be lured into a sense of security. He stepped out
of the lift; there was enough light to guide him across the room. He reached the
switchboard and pulled one of the little levers. Three lights appeared at the far end of
the room; he pulled over the rest and the room was brilliantly illuminated.

It was an underground chamber, with red, distempered walls, artistically furnished. The
small bed in the corner was of brass; the air was conveyed to his gloomy chamber by
means of ventilators placed at intervals in the wall.

Not an uncomfortable prison, thought Poltavo. He was making his inspection when he
heard a clang, and swung round. The steel door of the lift had closed and he reached it
just in time to see the floor of the little cage ascending out of sight. He cursed himself
again for his insensate folly; he might have fixed the door with a chair; it was an
elementary precaution to take, but he had not realized the possibilities of this house of
mystery.

Perhaps the chairs were fixed. He tried them, but found he was mistaken, except in one
case. The great chair at the head of the table, solid and heavy, was immovable, for it was
clamped to the floor.

In one corner was a framework, and he guessed it to be the slide in which the small
provision lift ran.

His surmise was accurate, for even while he was examining it, a trap opened in the
ceiling, and there slid down noiselessly between the oiled grids a tiny platform on which
was a tray filled with covered dishes. He lifted the viands from the little elevator to the
table and inspected them. There was a note written in pencil.

"You need have no fear in consuming the food we provide for you," it ran. "Dr. Fall will
personally vouch for its purity, and will, if necessary, sample it in your presence. If you
should need attendance you will find a small bell fixed on the under side of the table."
Poltavo looked at the dinner. He was ravenously hungry; he must take the chance of
poison; after all, these people had him so completely in their power that there was no
necessity to take any precaution so far as his food was concerned. He attacked an
excellent dinner without discomfort to himself, and when he had finished he bethought
himself of the bell, and finding it under the edge of the table, he pressed the button. He
had not long to wait; he heard the faint hum of machinery and walked across to the
barred gate of the lift, his pistol ready. He waited, his eyes fixed up at the black square
through which he expected the lift to sink, and heard himself suddenly called by name.

He turned; Doctor Fall was standing in the centre of the room. By what means he had
arrived there was no evidence to show.

"I hope I did not surprise you," said the doctor, with his quiet smile; "I did not come the
way you expected. There are three entrances to this room, and they are all equally
difficult to negotiate."

"May I inquire the meaning of this outrage?" asked Poltavo.

"Your virtuous indignation does you credit, Count," said the doctor. He sat down by the
table, took a cigar-case from his pocket, and offered it to his unwilling guest.

"You do not smoke; I am sorry. Would you like a cigarette?"

"Thank you, I have all the cigarettes I require," said Poltavo, briefly.

The doctor did not speak until he had leisurely bitten off the end of a cigar and lit it.

"As I say," he went on, "I admire your sang froid. The word 'outrage' comes curiously
from you, Count, but I am merely carrying out Mr. Farrington's wishes, when I say that I
am perfectly willing to explain your present unhappy position. In some way you have
made our friend very angry," he went on, easily; "and at present he is disposed to treat
you with considerable harshness, to mete out the same harsh justice, in fact, that he
accorded to two of the people who were engaged in the building of this house, and who
were predisposed to blackmail him with a threat of betrayal."

"I knew nothing of these," said Poltavo.

"Then you are one of the few people in London who do not," said Dr. Fall, with a smile.
"One was an architect, the other a fairly efficient man of a type you will find on the
continent of Europe, and who will be an electrician's assistant or a waiter with equal
felicity. These men were engaged to assist in the construction of the house, they were
brought from Italy with a number of other workmen, and entrusted with a section of its
completion. Not satisfied with the handsome pay they received for their workmanship,
they instituted a system of blackmail which culminated one night at Brakely Square in
their untimely death."

"Did Farrington kill them?" gasped Poltavo.

"I will not go so far as to say that," said the suave secretary; "I only say that they died.
Unfortunately for them, they were acting independently152 of one another and
quarrelled violently when they found that they had both come upon a similar errand,
having at last identified the mysterious gentleman, who had commissioned the house,
with Gregory Farrington, a worthy and blackmailable millionaire."

"So that was it," said Poltavo, thoughtfully.

"What a fool I was not to understand, not to see the connection. They were shot dead
outside Farrington's house. Who else could have committed the crime but he?"

"Again, I will not go so far as to say that," repeated the secretary; "I merely remark that
the men died a most untimely death, as a result of their eagerness to extract advantages
from Mr. Farrington, which he was not prepared to offer. You, Count Poltavo, are in
some danger of sharing the same fate."

"I have been in tighter holes than this," smiled Poltavo, but he was uneasy.

"Do not boast," said the doctor quietly. "I doubt very much whether in your life you have
been in so tight a hole as you are in now. We are quite prepared to kill you; I tell you that
much, because Mr. Farrington does not ordinarily take risks. In your case, however, he
is prepared, just so long as you are impressed with his power to153 punish, to give you
one chance of life. Whether you take that chance or not entirely depends upon yourself.
He will not extract any oaths or promises or pledges of any kind; he will release you with
the assurance that if you will serve him you will be handsomely rewarded, and if you fail
him you will be most handsomely killed; do I make myself clear?"

"Very," said Poltavo, and the hand that raised the cigarette to his lips trembled a little.

"I would like to add," began the doctor, when the shrill sound of a ringing bell rang
through the vaulted apartment. Fall sprang up, walked quietly to the wall, and placed his
ear against a portion which appeared to be no different to any other, but which, as
Poltavo gathered, concealed a hidden telephone.
"Yes?" he asked. He listened. "Very good," he said.

He turned to Poltavo, and surveyed him gravely.

"You will be interested to learn," he said, "that the house is entirely surrounded by
police. You have evidently been followed here."

A light sprang into Poltavo's eyes.

"That is very awkward for you," he said, with a laugh.

"More awkward for you, I think," said Doctor154 Fall, walking slowly to the farthermost
wall of the room.

"Stop!" said Poltavo.

The doctor turned. He was covered by the black barrel of Poltavo's pistol.

"I beg to assure you," said the Count mockingly, "that this pistol is loaded with two small
cartridges which I found in my waistcoat pocket, and which I usually carry in case of
emergency. There is at any rate sufficient——"

He said no more, for suddenly the room was plunged in darkness, the lights were
extinguished by an unseen hand as at some signal, and a mocking laugh came back to
him from where Fall had stood.

"Shoot!" said the voice, but the two cartridges were too precious for Poltavo to take any
risks in the dark. He stood waiting, suddenly heard a click, and then the lights came up
again. He was alone in the room. He shrugged his shoulders; there was nothing to do
but wait.

If T. B. Smith had followed him here, and if he had taken the drastic step of surrounding
the house with police, there was hope that he might be rescued from his present
unhappy plight. If not, he had the promise which Farrington had given of his release on
terms.

He heard the whirr of the descending lift; this155 time it was the elevator by which he
himself had descended. It came to a halt at the floor level and the steel gates swung open
invitingly. He must take his chance; anyway, anything was better than remaining in this
underground room.
He stepped into the lift and pulled the gates close after him. To his surprise they
answered readily, and as the lock snapped the lift went upwards slowly. Two
overhanging electric lamps illuminated the little elevator. They were dangerous to him.
With the steel barrel of his pistol he smashed the bulbs and crouched down in the
darkness, his finger on the trigger, ready for any emergency.

T. B. Smith was standing in the hall, and behind him three hard-featured men from the
Yard. Before him was Dr. Fall, imperturbable and obeying as ever.

"You are perfectly at liberty to search the house," he was saying, "and, as far as Count
Poltavo is concerned, there is no mystery whatever. He is one of the people who have
been attracted here by curiosity, and at the present moment he is inspecting the
wonders of our beautiful establishment."

There was something of truth in his ironic tone, and T. B. was puzzled.

"Will you kindly produce Count Poltavo?"

"With pleasure," said the secretary.

It was at that moment that the lift door opened and Poltavo stepped out, pistol in hand.

He saw the group and took in its significance. He had now to decide in that moment
with whom he should run. His mind was made up quickly; he knew he had no friends in
the police force; whatever prosperity awaited him must come from Farrington and his
influence.

"An interesting weapon you have in your hand, Count," drawled T. B. "Do I understand
that you have been inspecting the art treasures of the Secret House in some fear of your
life?"

"Not at all," said Poltavo, as he slipped the pistol into his pocket. "I have merely been
engaged in a little pistol practice in the underground shooting gallery; it is an interesting
place; you should see it."

Dr. Fall's eyes did not leave the face of his late prisoner, and Poltavo saw an approving
gleam in the dark eyes.
"I should not, ordinarily, take the trouble to inspect your shooting gallery," said T. B.
Smith with a smile, "because I know that you are not speaking the exact truth, Count
Poltavo. My own impression is that you have every reason to be157 thankful for my
arrival. In the present circumstances, perhaps, it would be advisable to look over a
portion of your domain which, so far, has escaped my inspection."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"It is hardly a shooting gallery, but since it is so far removed from the living portion of
the house we sometimes use it for that purpose," he said. "I have not the slightest
objection to your descending."

T. B. entered the lift. It was in darkness, as a result of Poltavo's precautions.

"I will go alone," said T. B., and Fall, with a little bow, closed the gates, and the lift
descended.

They waited some time; Fall had the power, from where he was, of closing the gates
below and bringing the lift up again. This Poltavo knew to his cost, but there were good
reasons why the doctor should not exercise his knowledge, and in a few minutes the lift
came back to its original position and T. B. stepped out.

"Thank you, I have learned all I want to know," he said with a keen glance at Poltavo.
"Really, you have an extraordinary house, Dr. Fall."

"It is always open to your inspection," said the doctor, with a heavy smile.

T. B. was fingering the little electric lamp, which158 he carried in his hand, in an absent-
minded manner. Presently he put it into his pocket, and, with a nod to his host, walked
across the hall. He turned suddenly and addressed Poltavo.

"When you were trapped in this house," he said, quietly, "and expected considerable
trouble in escaping from the trap, you took the precaution, like the careful man that you
are, of inscribing a message which might aid those who came to your relief. This
message has now served its purpose," he smiled, as he saw the look of consternation on
Poltavo's face, "and you will be well advised to invite your friend to wipe it out"; and
with another nod he passed from the house, followed by his three men.

"What does this mean?" asked Fall, quickly.

"I—I—" stammered Poltavo, flustered for once in his life, "wrote on the side of the lift a
few words only, nothing incriminating, my dear doctor, just a line to say that I was
imprisoned below."

With a curse Fall dashed into the little elevator.

"Bring a light," he said, and struck a match to read the scrawl which Poltavo had written.
Fortunately there was nothing in it which betrayed the great secret of the house, but it
was enough, as he realized, to awaken the dormant suspicion, even supposing it was
dormant, of this indefatigable detective.

"You have made a nice mess of things," he said to Poltavo, sternly; "see that you do not
make a greater. We will forgive you once, but the second attempt will be fatal."
 CHAPTER XII

The distant chime of Little Bradley church had struck one o'clock, when T. B. Smith
stepped from the shadow of the hedge on the east side of the Secret House, and walked
slowly toward the road. Two men, crouched in the darkness, rose silently to meet him.

"I think I have found a place," said T. B., in a low voice. "As I thought, there are electric
alarms on the top of the walls, and electric wires threaded through all the hedges. There
is a break, however, where, I think, I can circumvent the alarm."

He led the way back to the place from which he had been making his reconnaissance.

"Here it is," said T. B.

He touched a thin twine-like wire with his finger. The third man put the concentrated
ray of an electric lamp upon it.

"I can make another circuit for this," he said, and pulled a length of wire from his
pocket. Two minutes later, thanks to quick manipulation of his wire, they were able to
step in safety across the wall and drop noiselessly into the grounds.

"We shall find a man on duty," whispered T. B.; "he is patrolling the house, and I have
an idea that there are trip-wires on the lawn."

He had fixed a funnel-like arrangement to the head of his lamp, and now he carefully
scrutinized the ground as he walked forward. The funnel was so fixed that it showed no
light save on the actual patch of ground he was surveying.

"Here is one," he said, suddenly.

The party stepped cautiously over the almost invisible line of wire, supported a few
inches from the ground by steel uprights, placed at regular intervals.

"They fix these every night after sunset; I have watched them doing it," said T. B. "There
is another line nearer the house."

They found this, too, and carefully negotiated it.

"Down!" whispered T. B. suddenly, and the party sank flat on the turf.
Ela for a moment could not see the cause for alarm, but presently he discerned the slow
moving162 figure of the sentry as it passed between them and the house. The man was
walking leisurely along, and even in the starlight they could see the short rifle slung at
his shoulder. They waited until he had disappeared round the corner of the house, and
then crossed the remaining space of lawn. T. B. had been carrying a little canvas bag,
and now he put his hand inside and withdrew by the ears a struggling rabbit.

"Little friend," he whispered, "You must be sacrificed in the cause of scientific criminal
investigation."

He mounted the steps which led to the entrance hall. The steel-beaded curtain still hung
before the door almost brushing the mat as he had seen it. He released the rabbit, and
the startled beast, after a vain attempt to escape back to the lawn, went with hesitating
hop on to the mat, and then, at a threatening gesture from T. B., pushed his nose to the
hanging curtain to penetrate his way to safety. Instantly as he touched it there was a
quick flicker of blue light, and the unfortunate animal was hurled back past T. B. to the
gravel path below. The detective descended hastily and picked it up. It was quite dead.
He felt the singed hair about its head, and murmured a sympathetic "vale."

"As I suspected," he said in a low voice, "an electric death-trap for anybody trying to get
into the house that way. Now, Johnson."

The third man was busy pulling out a pair of rubber boots; he took from his pocket a
pair of thick rubber gloves, and made his way with confidence up the steps. He leant
down and tried to pull the mat from its place, but that was impossible. He gathered up
the beads cautiously with his hands; he was free, by reason of his boots and his hand-
covering, from the danger of a shock, but he took good care that no portion of the
curtain touched any other part of his body. Very cautiously he drew the bead "chick"
aside, looping it back by means of strong rubber bands, and then T. B. went forward. In
the meantime he had followed the other's example, and had drawn stout rubber
goloshes over his feet and had put on gloves of a similar material. The lock that he had
noticed earlier in the day was of a commonplace type; the only danger was that the
inmates had taken the precaution of bolting or chaining the door, but apparently they
were content with the protection which their electric curtain might reasonably be
expected to afford. The door opened after a brief manipulation of keys, and T. B. stepped
into the hall. He listened, all his senses strained, for the164 sound of a warning bell, but
none came. Ela and the other man followed.
"Better remain in the hall," said T. B. "We shall have to chance the guard not noticing
what has happened to the curtain, anyway; perhaps he will not be round for some time,"
he added, hopefully.

They made a quick scrutiny of the hall, and found no indication of cables or of wires
which would suggest that an alarm had been fixed. T. B. stole carefully up the stairs,
leaving the two men to guard the hall below. At every landing he halted, and listened,
but the house was wrapped in silence, and he searched the third floor without mishap.

He recognized the corridor, having taken very careful note of certain peculiarities, and a
scratch on the side of the lift door, which he had mentally noted for future reference,
showed him he was on the right track.

Unerringly and swiftly he passed along the passage till he came to the big rosewood
doors which opened upon the invalid's bedroom. He turned the handle gently, it yielded,
and he stepped noiselessly through the door, and pushed the inner door cautiously. The
room was dimly illuminated, evidently by a night light, thought T. B., and he pressed the
door165 farther open that he might secure a better view of the apartment, and then he
gasped, for this was not the room he had been in before.

It was a sumptuously arranged bureau, panelled in rosewood, and set about with costly
furniture. A man was sitting at the desk, busily writing by the light of a table lamp; his
back was toward T. B. The detective pushed the door farther open, and suddenly the
man at the desk leapt up, and turning round, confronted the midnight visitor.

T. B. had only time to see that his face was hidden behind a black mask which extended
from his forehead to his chin. As soon as he saw T. B. standing in the doorway, he
reached out his hand. Instantly the room was in darkness, and the door, which T. B. was
holding ajar, was suddenly forced back as if by an irresistible power, flinging the
detective into the corridor, which almost simultaneously was flooded with light. T. B.
turned to meet the smiling face of Dr. Fall.

The big man, with his white, expressionless countenance, was regarding him gravely,
and with amused resentment.

Where he had come from T. B. could only conjecture; he had appeared as if by magic
and was fully dressed.

"To what do I owe the honour of this visit, Mr. Smith?" he said, in his dry, grim way.
"A spirit of curiosity," said T. B., coolly. "I was anxious to secure another peep at your
Mr. Moole."

"And how did he look?" asked the other, with a faint smile.

"Unfortunately," said T. B., "I have mistaken the floor, and instead of seeing our friend, I
have unexpectedly and quite unwittingly interrupted a gentleman who, for reasons best
known to himself, has hidden his face."

Dr. Fall frowned.

"I do not quite follow you," he said.

"Perhaps if I were to follow you back to the room," said T. B. good-humouredly, "you
might understand better."

He heard a strange wailing sound and a shivering motion beneath his feet, as though a
heavy traction engine were passing close to the house.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It is one of the unpleasant consequences of building one's house over a disused coal-
mine," said the doctor easily; "but as regards your strange hallucination," he went on, "I
should rather like to disabuse your mind of your fantastic vision."

He walked slowly back to the room which T. B. had quitted, and the inner door yielded
to his touch. It was in darkness. Dr. Fall put his hand inside the room and there was a
click of a switch.

"Come in," he said, and T. B. stepped into the room.

It was the room he had left in the earlier part of the day. There was the blue square of
carpet and the silver bedstead, and the same yellow face and unwinking eyes of the
patient. The walls were panelled in myrtle, the same electrolier hung from the ceiling as
he had seen on his previous visit. Smith gasped, and passed his hand over his forehead.

"You see," said the secretary, "you have been the victim of a peculiar and unhappy trick
of eyesight; in fact, Mr. Smith, may I suggest that you have been dreaming?"
"You may suggest just what you like," said T. B. pleasantly. "I should like to see the room
below and the room above."

"With pleasure," said the other; "there is a storeroom up above which you may see if you
wish."

He led the way upstairs, unlocked the door of the room immediately over that which
they had just left, and entered. The room was bare, and the plain deal floor, the
distempered walls, and the high skylight showed it to be just as the doctor had
described, a typical storeroom.

"You do not seem to use it," said T. B.

"We are very tidy people," smiled the doctor; "and now you shall see the room below."

As they went down the stairs again they heard the curious wail, and T. B. experienced a
tremulous jar which he had noted before.

"Unpleasant, is it not?" said Dr. Fall. "I was quite alarmed at that at first, but it has no
unpleasant consequences."

On the second floor he entered the third room, immediately below that in which the sick
Mr. Moole was lying. He unlocked this door and they entered a well-furnished bedroom;
on a more elaborate scale than that which T. B. had seen before.

"This is our spare bedroom," said Dr. Fall, easily; "we seldom use it."

T. B. slipped into the apartment and made a quick scrutiny. There was nothing of a
suspicious character here.

"I hope you are satisfied now," said Dr. Fall as he led the way out, "and that your two
friends below are not growing impatient."

"You have seen them, then," said T. B.

"I have seen them," said the other gravely. "I saw them a few moments after you entered
the hall. You see, Mr. Smith," he went on, "we do not employ anything so vulgar as bells
to alarm169 us. When the entrance door opens, a red light shows above my bed.
Unfortunately, the moment you came in I happened to be in an adjoining room at work.
I had to go into my bedroom to get a paper, when I saw the light. So, though I am
perhaps inaccurate in saying that I have been keeping you under observation from the
moment you arrived, there was little you did which was not witnessed. I will show you, if
you will be good enough to accompany me to my room."

"I shall be delighted," said T. B.

He was curious to learn anything that the house or its custodian could teach him. Dr.
Fall's room was on the first floor, immediately over the entrance hall, a plain office with
a door leading to a cosily, though comparatively expensively furnished bedroom. By the
side of the doctor's bed was a round pillar, which looked for all the world like one of
those conventional and useless articles of furniture which the suburban housewife
employs to balance a palm upon.

"Look down into that," said the doctor.

T. B. obeyed. It was quite hollow, and a little way down was what appeared to be a
square sheet of silver paper. It was unlike any other silver paper because it appeared to
be alive. He could see figures standing against it, two figures that he170 had no difficulty
in recognizing as Ela and Johnson.

"It is a preparation of my own," said the doctor. "I thought of taking out a patent for it.
An adjustment of mirrors throws the image upon a luminous screen which is so
sensitive to light that it can record an impression of your two friends even in the semi-
darkness of the hall."

"Thank you," said T. B.

There was nothing to do but to accept his defeat as graciously as possible. For baffled he
was, caught at every turn, and puzzled, moreover, by his extraordinary experience.

"You will find some difficulty in opening the door," said the pleasant Doctor Fall.

"In that I think you are mistaken," smiled T. B.

The doctor stopped to switch on the light, and the two discomforted detectives watched
the scene curiously.

"We have left the door ajar."

"Still I think you will find a difficulty in getting out," insisted the other. "Open the door."
Ela pulled at it, but it was impossible to move the heavy oaken panel.

"Electrically controlled," said the doctor; "and you can neither move it one way nor the
other. It is an ingenious idea of mine, for which I may also apply for a patent one of
these days."

He took a key from his pocket and inserted it in an almost invisible hole in the oak
panelling of the hall; instantly the door opened slowly.

"I wish you a very good night," said Doctor Fall, as they stood on the steps. "I hope we
shall meet again."

"You may be sure," said T. B. Smith, grimly, "that we shall."

 CHAPTER XIII

Doris Gray was face to face with a dilemma. She stood in a tragic position; even now, she
could not be sure that her guardian was dead. But dead or alive, he had left her a terrible
problem, for terrible it seemed to her, for solution.

She liked Frank Doughton well enough, but she was perhaps too young, had too small a
knowledge of the great elements of life to appreciate fully her true feelings in the matter;
and then the influence of this polished man of the world, this Count of the Roman
Empire as he described himself, with his stories of foreign capitals, his easy
conversation, his acquaintance with all the niceties of social intercourse, had made a
profound impression upon her. At the moment, she might not say with any certainty,
whether she preferred the young Englishman or this suave man of the world.

The balance was against Frank, and the command contained in the will, the knowledge
that she must, so she told herself, make something of a sacrifice, was a subject for
resentment. Not even the sweetest girl in the world, obeying as she thought the
command of a dead man, who was especially fond and proud of her, could be
compensated for the fact that he had laid upon her his dead hands, charging her to obey
a command which might very easily be repugnant and hateful to her.

She did not, in truth, wish to marry anybody. She could well afford to allow the question
of her fortune to lapse; she had at least five years in which to make up her mind, as to
how she felt toward Frank Doughton. She liked him, there was something especially
invigorating and wholesome in his presence and in his very attitude towards her. He was
so courteous, so kindly, so full of quick, strong sympathy and yet—there were some
depths he could not touch, she told herself, and was vague herself as to what those
depths were.

She was strolling in Green Park on a glorious April morning, in a complacent mood, for
the trees were in fresh green bud and the flower beds were a blaze of colour, when she
met Frank, and Frank was so obviously exhilarated that something of his enthusiasm
was conveyed to her. He saw her before she had seen him, and came with quickening
footsteps toward her.

"I say," he said explosively, "I have some splendid news!"

"Let us sit down," she said, with a kindly smile, and made a place for him by her side on
a bench near by. "Now, what is this wonderful news?"
"You remember Mr. Farrington gave me a commission to find the missing heir of
Tollington?"

She nodded.

"Well, I have found him," he said, triumphantly; "it is an extraordinary thing," he went
on, "that I should have done so, because I am not a detective. I told Mr. Farrington quite
a long time ago that I never expected to make any discovery which would be of any use
to him. You see Mr. Farrington was not able to give me any very definite data to work
on. It appears that old Tollington had a nephew, the son of his dead sister, and it was to
this nephew that his fortune was left. Tollington's sister had been engaged to a wealthy
Chicago stockbroker, and the day before the wedding she had run away with an
Englishman, with whom her family was acquainted, but about whom they knew very
little. She guessed that he was a ne'er-do-well, who had come out to the States to redeem
his fallen fortune. But he was not a common adventurer apparently, for he not only
refused to communicate with the girl's parents, although he knew they175 were
tremendously wealthy, but he never allowed them to know his real name. It appears that
he was in Chicago under a name which was not his own. From that moment they lost
sight of him. In a roundabout way they learned that he had gone back to England and
that he had by his own efforts and labours established himself there. This news was
afterwards confirmed. The girl was in the habit of writing regularly to her parents,
giving neither her surname nor address. They answered through the columns of the
London Times. That is how, though they knew where she was situated, all efforts to get
in touch with her proved to be unavailing; and when her parents died, and her brother
renewed his search, he was met with a blank wall. You see," Frank went on, a little
naïvely, "it is quite impossible to discover anybody when their name is not even known
to one."

"I see," smiled the girl; "and have you succeeded where all these people have failed?"

"I have hardly progressed so far as that," he laughed. "What I have discovered is this:
that the man, who seventy years ago left the United States with the sister of old
Tollington, lived for some years in Great Bradley."

"Great Bradley!" she said, in surprise; "why, isn't that where Lady Constance Dex lives?"

He nodded.
"Everybody seems to live there," he said, ruefully; "even our friend," he hesitated.

"Our friend?" she repeated, inquiringly.

"Your friend Poltavo is there now," he said, "permanently established as the guest of Dr.
Fall. You have heard of the Secret House?—but everybody in England has heard of it."

"I am afraid that everybody does not include me," she smiled, "but go on with your
story; how did you find that he lived in Great Bradley?"

"Well, it was rather a case of luck," he explained. "You see, I lived some years in Great
Bradley myself; that is where I first met your uncle. I was a little boy at the time. But it
wasn't my acquaintance with Great Bradley which helped me. Did you see in the paper
the other day the fact that, in pulling down an old post office building, a number of
letters were discovered which had evidently slipped through the floor of the old letter-
box, and had not been delivered?"

"I read something about it," she smiled; "forty or fifty years old, were they not?"

He nodded.

"One of these," he said, quietly, "was addressed to Tollington, and was signed by his
sister. I saw it this morning at the General Post Office. I happened to spot the
paragraph, which was sent in to my paper, to the effect that these letters had been
undelivered for forty or fifty years, and fortunately our correspondent at Great Bradley
had secured a list of the addresses. I saw that one of these was to George Tollington of
Chicago, and on the off chance I went down to Great Bradley. Thanks to the courtesy of
the Postmaster-General I was able to copy the letter. It was a short one."

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper.

"Dear George," he read, "this is just to tell you that we are quite well and prosperous. I
saw your advertisement in the Times newspaper and was pleased to hear from you.
Henry sends to you his kindest regards and duties.

"Your loving sister,

"Annie."
"Of course, it is not much to go on," he said apologetically, folding the letter up and
replacing it in his pocket. "I suppose Great Bradley has had a constant procession of
Annies, but at any rate it is something."

"It is indeed," she smiled.

"It means quite a lot to me, or at least it did," he corrected himself. "I had an
arrangement with your uncle, which was approved by the other trustees of the estate. It
means a tremendous lot," he repeated. There was some significance in his tone and she
looked up to him quickly.

"In money?" she asked.

"In other things," he said, lowering his voice. "Doris, I have not had an opportunity of
saying how sorry I am about the will; it is hateful that you should be forced by the
wishes of your guardian to take a step which may be unpleasant to you."

She coloured a little and turned her eyes away.

"I—I do not want to take advantage of that wish," he went on awkwardly. "I want you to
be happy. I want you to come to me for no other reason than the only one that is worth
while; that you have learned to care for me as I care for you."

Still she made no response and he sighed heavily.

"Some day," he said, wistfully, "I had hoped to bring in my hands all the material
advantages which a man can offer to the woman he loves."

"And do you think that would make a difference?" she asked quickly.

"It would make this difference," he replied, in the same quiet tone, "that you could not
think of me as one who loved you for your fortune, or one who hoped to gain anything
from the marriage179 but the dearest, sweetest woman in the world."

The eyes which she turned upon him were bright with unshed tears.

"I do not know how I feel, Frank," she said. "I am almost as much a mystery to myself as
I must be to you. I care for you in a way, but I am not sure that I care for you as you
would like me to."
"Is there anybody else?" he asked, after a pause.

She avoided his glance, and sat twining the cord of her sunshade about her fingers.

"There is nobody else—definitely," she said.

"Or tentatively?" he insisted.

"There are always tentative people in life," she smiled, parrying his question. "I think,
Frank, you stand as great a chance as anybody." She shrugged her shoulders. "I speak as
though I were some wonderful prize to be bestowed; I assure you I do not feel at all like
that. I have a very humble opinion of my own qualities. I do not think I have felt so meek
or so modest about my own qualities as I do just now."

He walked with her to the end of the park, and saw her into a taxicab, standing on the
pavement and watching as she was whirled into the enveloping traffic, out of sight.

As for Doris Gray, she herself was suffering from some uneasiness of mind. She needed
a shock to make her realize one way or the other where her affections lay. Poltavo
loomed very largely; his face, his voice, the very atmosphere which enveloped him, was
constantly present with her.

She reached Brakely Square and would have passed straight up to her room, but the
butler, with an air of importance, stopped her.

"I have a letter here, miss. It is very urgent. The messenger asked that it should be
placed in your hands at the earliest possible moment."

She took the letter from him. It was addressed to her in typewritten characters. She
stripped the envelope and found yet another inside. On it was typewritten:

"Read this letter when you are absolutely alone. Lock the door and be sure that nobody
is near when you read it."
She raised her pretty eyebrows. What mystery was this? she asked. Still, she was curious
enough to carry out the request. She went straight to her own room, opened the
envelope, and took out a letter containing half a dozen lines of writing.

She gasped, and went white, for she recognized181 the hand the moment her eyes fell
upon it. The letter she held in her shaking hand ran:

"I command you to marry Frank Doughton within seven days. My whole fortune and my
very life may depend upon this."

It was signed "Gregory Farrington," and heavily underlined beneath the signature were
the words, "Burn this, as you value my safety."

* * * * *

T. B. Smith stepped briskly into the office of his chief and closed the door behind him.

"What is the news?" asked Sir George, looking up.

"I can tell you all the news that I know," said T. B., "and a great deal that I do not know,
but only surmise."

"Let us hear the facts first and the romance afterwards," growled Sir George, leaning
back in his chair.

"Fact one," said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off his fact on the first
finger of his hand, "is that Gregory Farrington is alive. The man whose body was picked
up in the Thames is undoubtedly the gentleman who was shot in the182 raid upon the
Custom House. The inference is, that Gregory was the second party in the raid, and that
the attempt to secure the trunk of the admirable Dr. Goldworthy was carefully
conceived. The box apparently contained a diary which gave away Gregory to one who
had it in her power to do him an immense amount of harm."

"You refer to Lady Constance Dex?" asked the chief, interestedly.

T. B. nodded.
"That is the lady," he said. "Evidently Farrington has played it pretty low down upon
her; was responsible for the death of her lover, and, moreover, for a great deal of her
unhappiness. Farrington was the man who told George Doughton about some scandal of
her youth, and Doughton, that high-spirited man, went straight off to Africa without
communicating with the lady or discovering how far she was guilty in the matter. The
documents in the box would, I surmise, prove this to Lady Dex's satisfaction, and
Farrington, who was well informed through his agents on the Coast, would have every
reason for preventing these letters getting into the hands of a woman who would be
remorseless in her vengeance."

"Is that fact established?" asked the chief.

"Pretty well," said T. B.

He took some papers out of his pocket and laid them on the desk before him.

"I have now got a copy of the letter which the dead lover wrote to Lady Constance. I
need not say," he said lightly, "how I obtained possession of this, but we in our
department do not hesitate to adopt the most drastic methods——"

"I know all about that," said the chief, with a little smile; "there was burglary at the
rectory two days ago, and I presume your interesting burglar was your own Private
Sikes."

"Exactly," said T. B. cheerfully. "Fact number two," he went on, "is that Gregory
Farrington and the international blackmailer named Montague Fallock are one and the
same person."

The chief looked up.

"You do not mean that?"

"I do indeed," said T. B. "That interesting paragraph in the will of the late Mr.
Farrington confirms this view. The will was especially prepared to put me off the scent.
Letters which have been received by eminent personages signed 'Montague Fallock' and
demanding, as usual, money with threats of exposure have recently been received and
confirm this theory."

"Where is Montague Fallock now?"

"Montague Fallock is an inmate of the Secret House," said T. B.

"It seems pretty easy to take him, does it not?" asked Sir George, in surprise. "Have you
moved in the matter?"

T. B. shook his head.

"It is not so easy as you imagine," he said. "The Secret House contains more secrets than
we can at present unravel. It was built, evidently and obviously, by a man of
extraordinary mechanical genius as Farrington was, and the primary object with which
it was built was to enable him on some future occasion to make his escape. I am
perfectly certain that any attempt to raid the house would result immediately in the bird
flying. We have got to wait patiently."

"What I cannot understand," said his chief, after awhile, "is why he should make a
dramatic exit from the world."

"That is the easiest of all to explain," smiled T. B. "He was scared; he knew that I
identified him with the missing Fallock; he knew, too, that I strongly suspected him of
the murder of the two men in Brakely Square. Don't you see the whole thing fits
together? He imported from various places on the Continent, and at various periods,
workmen of every kind to complete the house at185 Great Bradley. Although he began
his work thirty years ago, the actual finishing touches have not been made until within
the last few years. Those finishing touches were the most essential. I have discovered
that the two men who were shot in Brakely Square, were separately and individually
employed in making certain alterations to the house and installing certain machinery.

"One was a young architect, the other was a general utility man. They were unknown to
each other; each did his separate piece of work and was sent back to his native land. By
some mischance they succeeded in discovering who their employer was, and they both
arrived, unfortunately for them, simultaneously at the door of Fallock or Farrington's
house with the object of blackmailing him. Farrington overheard the conversation; he
admitted as much.

"He stood at the door, saw them flourishing their pistols and thought it was an excellent
opportunity to rid himself of a very serious danger. He shot them from the doorway,
closed the doorway behind him, and returned the revolver to its drawer in his study, and
came down in time to meet the policeman with energetic protestations of his terror. I
smelt the powder when I went into the house; there is no mistaking the smell of cordite
fired in so186 confined a place as the hallway of a house. And Lady Dex was also there;
she must have witnessed the shooting."

"Why did she come?" asked the chief.

"My conjecture is that she came either to confront Farrington with evidence of his
complicity, which is unlikely, or else to secure confirmation of the story her lover told in
his last letter."

"But why shouldn't Farrington disappear in an ordinary way—or why need he disappear
at all?" asked Sir George. "He had plenty of credit in the city. He had the handling of his
niece's fortune. He could have blocked out your suspicion; he is not the kind of man to
be scared of a little thing like that."

"That is where I am at sea," said T. B. "I must confess his disappearance is not
consistent with his known character. He certainly had the fortune of the girl, and I have
no doubt in my mind that he has a very genuine affection for his niece. Her inheritance,
by the way, falls due next month; I do not suppose that had anything to do with it. If he
had robbed her of it, or he had dissipated this money which was left in his care, one
could have understood it, but the fact that he is dead will not restore the fortune if it is
gone."

"What are you doing?" asked the chief.

"About Farrington?" asked T. B. "I am having the house kept under observation, and I
am taking whatever precautions I can to prevent our friend from being scared. I am even
attempting to lure him into the open. Once I can catch him outside of the Secret House,
I think he will be a clever man to escape."

"And Poltavo?"

"He is in town," said T. B. "I think he will be a fairly easy man to circumvent; he is
obviously acting now as the agent of our friend Farrington, and he is horribly proud of
himself!"
 CHAPTER XIV

As T. B. had said, Poltavo had returned from his brief sojourn in Great Bradley, and
emerged into society a new and more radiant being than ever he had been before.

There had always been some doubt as to the Count's exact financial position, and
cautious hostesses had hesitated before they had invited this plausible and polished man
to their social functions. There were whispers adverse as to his standing; there were
even bold people who called into question his right to employ the title which graced his
visiting cards. There were half a dozen Poltavos in the Almanack De Gotha, any one of
whom might have been Ernesto, for so vague is the Polish hierarchy that it was
impossible to fix him to any particular family, and he himself answered careless
inquiries with a cryptic smile which might have meant anything.

But with his return to London, after his brief189 absence, there was no excuse for any
hostess, even the most sceptical, in refusing to admit him to social equality on the
ground of poverty. The very day he returned he acquired the lease of a house in
Burlington Gardens, purchased two motor-cars, paying cash down for an early delivery,
gave orders left and right for the enrichment of his person and his domicile, and in
forty-eight hours had established himself in a certain mode of living which suggested
that he had never known any other.

He had had his lesson and had profited thereby. He had experienced an unpleasant
fright, though he might not admit it to Dr. Fall and his master; it was nevertheless a fact
that, realizing as he did that he had stood face to face with a particularly unpleasant
death, he had been seized by a panic which had destroyed his ordinary equilibrium.

"You may trust me, my friend," he muttered to himself, as he sorted over the papers on
his brand-new desk in his brand-new study, in a house which was still redolent of the
painter's art and presence. "You may trust me just so long as I find it convenient for you
to trust me, but you may be sure that never again will I give you the benefit of my
presence in the Secret House."

He had come back with a large sum of money to carry out his employer's plans. There
were a190 hundred agents through the country, particulars of whom Poltavo now had in
his possession. Innocent agents, and guilty agents; agents in high places and active
agents in the servants' hall. Undoubtedly Gossip's Corner was a useful institution.

Farrington had not made a great deal of money from its sale; indeed, as often as not, it
showed a dead loss every year. But he paid well for contributions which were sent to
him, and offered a price, which exceeded the standard rate of pay, for such paragraphs
as were acceptable.

Men and women, with a malicious desire to score off some enemy, would send him
items which the newspapers would publish if they concerned somebody who might not
be bled. Many of these facts in an amended form were, in fact, printed.

But more often than not the paragraphs and articles which came to the unknown editor
dealt with scandal which it was impossible to put into print. Nevertheless, the informant
would be rewarded. In some far-away country home a treacherous servant would receive
postal orders to his or her great delight, but the news she or he had sent in their malice,
a tit-bit concerning some poor erring woman or some foolish man, would never see the
light of day, and the contributor might look in191 vain for the spicy paragraph which had
been composed with such labour.

The unfortunate subjects of domestic treachery would receive in a day or two a letter
from the mysterious Montague Fallock, retailing, to their horror, those precious secrets
which they had imagined none knew but themselves. They would not associate the
gossipy little rag, which sometimes found its way to the servants' hall, with the
magnificent demand of this prince of blackmailers, and more often than not they would
pay to the utmost of their ability to avoid exposure.

It was not only the servants' hall which supplied Montague Fallock with all the material
for his dastardly work. There were men scarcely deserving the name, and women lost to
all sense of honour, who found in this little journal means by which they could "come
back" at those favoured people who had offered them directly or indirectly some slight
offence. Sometimes the communication would reach the Gossip anonymously, but if the
facts retailed were sufficiently promising, one of Fallock's investigators would be told off
to discover how much truth there was in it. A bland letter would follow, and the
wretched victim would emerge from the transaction the poorer in pocket and often in
health.

For this remorseless and ruthless man destroyed more than fortunes; he trafficked in
human lives. There had been half a dozen mysterious suicides which had been
investigated by Scotland Yard, and found directly traceable to letters received in the
morning, and burnt by the despairing victim before his untimely and violent departure
from life.
The office of the paper was situated at the top of a building in Fleet Street; one back
room comprised the whole of its editorial space, and one dour man its entire staff. It was
his duty to receive the correspondence as it came and to convey it to the cloakroom of a
London station. An hour later it would be called for by a messenger and transferred to
another cloakroom. Eventually it would arrive in the possession of the man who was
responsible for the contents of the paper. Many of these letters contained contributions
in the ordinary way of business, a story or two contributed by a more or less well-known
writer. Fallock, or Farrington, needed these outside contributions, not only to give the
newspaper a verisimilitude of genuineness, but also to fill the columns of the journal.

He himself devoted his energies to two pages of shrewdly edited tit-bits of information
about the great. They were carefully written, often devoid of any reference to the person
whom they affected, and were more or less innocuous. But in every batch of letters there
were always one or two which gave the master blackmailer an opportunity for extracting
money from people, who had been betrayed by servants or friends. There was a standing
offer in the Gossip of five guineas for any paragraph which might be useful to the editor,
and it is a commentary upon the morality of human nature that there were times when
Farrington paid out nearly a thousand pounds a week for the information which his
unscrupulous contributors gave him.

There was work here for Poltavo; he was an accomplished scholar, and a shrewd man of
affairs. If Farrington had been forced to accept his service, having accepted them, he
could do no less than admit the wisdom of his choice. In his big study, with the door
locked, Poltavo carefully sorted the correspondence, thinking the while.

If he played his cards well he knew his future was assured. The consequence of his
present employment, the misery it might bring to the innocent and to the foolishly guilty
alike, did not greatly trouble him; he was perfectly satisfied with his own position in the
matter. He had found a means of livelihood, which offered enormous rewards and the
minimum of risk. In his brief stay at the Secret194 House, Farrington had impressed
upon him the necessity for respecting trifles.

"If you can make five shillings out of a working man," was his dictum, "make it. We
cannot afford to despise the smallest amount," and in consequence Poltavo was paying
as much attention to the ill-written and illiterate scrawls which came from the East End
of London, as he was to the equally illiterate efforts of the under-butler, describing an
error of his master's in a northern ducal seat. Poltavo went through the letters
systematically, putting this epistle to the right, and that to the left; this to make food for
the newspaper; that, as a subject for further operations. Presently he stopped and looked
up at the ceiling.
"So she must marry Frank Doughton within a week," he said to himself in wonder.

Yes, Farrington had insisted upon carrying out his plans, knowing the power he held,
and he, Poltavo, had accepted the ultimatum in all meekness of spirit.

"I must be losing my nerve," he muttered. "Married in a week! Am I to give her up, this
gracious, beautiful girl—with her future, or without her fortune?"

He smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile to see. "No, my friend, I think you have gone
a little too195 far. You depended too much upon my acquiescence. Ernesto, mon ami,
you have to do some quick thinking between now and next Monday."

A telephone buzzed at his elbow, and he took it off and listened.

"Yes?" he asked, and then he recognized the speaker's voice, and his voice went soft and
caressing, for it was the voice of Doris Gray that he heard.

"Can you see me to-morrow?" she asked.

"I can see you to-day, my lady, at once, if you wish it," he said, lightly.

There was a little hesitation at the other end of the wire.

"If you could, I should feel glad," she said. "I am rather troubled."

"Not seriously, I hope?" he asked, anxiously.

"I have had a letter from some one," she said, meaningly.

"I think I understand," he replied; "some one wishes you to do a thing which is a
repugnant to you."

"I cannot say that," she said, and there was despair in her voice; "all I know is that I am
bewildered by the turn events have taken. Do you know the contents of the letter?"

"I know," he said, gently; "it was my misfortune to be the bearer of the communication."

"What do you think?" she asked, after a while.

"You know what I think," he said, passionately. "Can you expect me to agree to this?"

The intensity of his voice frightened her, and she rapidly strove to bring him down to a
condition of normality.

"Come to-morrow," she said, hastily. "I would like to talk it over with you."

"I will come at once," he said.

"Perhaps you had better not," she hesitated.

"I am coming at once," he said, firmly, and hung up the receiver.

In that moment of resentment against the tyranny of his employer, he forgot all the
dangers which the Secret House threatened; all its swift and wicked vengeance. He only
knew, with the instinct of a beast of prey who saw its quarry stolen under its very eyes,
the loss which this man was inflicting upon him. Five minutes later he was in Brakely
Square with the girl. She was pale and worried; there were dark circles round her eyes
which spoke eloquently of a sleepless night.

"I do not know what to do," she said. "I am very fond of Frank. I can speak to you, can I
not, Count Poltavo?"

"You may confide in me absolutely," he said, gravely.

"And yet I am not so fond of him," she went on, "that I can marry him yet."

"Then why do you?" he asked.

"How can I disobey this?" She held the letter out.

He took it from her hand with a little smile, walked to the fireplace and dropped it gently
upon the glowing coals.

"I am afraid you are not carrying out instructions," he said, playfully.

There was something in this action which chilled her; he was thinking more of his safety
and his duty to Farrington than he was of her, she thought: a curiously inconsistent view
to take in all the circumstances, but it was one which had an effect upon her after
actions.

"Now listen to me," he said, with his kindly smile; "you have not to trouble about this;
you are to go your own way and allow me to make it right with Farrington. He is a very
headstrong and ambitious man, and there is some reason perhaps why he should want
you to marry Doughton, but as to that I will gain a little more information. In the
meantime you are to dismiss the matter from your mind, leaving everything to me."

She shook her head.

"I am afraid I cannot do that," she said. "Unless I have a letter from my guardian
expressing wishes to the contrary, I must carry out his desires. It is dreadful—
dreadful,"—she wrung her hands piteously,—"that I should be placed in this wretched
position. How can I help him by marrying Frank Doughton? How can I save him—can
you tell me?"

He shook his head.

"Have you communicated with Mr. Doughton?"

She nodded.

"I sent him a letter," she hesitated. "I have kept a draft of it; would you like to see it?"

A little shade of bitter anger swept across his face, but with an effort he mastered
himself.

"I should," he said, evenly.

She handed the sheet of paper to him.

"Dear Frank," it ran, "for some reason which I cannot explain to you, it is necessary that
the marriage which my uncle desired should take place within the next week. You know
my feelings towards you; that I do not love you, and that if it were left to my own wishes
this marriage would not take place, but for a reason which I cannot at the moment give
you I must act contrary to my own wishes. This is not a gracious nor an easy thing to say
to you, but I know you well enough, with your large, generous heart and your kindly
nature, to realize that you will understand something of the turmoil of feelings which at
present dominate my heart."
Poltavo finished reading, and put the letter back on the table; he walked up and down
the room without saying a word, then he turned on her suddenly.

"Madonna!" he said, in the liquid Southern accents of his—he had spent his early life in
Italy and the address came naturally to him—"if Frank Doughton were I, would you
hesitate?"

A look of alarm came into the girl's eyes; he saw then his mistake. He had confounded
her response to his sympathy with a deeper feeling which she did not possess. In that
one glimpse he saw more than she knew herself, that of the two Frank was the
preferable. He raised his hand and arrested her stammering speech.

"There is no need to tell me," he smiled; "perhaps some day you will realize that the love
Count Poltavo offered you was the greatest compliment that has ever been paid to you,
for you have inspired the one passion of my life which is without baseness and without
ulterior motives."

He said this in a tremulous voice, and possibly he believed it. He had said as much
before to women whom he had long since forgotten, but who200 carried the memory of
his wicked face to their graves.

"Now," he said, briskly, "we must wait for Mr. Doughton's answer."

"He has already answered," she said; "he telephoned me."

He smiled.

"How typically English, almost American, in his hustle; and when is the happy event to
take place?" he bantered.

"Oh, please, don't, don't,"—she raised her hands and covered her face,—"I hardly know
that, even now, I have the strength to carry out my uncle's wishes."

"But when?" he asked, more soberly.

"In three days. Frank is getting a special licence; we are——" She hesitated, and he
waited.

"We are going to Paris," she said, with a pink flush in her face, "but Frank wishes that we
shall live"—she stopped again, and then went on almost defiantly—"that we shall live
apart, although we shall not be able to preserve that fact a secret."
He nodded.

"I understand," he said; "therein Mr. Doughton shows an innate delicacy, which I
greatly appreciate."

Again that little sense of resentment swept through201 her; the patronage in his tone,
the indefinable suggestion of possession was, she thought, uncalled for. That he should
approve of Frank in that possessive manner was not far removed from an impertinence.

"Have you thought?" he asked, after a while, "what would happen if you did not marry
Frank Doughton in accordance with your uncle's wishes—what terrible calamity would
fall upon your uncle?"

She shook her head.

"I do not know," she said, frankly. "I am only beginning to get a dim idea of Mr.
Farrington's real character. I always thought he was a kindly and considerate man; now
I know him to be——" She stopped, and Poltavo supplied her deficiency of speech.

"You know him to be a criminal," he smiled, "a man who has for years been playing
upon the fears and the credulity of his fellow-creatures. That must have been a shocking
discovery, Miss Gray, but at least you will acquit him of having stolen your fortune."

"It is all very terrible," she said; "somehow every day brings it to me. My aunt, Lady
Dinsmore, was right."

"Lady Dinsmore is always right," he said, lightly; "it is one of the privileges of her age
and202 position. But in what respect was she right?"

The girl shook her head.

"I do not think it is loyal of me to tell you, but I must. She always thought Mr.
Farrington was engaged in some shady business and has warned me time after time."

"An admirable woman," said Poltavo, with a sneer.

"In three days," he went on, thoughtfully. "Well, much may happen in three days. I must
confess that I am anxious to know what would be the result of this marriage not taking
place."
He did not wait for an expression of her views, but with a curt little bow he ushered
himself out of the room.

"Three days," he found himself repeating, as he made his way back to his house. "Why
should Farrington be in such a frantic hurry to marry the girl off, and why should he
have chosen this penniless reporter?"

This was a matter which required a great deal of examination.

Two of those three days were dream days for Frank Doughton; he could not believe it
possible that such a fortune could be his. But with his joy there ran the knowledge that
he was marrying a203 woman who had no desire for such a union.

But she would learn to love him; so he promised himself in his optimism and the
assurance of his own love. He had unbounded faith in himself, and was working hard in
these days, not only upon his stories, but upon the clue which the discovery of the
belated letter afforded him. He had carefully gone through the parish list to discover the
Annies of the past fifty years. In this he was somewhat handicapped by the fact that
there must have been hundreds of Annies who enjoyed no separate existence, married
women who had no property qualification to appear on ratepayers' lists; anonymous
Annies, who perhaps employed that as a pet name, instead of the name with which they
had been christened.

He had one or two clues and was following these industriously. For the moment,
however, he must drop this work and concentrate his mind upon the tremendous and
remarkable business which his coming marriage involved. He had a series of articles to
write for the Monitor, and he applied himself feverishly to this work.

It was two nights before his marriage that he carried the last of his work to the great
newspaper office on the Thames Embankment, and delivered his manuscript in person
to the editor.

That smiling man offered his congratulations to the embarrassed youth.

"I suppose we shall not be looking for any articles from you for quite a long time," he
said, at parting.
"I hope so," said the other. "I do not see why I should starve because I am married. My
wife will be a very rich woman," he said quietly, "but so far as I am concerned that will
make no difference; I do not intend taking one penny of her fortune."

The journalist clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good lad," he said, approvingly; "the man who lives on his wife's income is a man who
has ceased to live."

"That sounds like an epigram," smiled Frank.

He looked at his watch as he descended the stairs. It was nine o'clock and he had not
dined; he would go up to an eating house in Soho and have his frugal meal before he
retired for the night. He had had a heavy day, and a heavier day threatened on the
morrow. Outside the newspaper office was a handsome new car, its lacquer work
shining in the electric light. Frank was passing when the chauffeur called him.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, touching his cap, "are you Mr. Frank Doughton?"

"That is my name," said Frank, in surprise, for he did not recognize the man.

"I have been asked to call and pick you up, sir."

"Pick me up?" asked the astonished Frank—"by whom?"

"By Sir George Frederick," said the man, respectfully.

Frank knew the name of the member of Parliament and puzzled his brain as to whether
he had ever met him.

"But what does Sir George want with me?" he asked.

"He wanted five minutes' conversation with you, sir," said the man.

It would have been churlish to have refused the member's request; besides, the errand
would take him partly on his way. He opened the door of the landaulet and stepped in,
and as the door swung to behind him, he found he was not alone in the car.
"What is the——" he began, when a powerful hand gripped his throat, and he was swung
backward on the padded seat as the car moved slowly forward and, gathering speed as it
went, flew along the Thames Embankment with its prisoner.
 CHAPTER XV

In the rectory at Great Bradley, Lady Constance Dex arose from a sleepless night to
confront her placid brother at the breakfast table. The Reverend Jeremiah Bangley, a
stout and easy man, who spent as much of his time in London as in his rectory, was
frankly nonplussed by the apparition. He was one of those men, common enough, who
accept the most extraordinary happenings as being part of life's normal round. An
earthquake in Little Bradley which swallowed up his church and the major portion of his
congregation would not have interested him any more than the budding of the trees, or a
sudden arrival of flower life in his big walled garden. Now, however, he was obviously
astonished.

"What brings you to breakfast, Constance?" he asked. "I have not seen you at this table
for many years."

"I could not sleep," she said, as she helped herself at the sideboard to a crisp morsel of
bacon. "I think I will take my writing pad to Moor Cottage."

He pursed his lips, this easy going rector of Little Bradley.

"I have always thought," he said, "that Moor Cottage was not the most desirable gift the
late Mr. Farrington could have made to you." He paused, to allow her a rejoinder, but as
she made no reply, he went on: "It is isolated, standing on the edge of the moor, away
from the ordinary track of people. I am always scared, my dear Constance, that one of
these days you will have some wretched tramp, or a person of the criminal classes,
causing you a great deal of distress and no little inconvenience."

There was much of truth in what he said. Moor Cottage, a pretty little one-storied
dwelling, had been built by the owner of the Secret House at the same time that the
house itself had been erected. It was intended, so the builder said, to serve the purpose
of a summer house, and certainly it offered seclusion, for it was placed on the edge of the
moor, approached by a by-road which was scarcely ever traversed, since Bradley mines
had been worked out and abandoned.

Many years ago when the earth beneath the moor208 had been tunnelled left and right
by the seekers after tin and lead, Moor Cottage might have stood in the centre of a hive
of industry. The ramshackle remains of the miners' cottage were to be seen on the other
side of the hill; the broken and deserted headgear of the pit, and the discoloured
chimney of the old power house were still visible a quarter of a mile from the cottage.
It suited the owner of the Secret House, however, to have this little cottage erected,
though it was nearly two miles from the Secret House, and he had spared neither
expense nor trouble in preparing a handsome interior.

Lady Constance Dex had been the recipient of many gifts from Mr. Farrington and his
friends. There had been a period when Farrington could not do enough for her, and had
showered upon her every mark of his esteem, and Moor Cottage had perhaps been the
most magnificent of these presents. Here she could find seclusion, and in the pretty oak-
panelled rooms reconstruct those happy days which Great Bradley had at one time
offered to her.

"It is a little lonely," she smiled at her brother.

She had a good-natured contempt for his opinion. He was a large, lethargic man, who
had commonplace views on all subjects.

"But really you know, Jerry, I am quite a capable209 person, and Brown will be near by,
in case of necessity."

He nodded, and addressed himself again to the Times, the perusal of which she had
interrupted.

"I have nothing more to say," he said from behind his newspaper. By and by he put it
down.

"Who is this Mr. Smith?" he asked, suddenly.

"Mr. Smith?" she said, with interest. "Which Mr. Smith are you referring to?"

"I think he is a detective person," said the Reverend Jeremiah Bangley; "he has
honoured us with a great number of visits lately."

"You mean——?"

"I mean Great Bradley," he explained. "Do you think there is anything wrong at the
Secret House?"

"What could there be wrong," she asked, "that has not been wrong for the last ten or
twenty years?"

He shrugged his massive shoulders.

"I have never quite approved of the Secret House," he said, unnecessarily.

She finished her hurried breakfast and rose.

"You have never approved of anything, Jerry," she said, tapping him on the shoulder as
she passed.

She looked through the window; the victoria210 she had ordered was waiting at the
door, with the imperturbable Brown sitting on the box.

"I shall be back to lunch," she said.

Looking through a window he saw her mount into the carriage carrying a portfolio. In
that letter case, although he did not know it, were the letters and diaries which Dr.
Goldworthy had brought from the Congo. In the seclusion of Moor Cottage she found
the atmosphere to understand the words, written now in fire upon her very soul, and to
plan her future.

There was no servant at Moor Cottage. She was in the habit of sending one of her own
domestic staff after her visit to make it tidy for her future reception.

She let herself in through the little door placed under the green-covered porch.

"You can unharness the horse; I shall be here two hours," she said to the waiting Brown.

The man touched his hat. He was used to these excursions and was possessed of the
patience of his class. He backed the victoria on to the moor by the side of the fence
which surrounded the house. There was a little stable at the back, but it was never used.
He unharnessed the horse, fixed his nosebag, and sat down to read his favourite
newspaper; a little journal which dealt familiarly with the erratic211 conduct of the
upper classes. He was not a quick reader, and there was sufficient in the gossipy journal
to occupy his attention for three or four hours. At the end of an hour he thought he
heard his lady's voice calling him, and jumping up, he walked to the door of the cottage.

He listened, but there was no other sound, and he came back to his previous position,
and continued his study of the decadent aristocracy. Four hours he waited, and assailed
by a most human hunger, his patience was pardonably exhausted.

He rose slowly, harnessed the horse, and drove the victoria ostentatiously before the
window of the little sitting-room which Lady Constance Dex used as a study. Another
half an hour passed without any response, and he got down from his box and knocked at
the door.

There was no answer; he knocked again; still no reply.

In alarm he went to the window and peered in. The floor was strewn with papers
scattered in confusion. A chair had been overturned. More to the point, he saw an
overturned inkpot, which was eloquent to his ordered mind of an unusual happening.

Increasingly alarmed, he put his shoulder to the door, but it did not yield. He tried the
window; it was locked.

It was at that moment that a motor came swiftly over the hill from the direction of the
rectory. With a jar it came to a sudden stop before the house, and T. B. Smith leapt out.

Brown had seen the detective before on his visits to the rectory, and now hailed him as
veritably god-sent.

"Where is Lady Constance?" asked T. B., quickly.

The man pointed to the house with trembling finger.

"She's in there somewhere," he said, fretfully, "but I can't make her answer ... and the
room appears to be very disordered."

He led the way to the window. T. B. looked in and saw that which confirmed his worst
fears.

"Stand back," he said.

He raised his ebony stick and sent it smashing through the glass. In a second his hand
was inside unlocking the latch of the window; a few seconds later he was in the room
itself. He passed swiftly from room to room, but there was no sign of Lady Constance.
On the floor of the study was a piece of lace collar, evidently wrenched from her gown.

"Hullo!" said Ela, who had followed him. He pointed to the table. On a sheet of paper
was the print of a bloody palm.
"Farrington," said T. B., briefly, "he has been here; but how did he get out?"

He questioned the coachman closely, but the man was emphatic.

"No, sir," he said, "it would have been impossible for anybody to have passed out of here
without my seeing them. Not only could I see the cottage from where I sat, but the whole
of the hillside."

"Is there any other place where she could be?"

"There is the outhouse," said Brown, after a moment's thought; "we used to put up the
victoria there, but we never use it nowadays in fine weather."

The outhouse consisted of a large coachhouse and a small stable. There was no lock to
the doors, T. B. noticed, and he pulled them open wide. There was a heap of straw in one
corner, kept evidently as a provision against the need of the visiting coachman. T. B.
stepped into the outhouse, then suddenly with a cry he leant down, and caught a figure
by the collar and swung him to his feet.

"Will you kindly explain what you are doing here?" he asked, and then gave a gasp of
astonishment, for the sleepy-eyed prisoner in his hands was Frank Doughton.

"It is a curious story you tell me," said T. B.

"I admit it is curious," said Frank, with a smile, "and I am so sleepy that I do not know
how much I have told you, and how much I have imagined."

"You told me," recapitulated T. B., "that you were kidnapped last night in London, that
you were carried through London and into the country in an unknown direction, and
that you made your escape from the motor-car by springing out in the early hours of this
morning, whilst the car was going at a slackened speed."

"That is it," said the other. "I have not the slightest idea where I am; perhaps you can tell
me?"
"You are near Great Bradley," said T. B., with a smile. "I wonder you do not recognize
your home; for home it is, as I understand."

Frank looked round with astonished eyes.

"What were they bringing me here for?" he demanded.

"That remains to be discovered," replied T. B.; "my own impression is that you——"

"Do you think I was being taken to the Secret House?" interrupted the young man,
suddenly.

T. B. shook his head.

"I should think that was unlikely. I suspect our friend Poltavo of having carried out this
little coup entirely on his own. I further suspect his having brought the car in this
direction with no other object than to throw suspicion upon our worthy friends across
the hill—and how did you come to the outhouse?"

"I was dead beat," explained Frank. "I had a sudden spasm of strength which enabled
me to out-distance those people who were pursuing me, but after I had shaken them off
I felt that I could drop. I came upon this cottage, which seemed the only habitation in
view, and after endeavouring to waken the occupants I did the next best thing, I made
my way into the coachhouse and fell asleep."

T. B. had no misgivings so far as this story was concerned; he accepted it as adding only
another obstacle to the difficulties of his already difficult task.

"You heard no sound whilst you lay there?"

"None whatever," said the young man.

"No sound of a struggle, I mean," said T. B., and then it was that he explained to Frank
Doughton the extraordinary disappearance of the owner of Moor Cottage.

"She must be in the house," said Frank.

They went back and resumed their search. Upstairs was a bedroom, and adjoining a
bath-room. On the ground floor were two rooms: the study he had quitted and a smaller
room beautifully decorated and containing a piano. But the search was fruitless; Lady
Constance Dex had disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed her up.
There was no sign of a trap in the whole of the little building, and T. B. was baffled.

"It is a scientific axiom," he said, addressing Ela with a thoughtful glint in his eye, "that
matter must occupy space, therefore Lady Constance Dex must be in existence, she
cannot have evaporated into thin air, and I am not going to leave this place until I find
her."

Ela was thinking deeply, and frowning at the untidiness of the table.

"Do you remember that locket which you found on one of the dead men in Brakely
Square?" he asked suddenly.

T. B. nodded. He put his hand in his waistcoat pocket, for he had carried that locket ever
since the night of its discovery.

"Let us have a look at the inscription again," said Ela.

They drew up chairs to the table and examined the little circular label which they had
found in the battered interior.

"Mor: Cot.
God sav the Keng."

Ela shook his head helplessly.

"I am perfectly sure there is a solution here," he said. "Do you see those words on the
top? 'Mor: Cot.'—that stands for Moor Cottage."

"By Jove, so it does," said T. B., picking up the locket; "that never struck me before. It
was the secret of Moor Cottage which this man discovered, and with which he was trying
to blackmail our friend. So far as the patriotic postscript is concerned that is beyond my
understanding."

"There is a meaning to it," said Ela, "and it is not a cryptogram either. You see how he
has forgotten to put the 'e' in 'save'? And he has spelt 'king' 'keng.'"

They waited before the house whilst Brown drove to the rectory, and then on to the
town. Jeremiah Bangley arrived in a state of calm anticipation. That his sister had
disappeared did not seem to strike him as a matter for surprise, though he permitted
himself to say that it was a very remarkable occurrence.

"I have always warned Constance not to be here alone, and I should never have forgiven
myself if Brown had not been on the spot," he said.

"Can you offer any explanation?"

The rector shook his head. He was totally ignorant of the arrangements of the house,
had never, so he said, put foot in it in his life. This was perfectly true, for he was an
incurious man who did not greatly bother himself about the affairs of other people. The
local police arrived in half an hour, headed by the chief inspector, who happened to be in
the station when the report was brought in.

"I suppose I had better take this young man to the station?" he said, indicating Frank.

"Why?" asked T. B. calmly; "what do you gain by arresting him? As a matter of fact there
is no evidence whatever which would implicate Mr. Doughton, and I am quite prepared
to give you my own guarantee to produce him whenever you may require him.

"The best thing you can do is to get back to town," he said kindly to that young man;
"you need a little sleep. It is not a pleasant prelude to your marriage. By the way, that is
to-morrow, is it not?" he asked, suddenly.

Frank nodded.

"I wonder if that has anything to do with your kidnapping," said T. B. thoughtfully. "Is
there any person who is anxious that this marriage should not come about?"

Frank hesitated.

"I hardly like to accuse a man," he said, "but Poltavo——"

"Poltavo?" repeated T. B. quickly.

"Yes," said Frank; "he has some views on the question of Miss Gray."

He spoke reluctantly, for he was loath to introduce Doris' name into the argument.
"Poltavo would have a good reason," mused T. B. Smith. "Tell me what happened in the
car."

Briefly Frank related the circumstances which had led up to his capture.

"When I found myself in their hands," he said, "I decided to play 'possum for a while.
The car was moving at incredible speed, remembering your stringent traffic
regulations,"—he smiled,—"and I knew that any attempt to escape on my part would
result in serious injury to myself. They made no bones about their intentions. Before we
were clear of London they had pulled the blinds, and one of them had switched on the
electric lamp. They were both masked, and were, I think, foreigners. One sat opposite to
me, all through the night, a revolver on his knees, and he did not make any disguise of
his intention of employing his weapon if I gave the slightest trouble.

"I could not tell, because of the lowered blinds, which direction we were taking, but
presently we struck the country and they let down one of the windows without raising
the blind and I could smell220 the sweet scent of the fields, and knew we were miles
away from London.

"I think I must have dozed a little, for very suddenly, it seemed, daylight came, and I had
the good sense in waking to make as little stir as possible. I found the man sitting
opposite was also in a mild doze, and the other at my side was nodding.

"I took a very careful survey of the situation. The car was moving very slowly, and
evidently the driver had orders to move at no particular pace through the night, in order
to economize the petrol. There was an inside handle to each of the doors, and I had to
make up my mind by which I was to make my escape. I decided upon the near side.
Gathering up my energies for one supreme effort, I suddenly leapt up, flung open the
door, and jumped out. I had enough experience of the London traffic to clear the car
without stumbling.

"I found myself upon a heath, innocent of any cover, save for a belt of trees about half a
mile ahead of me as I ran. Fortunately the down, which was apparently flat, was, in fact,
of a rolling character, and in two minutes I must have been out of sight of the car—long
before they had brought the driver, himself half asleep probably, to an understanding
that I had made my escape. They caught sight of me as I came up from the hollow, and
one221 of them must have fired at me, for I heard the whistle of a bullet pass my head.
That is all the story I have to tell. It was rather a tame conclusion to what promised to be
a most sensational adventure."
At the invitation of the Reverend Jeremiah he drove back to the rectory, and left T. B. to
continue his search for the missing Lady Constance. No better result attended the
second scrutiny of the rooms than had resulted from the first.

"The only suggestion I can make now," said T. B., helplessly, "is that whilst our friend
the coachman was reading, his lady slipped out without attracting his attention and
strolled away; she will in all probability be awaiting us at the rectory."

Yet in his heart he knew that this view was absolutely wrong. The locked doors, the
evidence of a struggle in the room, the bloody hand print, all pointed conclusively to foul
play.

"At any rate Lady Constance Dex is somewhere within the radius of four miles," he said,
grimly, "and I will find her if I have to pull down the Secret House stone by stone."
 CHAPTER XVI

The morning of Doris Gray's wedding dawned fair and bright, and she sat by the window
which overlooked the gardens in Brakely Square, her hands clasped across her knees,
her mind in a very tangle of confusion. It was happy for her (she argued) that there were
so many considerations attached to this wedding that she had not an opportunity of
thinking out, logically and to its proper end, the consequence of this act of hers.

She had had a wire from Frank on the night previous, and to her surprise it had been
dated from Great Bradley. For some reason which she could not define she was annoyed
that he could leave London, and be so absorbed in his work on the eve of his wedding.
She gathered that his presence in that town had to do with his investigations in the
Tollington case. She thought that at least he might have spent one day near her in case
she wished to223 consult him. He took much for granted, she thought petulantly.
Poltavo, on the contrary, had been most assiduous in his attention. He had had tea with
her the previous afternoon, and with singular delicacy had avoided any reference to the
forthcoming marriage or to his own views on the subject. But all that he did not speak,
he looked. He conveyed the misery in which he stood with subtle suggestion. She felt
sorry for him, had no doubt of the genuineness of his affection, or his disinterestedness.
A profitable day for Poltavo in ordinary circumstances.

A maid brought her from her reverie to the practical realities of life.

"Mr. Debenham has called, miss," said the girl. "I have shown him into the drawing-
room."

"Mr. Debenham?" repeated Doris, with a puzzled frown. "Oh, yes, the lawyer; I will
come down to him."

She found the staid solicitor walking up and down the drawing-room abstractedly.

"I suppose you know that I shall be a necessary guest at your wedding," he said, as he
shook hands. "I have to deliver to you the keys of your uncle's safe at the London Safe
Deposit. I have a memorandum here of the exact amount of money which should be in
that safe."

He laid the paper on the table.

"You can look at the items at your leisure, but roughly it amounts to eight hundred
thousand pounds, which was left you by your late father, who, I understand, died when
you were a child."

She nodded.

"That sum is in gilt-edged securities, and you will probably find that a number of
dividends are due to you. The late Mr. Farrington, when he made his arrangements for
your future, chose this somewhat unusual and bizarre method of protecting your money,
much against my will. I might tell you," he went on, "that he consulted me about six
years ago on the subject, and I strongly advised him against it. As it happened, I was
wrong, for immediately afterwards, as his books show, he must have suffered enormous
losses, and although I make no suggestion against his character,"—he raised his hand
deprecatingly,—"yet I do say that the situation which was created by the slump in
Canadian Pacifics of which he was a large holder, might very easily have tempted a man
not so strong-willed as Mr. Farrington. At the present moment," he went on, "I have no
more to do than discharge my duty, and I have called beforehand to see you and to ask
whether your uncle spoke of the great Tollington fortune of which he was one of the
trustees, though225 as I believe—as I know, in fact—he never handled the money."

She looked surprised.

"It is curious that you should ask that," she said. "Mr. Doughton is engaged in searching
for the heir to that fortune."

Debenham nodded.

"So I understand," he said. "I ask because I received a communication from the other
trustees in America, and I am afraid your future husband's search will be unavailing
unless he can produce the heir within the next forty-eight hours."

"Why is that?" she asked in surprise.

"The terms of the will are peculiar," said Mr. Debenham, walking up and down as he
spoke. "The Tollington fortune, as you may know——"

"I know nothing about it," she interrupted.

"Then I will tell you." He smiled. "The fortune descends to the heir and to his wife in
equal proportions."
"Suppose he is not blessed with a wife?" She smiled with something like her old gaiety.

"In that case the money automatically goes to the woman the heir eventually marries.
But the terms of the will are that the heir shall be discovered within twenty years of the
date of Tollington's death. The time of grace expires to-morrow."

"Poor Frank," she said, shaking her head, "and he is working so hard with his clues! I
suppose if he does not produce that mysterious individual by to-morrow there will be no
reward for him?"

The lawyer shook his head.

"I should hardly think it likely," he said, "because the reward is for the man who
complies with the conditions of the will within a stipulated time. It was because I knew
Mr. Doughton had some interest in it, and because also"—he hesitated—"I thought that
your uncle might have taken you into his confidence."

"That he might have told me who this missing person was, and that he himself knew;
and for some reason suppressed the fact?" she asked, quickly. "Is that what you suggest,
Mr. Debenham?"

"Please do not be angry with me," said the lawyer, quickly; "I do not wish to say
anything against Mr. Farrington; but I know he was a very shrewd and calculating man,
and I thought possibly that he might have taken you that much into his confidence, and
that you might be able to help your future husband a part of the way to a very large sum
of money."

She shook her head again.

"I have absolutely no knowledge of the subject. My uncle never took me into his
confidence," she227 said; "he was very uncommunicative where business was
concerned—although I am sure he was fond of me." Her eyes filled with tears, not at the
recollection of his kindness, but at the humiliation she experienced at playing a part in
which she had no heart. It made her feel inexpressibly mean and small.

"That is all," said Mr. Debenham. "I shall see you at the registrar's office."

She nodded.
"May I express the hope," he said, in his heavy manner, "that your life will be a very
happy one, and that your marriage will prove all you hope it will be?"

"I hardly know what I hope it will be," she said wearily, as she accompanied him to the
door.

That good man shook his head sadly as he made his way back to his office.

Was there ever so unromantic and prosaic affair as this marriage, thought Doris, as she
stepped into the taxicab which was to convey her to the registrar's office? She had had
her dreams, as other girls had had, of that wonderful day when with pealing of the organ
she would walk up the aisle perhaps upon the arm of Gregory Farrington, to a marriage
which would bring nothing but delight and happiness. And here was the end of her
dreams, a great heiress and a beautiful girl rocking across London in a hired cab to a
furtive marriage.

Frank was waiting for her on the pavement outside the grimy little office. Mr.
Debenham was there, and a clerk he had brought with him as witness. The ceremony
was brief and uninteresting; she became Mrs. Doughton before she quite realized what
was happening.

"There is only one thing to do now," said the lawyer as they stood outside again on the
sunlit pavement.

He looked at his watch.

"We had best go straight away to the London Safe Deposit, and, if you will give me the
authority, I will take formal possession of your fortune and place it in the hands of my
bankers. I think these things had better be done regularly."

The girl acquiesced.

Frank was singularly silent during the drive; save to make some comment upon the
amount of traffic in the streets, he did not speak to her and she was grateful for his
forbearance. Her mind was in a turmoil; she was married—that was all she knew—
married to somebody she liked but did not love. Married to a man who had been chosen
for her partly against her will. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes; if she
was joyless, no less229 was he. It was an inauspicious beginning to a married life which
would end who knew how? Before the depressing granite façade of the London Safe
Deposit the party descended, Mr. Debenham paid the cabman, and they went down the
stone steps into the vaults of the repository.
There was a brief check whilst Mr. Debenham explained his authority for the visit, and it
was when the officials were making reference to their books that the party was
augmented by the arrival of Poltavo.

He bowed over the girl's hand, holding it a little longer than Frank could have liked,
murmured colourless congratulations and nodded to Debenham.

"Count Poltavo is here, I may say," explained the lawyer, "by your late uncle's wishes.
They were contained in a letter he wrote to me a few days before he disappeared."

Frank nodded grudgingly; still he was generous enough to realize something of this
man's feelings if he loved Doris, and he made an especial effort to be gracious to the
new-comer.

A uniformed attendant led them through innumerable corridors till they came to a
private vault guarded by stout bars. The attendant opened these and they walked into a
little stone chamber, illuminated by overhead lights.

The only article of furniture in the room was a small safe which stood in one corner. A
very small safe indeed, thought Frank, to contain so large a fortune. The lawyer turned
the key in the lock methodically, and the steel door swung back. The back of Mr.
Debenham obscured their view of the safe's interior. Then he turned with an expression
of wonder.

"There is nothing here," he said.

"Nothing!" gasped Doris.

"Save this," said the lawyer.

He took a small envelope and handed it to the girl. She opened it mechanically and read:

"I have, unfortunately, found it necessary to utilize your fortune for the furtherance of
my plans. You must try and forgive me for this; but I have given you a greater one than
you have lost, a husband."

She looked up.

"What does this mean?" she whispered.

Frank took the letter from her hand and concluded the reading.

"A husband in Frank Doughton...."

The words swam before his eyes.

"And Frank Doughton is the heir to the Tollington millions, as his father was before him.
All the necessary proofs to establish his identity will231 be discovered in the sealed
envelope which the lawyer holds, and which is inscribed 'C.'"

The letter was signed "Gregory Farrington."

The lawyer was the first to recover his self-possession; his practical mind went straight
to the business at hand.

"There is such an envelope in my office," he said, "given to me by Mr. Farrington with

strict instructions that it was not to be handed to his executors or to any person until
definite instructions arrived—instructions which would be accompanied by
unmistakable proof as to the necessity for its being handed over. I congratulate you, Mr.
Doughton."

He turned and shook hands with the bewildered Frank, who had been listening like a
man in a dream; the heir to the Tollington millions; he, the son of George Doughton,
and all the time he had been looking for—what? For his own grandmother!

It came on him all of a rush. He knew now that all his efforts, all his search might have
been saved, if he had only realized the Christian name of his father's mother.

He had only the dimmest recollection of the placid-faced lady who had died whilst he
was at school; he had never associated in his mind this serene old lady, who had passed
away only a few hours before232 her beloved husband, with the Annie for whom he had
searched. It made him gasp—then he came to earth quickly as he realized that his
success had come with the knowledge of his wife's financial ruin. He looked at her as she
stood there—it was too vast a shock for her to realize at once.

He put his arm about her shoulder, and Poltavo, twirling his little moustache, looked at
the two through his lowered lids with an ugly smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
"It is all right, dear," said Frank soothingly; "your money is secure—it was only a
temporary use he made of it."

"It is not that," she said, with a catch in her throat; "it is the feeling that my uncle
trapped you into this marriage. I did not mind his dissipating my own fortune; the
money is nothing to me. But he has caught you by a trick, and he has used me as a bait."
She covered her face with her hands.

In a few moments she had composed herself; she spoke no other word, but suffered
herself to be led out of the building into the waiting cab. Poltavo watched them drive off
with that fierce little smile of his, and turned to the lawyer.

"A clever man, Mr. Farrington," he said, in a bitter tone of reluctant admiration.

The lawyer looked at him steadily.

"His Majesty's prisons are filled with men who specialize in that kind of cleverness," he
said, drily, and left Poltavo without another word.
 CHAPTER XVII

T. B. Smith was playing a round of golf at Walton Heath, when the news was telephoned
through to him.

He left immediately for town, and picked up Ela at luncheon at the Fritz Hotel, where
the detective had his headquarters.

"The whole thing is perfectly clear, now," he said. "The inexplicable disappearance of
Mr. Farrington is explained in poster type, 'that he who runs may read.'"

"I am a little hazy about the solution myself," said Ela dubiously.

"Then I will put it in plain language for you," said T. B. as he speared a sardine from the
hors d'œuvre dish. "Farrington knew all along that the heir to the Tollington millions
was George Doughton. He knew it years and years ago, and it was for that reason he
settled at Great Bradley, where the Doughtons had their home. Evidently235 the two
older Doughtons were dead at this time, and only George Doughton, the romantic and
altogether unpractical explorer, represented the family.

"George was in love with the lady who is now known as Lady Constance Dex, and
knowing this, Farrington evidently took every step that was possible to ingratiate
himself into her good graces. He knew that the fortune would descend equally to
Doughton and to his wife. Doughton was a widower and had a son, a youngster at the
time, and it is very possible that, the boy being at school, and being very rarely in Great
Bradley, Farrington had no idea of his existence.

"The knowledge that this boy was alive must have changed all his plans; at any rate, the
engagement was allowed to drift on, whilst he matured some scheme whereby he could
obtain a large portion of the Tollington millions for his own use. Again I think his plans
must have been changed.

"It was whilst he was at Great Bradley that he was entrusted with the guardianship of
Doris Gray, and as his affection for the young girl grew—an affection which I think was
one of the few wholesome things in his life—he must have seen the extraordinary chance
which fate had placed in his way.

"With diabolical ingenuity and with a remorselessness which is reminiscent of the

Borgias he236 planned first George Doughton's death, and then the bringing together of
Doughton's son and his own ward. There is every proof of this to be found in his
subsequent actions. He was prepared to introduce the young people to one another, and
by affording them opportunities for meeting, and such encouragement as he could give,
to bring about the result he so desired.

"But things did not move fast enough for him, and then he must have learnt, as the other
trustees seem to have learnt recently, that there was an undiscovered time limit. He
threw out hints to his niece, hints which were received rather coldly. He had taken the
bold step of employing Frank Doughton to discover—himself! That was a move which
had a twofold purpose. It kept the young man in contact with him. It also satisfied the
other trustees, who had entrusted to Farrington the task of employing the necessary
measures to discover the missing heir.

"But neither hint nor suggestion served him. The girl's fortune was due for delivery to
her care, and his guardianship expired almost at the same time as the time limit for
discovery of the Tollington millionaire came to an end. He had to take a desperate step;
there were other reasons, of course, contributing to his move.

"The knowledge that he was suspected by me, the certainty that Lady Constance Dex
would betray him, once she discovered that he had sent her lover to his death, all these
were contributing factors, but the main reason for his disappearance was the will that
was read after his bogus death.

"In that will he conveyed unchallengeable instructions for the girl to marry Frank
Doughton without delay. I suspect that the girl now knows he is alive. Probably, panic-
stricken by her tardiness, he has disclosed his hand so far as the alleged death is
concerned."

T. B. looked out of the window on to the stream of life which was flowing east and west
along Piccadilly; his face was set in a little frown of doubt and anxiety.

"I can take Farrington to-morrow if I want to," he said after a moment, "but I wish to
gather up every string of organization in my hands."

"What of Lady Constance Dex?" asked Ela. "Whilst we are waiting, she is in some little
danger."

T. B. shook his head.

"If she is not dead now," he said simply, "she will be spared. If Farrington wished to kill
her—for Farrington it was who spirited her away—he could have done so in the house;
no one would have been any the wiser as to the murderer. Lady238 Constance must
wait; we must trust to luck before I inspect that underground chamber of which I
imagine she is at present an unwilling inmate. I want to crush this blackmailing force,"
he said, thumping the table with energy; "I want to sweep out of England the whole
organization which is working right under the nose of the police and in defiance of all
laws; and until I have done that, I shall not sleep soundly in my bed."

"And Poltavo?"

"Poltavo," smiled T. B., "can wait for just a little while."

He paid the bill and the two men passed out of the hotel and crossed Piccadilly. A man
who had been lounging along apparently studying the shop windows saw them out of
the corner of his eye and followed them carelessly. Another man, no less ostentatiously
reading a newspaper, as he walked along the pavement on the opposite side of the
thoroughfare, followed close behind.

T. B. and his companion turned into Burlington Arcade and reached Cork Street. Save
for one or two pedestrians the street was utterly deserted, and the first of the shadowers
quickened his pace. He put his hand in his tail pocket and took out something which
glinted in the April sunlight, but before he could raise his hand the fourth man, now239
on his heels, dropped his newspaper, and flinging one arm around the shadower's neck,
and placing his knee in the small of the other's back, wrenched the pistol away with his
disengaged hand.

T. B. turned at the sound of the struggle and came back to assist the shadowing
detective. The prisoner was a little man, sharp-featured, and obviously a member of one
of the great Latin branches of the human race. A tiny black moustache, fierce scowling
eyebrows, and liquid brown eyes now blazing with hate, spoke of a Southern origin.

Deftly the three police officers searched and disarmed him; a pair of adjustable
handcuffs snapped upon the man's thin wrists, and before the inevitable crowd could
gather the prisoner and his custodians were being whirled to Vine Street in a cab.

They placed the man in the steel dock and asked him the usual questions, but he
maintained a dogged silence. That his object had been assassination no one could doubt,
for in addition to the automatic pistol, which he had obviously intended using at short
range, trusting to luck to make his escape, they found a long stiletto in his breast pocket.
More to the point, and of greater interest to T. B., there was a three-line scrawl on a
piece of paper in Italian, which, translated, showed that240 minute instructions had
been given to the would-be murderer as to T. B.'s whereabouts.

"Put him in a cell," said T. B. "I think we are going to find things out. If this is not one of
Poltavo's hired thugs, I am greatly mistaken."

Whatever he was, the man offered no information which might assist the detective in his
search for the truth, but maintained an unbroken silence, and T. B. gave up the task of
questioning him in sheer despair.

The next morning at daybreak the prisoner was aroused and told to dress. He was taken
out to where a motor car was awaiting him, and a few moments later he was speeding on
the way to Dover. Two detective officers placed him on a steamer and accompanied him
to Calais. At Calais they took a courteous leave of him, handing him a hundred francs
and the information in his own tongue that he had been deported on an order from the
Home Secretary, obtained at midnight the previous night.

The prisoner took his departure with some eagerness and spent the greater portion of
his hundred francs in addressing a telegram to Poltavo.

T. B. Smith, who knew that telegram would come, was sitting in the Continental
instrument room of the General Post Office when it arrived. He was241 handed a copy of
the telegram and read it. Then he smiled.

"Thank you," he said, as he passed it back to the Superintendent of the department, "this
may now be transmitted for delivery. I know all I want to know."

Poltavo received the message an hour later, and having read it, cursed his subordinate's
indiscretion, for the message was in Italian, plain for everybody to read who understood
that language, and its purport easy to understand for anybody who had a knowledge of
the facts.

He waited all that day for a visit from the police, and when T. B. arrived in the evening
Poltavo was ready with an excuse and an explanation. But neither excuse nor
explanation was asked for. T. B.'s questions had to do with something quite different,
namely the new Mrs. Doughton and her vanished fortune.

"I was in the confidence of Mr. Farrington," said Poltavo, relieved to find the visit had
nothing to do with that which he most dreaded, "but I was amazed to discover that the
safe was empty. It was a tremendous tragedy for the poor young lady. She is in Paris
now with her husband," he added.

T. B. nodded.

"Perhaps you will give me their address?" he asked.

"With pleasure," said Count Poltavo, reaching for his address book.

"I may be going to Paris myself to-morrow," T. B. went on, "and I will look these young
people up. I suppose it is not the correct thing for any one to call upon honeymoon
couples, but a police officer has privileges."

There was an exchange of smiles. Poltavo was almost exhilarated that T. B.'s visit had
nothing to do with him personally. A respect, which amounted almost to fear,
characterized his attitude toward the great Scotland Yard detective. He credited T. B.
with qualities which perhaps that admirable man did not possess, but, as a set-off
against this, he failed to credit him with a wiliness which was peculiarly T. B.'s chief
asset. For who could imagine that the detective's chief object in calling upon Poltavo
that evening was to allay his suspicions and soothe down his fears. Yet T. B. came for no
other reason and with no other purpose. It was absolutely necessary that Poltavo should
be taken off his guard, for T. B. was planning the coup which was to end for all time the
terror under which hundreds of innocent people in England were lying.

After an exchange of commonplace civilities the243 two men parted,—T. B., as he said,
with his hand on the door, to prepare for his Paris trip, and Poltavo to take up what
promised to be one of the most interesting cases that the Fallock blackmailers had ever
handled.

He waited until he heard the door close after the detective; until he had watched him,
from the window, step into his cab and be whirled away, then he unlocked the lower
drawer of his desk, touched a spring in the false bottom, and took from a secret recess a
small bundle of letters.

Many of the sheets of notepaper which he spread out on the table before him bore the
strawberry crest of his grace the Duke of Ambury. The letters were all in the same
sprawling handwriting; ill-spelt and blotted, but they were very much to the point. The
Duke of Ambury, in his exuberant youth, had contracted a marriage with a lady in
Gibraltar. His regiment had been stationed at that fortress when his succession to the
dukedom had been a very remote possibility, and the Spanish lady to whom, as the
letters showed, he had plighted his troth, and to whom he was eventually married in the
name of Wilson (a copy of the marriage certificate was in the drawer), had been a typical
Spaniard of singular beauty and fascination, though of no distinguished birth.

Apparently his grace had regretted his hasty alliance, for two years after his succession
to the title, he had married the third daughter of the Earl of Westchester without—so far
as the evidence in Poltavo's possession showed—having gone through the formality of
releasing himself from his previous union.

Here was a magnificent coup, the most splendid that had ever come into the vision of
the blackmailers, for the Duke of Ambury was one of the richest men in England, a
landlord who owned half London and had estates in almost every county. If ever there
was a victim who was in a position to be handsomely bled, here was one.

The Spanish wife was now dead, but an heir had been born to the Duke of Ambury
before the death, and the whole question of succession was affected by the threatened
disclosure. All the facts of the case were in Poltavo's possession; they were written in
this curiously uneducated hand which filled the pages of the letters now spread upon the
table in front of him. The marriage certificate had been supplied, and a copy of the death
certificate had also been obligingly extracted by a peccant servant, and matters were
now so far advanced that Poltavo had received, through the Agony column of the Times,
a reply to the demand he had sent to his victim.

That reply had been very favourable; there had been no suggestion of lawyers; no hint of
any intervention on the part of the police. Ambury was willing to be bled, willing indeed,
so the agony advertisement indicated to Poltavo, to make any financial sacrifice in order
to save the honour of his house.

It was only a question of terms now. Poltavo had decided upon fifty thousand pounds.
That sum would be sufficient to enable him to clear out of England and to enjoy life as
he best loved it, without the necessity for taking any further risks. With Doris Gray
removed from his hands, with the approval of society already palling upon him, he
thirsted for new fields and new adventures. The fifty thousand seemed now within his
grasp. He should, by his agreement with Farrington, hand two-thirds of that sum to his
employer, but even the possibility of his doing this never for one moment occurred to
him.
Farrington, so he told himself, a man in hiding, powerless and in Poltavo's hands
practically, could not strike back at him; the cards were all in favour of the Count. He
had already received some ten thousand pounds as a result of his work in London, and
he had frantic and ominous letters from Dr. Fall demanding that the "house" share
should be246 forwarded without delay. These demands Poltavo had treated with
contempt. He felt master of the situation, inasmuch that he had placed the major
portion of the balance of money in hand, other than that which had been actually
supplied by Farrington, to his own credit in a Paris bank. He was prepared for all
eventualities, and here he was promised the choicest of all his pickings—for the bleeding
of the Duke of Ambury would set a seal upon previous accomplishments.

He rang a bell, and a man came, letting himself into the room with a key. He was an
Italian with a peculiarly repulsive face; one of the small fry whom Poltavo had employed
from time to time to do such work as was beneath his own dignity, or which promised an
unnecessary measure of danger in its performance.

"Carlos," said Poltavo, speaking in Italian, "Antonio has been arrested, and has been
taken to Calais by the police."

"That I know, signor," nodded the man. "He is very fortunate. I was afraid when the
news came that he would be put into prison."

Poltavo smiled.

"The ways of the English police are beyond understanding," he said lightly. "Here was
our Antonio, anxious and willing to kill the head of the detective247 department, and
they release him! Is it not madness? At any rate, Antonio will not be coming back,
because though they are mad, the police are not so foolish as to allow him to land again.
I have telegraphed to our friend to go on to Paris and await me, and here let me say,
Carlos,"—he tapped the table with the end of his penholder,—"that if you by ill-fortune
should ever find yourself in the same position of our admirable and worthy Antonio, I
beg that you will not send me telegrams."

"You may be assured, excellent signor," said the man with a little grin, "that I shall not
send you telegrams, for I cannot write."

"A splendid deficiency," said Poltavo.

He took up a letter from the table.

"You will deliver this to a person who will meet you at the corner of Branson Square. The
exact position I have already indicated to you."

The man nodded.

"This person will give you in exchange another letter. You will not return to me but you
will go to your brother's house in Great Saffron Street, and outside that house you will
see a man standing who wears a long overcoat. You will brush past him, and in doing so
you will drop this envelope into his pocket—you understand?"

"Excellency, I quite understand," said the man.

"Go, and God be with you," said the pious Poltavo, sending forth a message which he
believed would bring consternation and terror into the bosom of the Duke of Ambury.

It was late that night when Carlos Freggetti came down a steep declivity into Great
Saffron Street and walked swiftly along that deserted thoroughfare till he came to his
brother's house. His brother was a respectable Italian artisan, engaged by an asphalt
company in London. Near the narrow door of the tenement in which his relative lived, a
stranger stood, apparently awaiting some one. Carlos, in passing him, stumbled and
apologized under his breath. At that moment he slipped the letter into the other's
pocket. His quick eyes noted the identity of the stranger. It was Poltavo. No one else was
in the street, and in the dim light even the keenest of eyes would not have seen the
transfer of the envelope. Poltavo strolled to the end of the thoroughfare, jumped into the
taxicab which was waiting and reached his house after various transferences of cabs
without encountering any of T. B.'s watchful agents. In his room he opened the letter
with an anxious air. Would Ambury agree to the exorbitant sum he had demanded? And
if he did not agree, what sum would he be prepared to pay as the price of the
blackmailer's silence? The first words brought relief to him.

"I am willing to pay the sum you ask, although I think you are guilty of a dastardly
crime," read the letter, "and since you seem to suspect my bonafides, I shall choose, as
an agent to carry the money to you, an old labourer on my Lancashire estate who will be
quite ignorant of the business in hand, and who will give you the money in exchange for
the marriage certificate. If you will choose a rendezvous where you can meet, a
rendezvous which fulfills all your requirements as to privacy, I will undertake to have
my man on the spot at the time you wish."

There was a triumphant smile on Poltavo's face as he folded the letter.

"Now," he said half aloud, "now, my friend Farrington, you and I will part company. You
have ceased to be of any service to me; your value has decreased in the same proportion
as my desire for freedom has advanced. Fifty thousand pounds!" he repeated
admiringly. "Ernesto, you have a happy time before you. All the continent of Europe is at
your feet, and this sad England is behind you. Congratulations, amigo!"

The question of the rendezvous was an important250 one. Though he read into the letter
an eagerness on the part of his victim to do anything to avoid the scandal and the
exposure which Poltavo threatened, yet he did not trust him. The old farm labourer was
a good idea, but where could they meet? When Poltavo had kidnapped Frank Doughton
he had intended taking him to a little house he had hired in the East End of London. The
journey to the Secret House was a mere blind to throw suspicion upon Farrington and to
put the police off the real track. The car would have returned to London, and under the
influence of a drug he had intended to smuggle Frank into the small house at West Ham,
where he was to be detained until the period which Farrington had stipulated had
expired.

But the transfer of money in the house was a different matter. The place could be
surrounded by police. No, it must be an open space; such a space as would enable
Poltavo to command a clear view on every side.

Why not Great Bradley, he thought, after a while? Again he would be serving two
purposes. He would be leading the police to the Secret House, and he would have the
mansion of mystery and all its resources as a refuge in case anything went wrong at the
last moment. He could, in the251 worst extremity, explain that he was collecting the
money on behalf of Farrington.

Yes, Great Bradley and the wild stretch of down on the south of the town was the place.
He made his arrangements accordingly.
 CHAPTER XVIII

It was three days after the exchange of letters that Count Poltavo, in the rough tweeds of
a country gentleman—a garb which hardly suited his figure or presence—strolled
carelessly across the downs, making his way to their highest point, a great rolling slope,
from the crest of which a man could see half a dozen miles in every direction.

The sky was overcast and a chill wind blew; it was such a day upon which he might be
certain no pleasure-seekers would be abroad. To his left, half hidden in the furthermost
shelter of the downs, veiled as it was for ever under a haze of blue grey smoke, lay Great
Bradley, with its chimneys and its busy industrial life. To his right he caught a glimpse of
the square ugly façade of the Secret House, half hidden by the encircling trees. To its
right was a chimney stack from which a lazy feather of smoke was drifting. Behind him
the old engine house of the deserted mines, and to the right of that253 the pretty little
cottage from which a week before Lady Constance Dex had so mysteriously disappeared,
and which in consequence had been an object of pilgrimage for the whole countryside.

But Lady Constance Dex's disappearance had become a nine days' wonder. There were
many explanations offered for her unexpected absence. The police of the country were
hunting systematically and leisurely, and only T. B. and those in his immediate
confidence were satisfied that the missing woman was less than two miles away from the
scene of her disappearance.

Count Poltavo had armed himself with a pair of field-glasses, and now he carefully
scrutinized all the roads which led to the downs. A motor-car, absurdly diminutive from
the distance, came spinning along the winding white road two miles away. He watched it
as it mounted the one hill and descended the other, and kept his glasses on it until it
vanished in a cloud of dust on the London road. Then he saw what he sought. Coming
across the downs a mile away was the bent figure of a man who stopped now and again
to look about, as though uncertain as to the direction he should take. Poltavo, lying flat
upon the ground, his glasses fixed upon the man, waited, watching the slow progress
with lazy interest.

He saw an old man, white-bearded and grey-haired, carrying his hat in his hand as he
walked. His rough homespun clothing, his collarless shirt open at the throat, the plaid
scarf around his neck, all these Poltavo saw through his powerful glasses and was
satisfied.
This was not the kind of man to play tricks, he smiled to himself. Poltavo's precautions
had been of an elaborate nature. Three roads led to the downs, and in positions at equal
distances from where he stood he had placed three cars. He was ready for all
emergencies. If he had to fly, then whichever way of escape was necessary would bring
him to a means of placing a distance between himself and any possible pursuer.

The old man came nearer. Poltavo made a hasty but narrow survey of the messenger.

"Good," he said.

He walked to meet the old man.

"You have a letter for me?" he inquired.

The other glanced at him suspiciously.

"Name?" he asked gruffly.

"My name," said the smiling Pole, "is Poltavo."

Slowly the messenger groped in his pockets and produced a heavy package. "You've got
to give me something," he said.

Poltavo handed over a sealed packet, receiving in exchange the messenger's.

Again Poltavo shot a smiling glance at this sturdy old man. Save for the beard and the
grey hair which showed beneath the broad-brimmed, wide-awake hat, this might have
been a young man.

"This is an historic meeting," Poltavo went on gaily. His heart was light and his spirits as
buoyant as ever they had been in his life. All the prospects which this envelope, now
bulging in his pocket, promised, rose vividly before his eyes.

"Tell me your name, my old friend, that I may carry it with me, and on some occasion
which is not yet, that I may toast your health."

"My name," said the old man, "is T. B. Smith, and I shall take you into custody on a
charge of attempting to extort money by blackmail."
Poltavo sprang back, his face ashen. One hand dived for his pistol-pocket, but before he
could reach it T. B. was at his throat. That moment the Pole felt two arms gripping him,
two steel bands they seemed, and likely to crush his arms into his very body. Then he
went over with the full weight of the detective upon him, and was momentarily stunned
by the shock. He came to himself rapidly, but not quickly enough. He was conscious of
something cold about his wrists, and a none too256 kindly hand dragged him to his feet.
T. B. with his white beard all awry was a comical figure, but Poltavo had no sense of
humour at that moment.

"I think I have you at last, my friend," said T. B. pleasantly. He was busy removing his
disguise and wiping his face clean of the grease paint, which had been necessary, with a
handkerchief which was already grimy with his exertions.

"You will have some difficulty in proving anything against me," said the other defiantly;
"there is only you and I, and my word is as good as yours. As to the Duke of Ambury——"

T. B. laughed, a long chuckling laugh of delight.

"My poor man," he said pityingly, "there is no Duke of Ambury. I depended somewhat
upon your ignorance of English nobility, but I confess that I did not think you would fall
so quickly to the bait. The Dukedom of Ambury ceased to exist two hundred years ago. It
is one of those titles which have fallen into disuse. Ambury Castle, from which the letters
were addressed to you, is a small suburban villa on the outskirts of Bolton, the rent of
which," he said carefully, "is, I believe, some forty pounds a year. We English have a
greater imagination than you credit us with, Count," he went on, "and imagination takes
no more common flight than the namings of the small dwellings of our humble fellow-
citizens."

He took his prisoner by the arm and led him across the downs.

"What are you going to do with me?" asked Poltavo.

"I shall first of all take you to Great Bradley police station, and then I shall convey you to
London," said T. B. "I have three warrants for you, including an extradition warrant
issued on behalf of the Russian Government, but I think they may have to wait a little
while before they obtain any satisfaction for your past misdeeds."

The direction they took led them to Moor Cottage. In a quarter of an hour a force of
police would be on the spot, for T. B. had timed his arrangements almost to the minute.
He opened the door of the cottage and pushed his prisoner inside.
"We will avoid the study," he smiled; "you probably know our mutual friend Lady
Constance Dex disappeared under somewhat extraordinary circumstances from that
room, and since I have every wish to keep you, we will take the drawing-room as a
temporary prison."

He opened the door of the little room in which the piano was, and indicated to his
captive to sit in one of the deep-seated chairs.

"Now, my friend," said T. B., "we have a chance of mutual understanding. I do not wish
to disguise from you the fact that you are liable to a very heavy sentence. That you are
only an agent I am aware, but in this particular case you were acting entirely on your
own account. You have made elaborate and thorough preparations for leaving England."

Poltavo smiled.

"That is true," he said, frankly.

T. B. nodded.

"I have seen your trunks all beautifully new, and imposingly labelled," he smiled, "and I
have searched them."

Poltavo sat, his elbows on his knees, reflectively smoothing his moustache with his
manacled hands.

"Is there any way I can get out of this?" he asked, after a while.

"You can make things much easier for yourself," replied T. B. quietly.

"In what way?"

"By telling me all you know about Farrington and giving me any information you can
about the Secret House. Where, for instance, is Lady Constance Dex?"

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"She is alive, I can tell you that. I had a letter from Fall in which he hinted as much. I do
not259 know how they captured her, or the circumstances of the case. All I can tell you
is that she is perfectly well and being looked after. You see Farrington had to take her—
she shot at him once—hastened his disappearance in fact, and there was evidence that
she was planning further reprisals. As to the mysteries of the Secret House," he said,
frankly, "I know little or nothing. Farrington, of course, is——"

"Montague Fallock," said T. B. quietly. "I know that also."

"Then what else do you want to know?" asked the other, in surprise. "I am perfectly
willing, if you can make it easy for me, to tell you everything. The man who is known as
Moole is a half-witted old farm labourer who was picked up by Farrington some years
ago to serve his purpose. He is the man who unknowingly poses as a millionaire. It is his
estate which Farrington is supposed to be administering. You see," he explained, "this
rather takes off the suspicion which naturally attaches to a house which nobody visits,
and it gives the inmates a certain amount of protection."

"That I understand," said T. B.; "it is, as you say, an ingenious idea—what of Fall?"

Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

"You know as much of him as I. There are, however, many things which you may not
know," he went on slowly, "and of these there is one which you would pay a high price to
learn. You will never take Farrington."

"May I ask why?" asked T. B. interestedly.

"That is my secret," said the other; "that is the secret I am willing to sell you."

"And the price?" asked T. B. after a pause.

"The price is my freedom," said the other boldly. "I know you can do anything with the
police. As yet, no charge has been made against me. At the most, it is merely a question
of attempting to obtain money by a trick—and even so you will have some difficulty in
proving that I am guilty. Yes, I know you will deny this, but I have some knowledge of
the law, Mr. Smith, and I have also some small experience of English juries. It is not the
English law that I am afraid of, and it is not the sentence which your judges will pass
upon me which fills me with apprehension. I am afraid of my treatment at the hands of
the Russian Government."

He shivered a little.

"It is because I wish to avoid extradition that I make this offer. Put things right for me,
and I will place in your hands, not only the secret of Farrington's scheme for escape, but
also the full list of his agents through the country. You will find them in261 no books,"
he said with a smile; "my stay in the Secret House was mainly occupied from morning
till night in memorizing those names and those addresses."

T. B. looked at him thoughtfully.

"There is something in what you say," he said. "I must have a moment to consider your
offer."

He heard a noise from the road without and pulled aside the blind. A car had driven up
and was discharging a little knot of plain clothes Scotland Yard men. Amongst them he
recognized Ela.

"I shall take the liberty of locking you in this room for a few moments whilst I consult
my friends," said T. B.

He went out, turned the key in the lock and put it in his pocket. Outside he met Ela.

"Have you got him?" asked the detective.

T. B. nodded.

"I have taken him," he said; "moreover, I rather fancy I have got the whole outfit in my
hands."

"The Secret House?" asked Ela eagerly.

"Everything," said T. B.; "it all depends upon what we can do with Poltavo. If we can
avoid bringing him before a magistrate, I can smash this organization. I know it is
contrary to the law, but it is in the interests of the law. How many men have we
available?"

"There are a hundred and fifty in the town of Great Bradley itself," said Ela calmly; "half
of them local constabulary, and half of them our own men."

"Send a man down to order them to take up a position round the Secret House, allow
nobody to leave it, stop all motor-cars approaching or departing from the house, and
above all things no car is to leave Great Bradley without its occupants being carefully
scrutinized. What's that?" he turned suddenly.
A sudden muffled scream had broken into the conversation and it had come from the
inside of the cottage.

"Quick!" snapped T. B.

He sprang into the passage of the cottage, reached the door of the room where he had
left his prisoner, slipped the key in the lock with an unerring hand and flung open the
door.

The room was empty.

 CHAPTER XIX

Farrington and Dr. Fall were closeted together in the latter's office. Something had
happened, which was responsible for the gloom on the face of the usually imperturbable
doctor, and for the red rage which glowered in the older man's eyes.

"You are sure of this?" he asked.

"Quite sure," said Dr. Fall briefly; "he is making every preparation to leave London. His
trunks went away from Charing Cross last night for Paris. He has let his house and
collected the rent in advance, and he has practically sold the furniture. There can be no
question whatever that our friend has betrayed us."

"He would not dare," breathed Farrington.

The veins stood out on his forehead; he was controlling his passionate temper by a
supreme effort.

"I saved this man from beggary, Fall; I took the dog out of the gutter, and I gave him a
chance when he had already forfeited his life. He would not dare!"

"My experience of criminals of this character," said Dr. Fall calmly, "is that they will
dare anything. You see, he is a particularly obnoxious specimen of his race; all
suaveness, treachery, and remorseless energy. He would betray you; he would betray his
own brother. Did he not shoot his father—or his alleged father, some years ago? I asked
you not to trust him, Farrington; if I had had my way, he would never have left this
house."

Farrington shook his head.

"It was for the girl's sake I let him go. Yes, yes," he went on, seeing the look of surprise in
the other's face, "it was necessary that I should have somebody who stood in fear of me,
who would further my plans in that direction. The marriage was necessary."

"You have been, if you will pardon my expressing the opinion," said Dr. Fall moodily,
"just a little bit sentimental, Farrington."

The other turned on him with an oath.

"I want none of your opinions," he said gruffly. "You will never understand how I feel
about this265 child. I took her from her dead father, who was one of my best friends,
and I confess, that in the early days the thought of exploiting her fortune did occur to
me. But as the years passed she grew towards me—a new and a beautiful influence in
life, Fall. It was something that I had never had before, a factor which had never
occurred in my stormy career. I grew to love the child, to love her more than I love
money, and that is saying a lot. I wanted to do the right thing for her, and when my
speculations were going wrong and I had to borrow from her fortune I never had any
doubt but what I should be able to pay it back. When all the money went,"—his voice
sank until it was little more than a whisper,—"and I realized that I had ruined the one
human being in the world whom I loved, I took the step which of all my crimes I have
most regretted. I sent George Doughton out of the way in order that I might scheme to
marry Doris to the Tollington millionaire. For I knew the man we were seeking was
Doughton. I killed him," he said defiantly, "for the sake of his son's wife. Oh, the irony of
it!" He raised his hand with a harsh laugh. "The comedy of it! As to Poltavo," he went on
more calmly, "I let him go because, as I say, I wanted him to further my object. That he
failed, or that he was remiss, does not affect the argument. Doris is safely married," he
mused; "if she does not love her husband now, she will love him in time. She respects
Frank Doughton, and every day that passes will solidify that respect. I know Doris, and I
know something of her secret thoughts and her secret wishes. She will forget me,"—his
voice shook,—"please God she will forget me."

He changed the subject quickly.

"Have you heard from Poltavo this morning?"

"Nothing at all," said Fall; "he has been communicating with somebody or other, and the
usual letters have been passing. Our man says that he has a big coup on, but upon that
Poltavo has not informed us."

"If I thought he was going to play us false——"

"What would you do?" asked Fall quietly. "He is out of our hands now."

There was a little buzz in one corner of the room, and Fall turned his startled gaze upon
the other.

"From the signal tower," he said. "I wonder what is wrong."

High above the house was one square solitary tower, in which, day and night, a watcher
was stationed. Fall went to the telephone and took down the receiver. He spoke a few
words and267 listened, then he hung up the receiver again and turned to Farrington.

"Poltavo is in Great Bradley," he said; "one of our men has seen him and signalled to the
house."

"In Great Bradley!" Farrington's eyes narrowed. "What is he doing here?"

"What was his car doing here the other day," asked Fall, "when he kidnapped Frank
Doughton? It was here to throw suspicion on us and take suspicion off himself, the most
obvious thing in the world."

Again the buzzer sounded, and again Fall carried on a conversation with the man on the
roof in a low tone.

"Poltavo is on the downs," he said; "he has evidently come to meet somebody; the look-
out says he can see him from the tower through his glasses, and that there is a man
making his way towards him."

"Let us see for ourselves," said Farrington.

They passed out of the room into another, opened what appeared to be a cupboard door,
but which was in reality one of the innumerable elevators with which the house was
furnished, and for the working of which the great electrical plant was so necessary.

They stepped into the lift, and in a few seconds268 had reached the interior of the
tower, with its glass-paned observation windows and its telescopes. One of the foreign
workmen, whom Farrington employed, was carefully scrutinizing the distant downs
through a telescope which stood upon a large tripod.

"There he is," he said.

Farrington looked. There was no mistaking Poltavo, but who the other man was, an old
man doubled with age, his white beard floating in the wind, Farrington could not say; he
could only conjecture.

Dr. Fall, searching the downs with another telescope, was equally in the dark.

"This is the intermediary," said Farrington at last.

They watched the meeting, saw the exchange of the letters, and Farrington uttered a
curse. Then suddenly he saw the other leap upon Poltavo and witnessed the brief
struggle on the ground. Saw the glitter of handcuffs and turned with a white face to the
doctor.

"My God!" he whispered. "Trapped!"

For the space of a few seconds they looked one at the other.

"Will he betray us?" asked Farrington, voicing the unspoken thoughts of Fall.

"He will betray us as much as he can," said the other. "We must watch and see what
happens. If he takes him into town, we are lost."

"Is there any sign of police?" asked Farrington.

They scanned the horizon, but there was no evidence of a lurking force, and they turned
to watch T. B. Smith and his prisoner making their slow way across the downs. For five
minutes they stood watching, then Fall uttered an exclamation.

"They are going to the cottage!" he said, and again the men's eyes met.

"Impossible," said Farrington, but there was a little glint in his eye which spoke of the
hope behind the word.

Again an interval of silence. Three pairs of eyes followed the men.

"It is the cottage!" said Fall. "Quick!"

In an instant the two men were in the lift and shooting downwards; they did not stop till
they reached the basement.

"You have a pistol?" asked Farrington.

Fall nodded. They quitted the lift and walked swiftly along a vaulted corridor, lighted at
intervals with lamps set in niches. On their way they passed a door made in the solid
wall to their left.
"We must get her out of this, if necessary," said270 Farrington in a low voice. "She is not
giving any trouble?"

Dr. Fall shook his head.

"A most tactful prisoner," he said, dryly.

At the end of the corridor was another door. Fall fitted a key and swung open the heavy
iron portal and the two men passed through to a darkened chamber. Fall found the
switch and illuminated the apartment. It was a little room innocent of windows, and lit
as all the rest of the basement was by cornice lamps. In one corner was a grey-painted
iron door. This Fall pushed aside on its noiseless runners. There was another elevator
here. The two men stepped in and the lift sunk and sunk until it seemed as though it
would never come to the end. It stopped at last, and the men stepped out into a rock-
hewn gallery.

It was easy to see that this was one of the old disused galleries of the old mine over
which the house was built. Fall found the switch he sought and instantly the corridor
was flooded with bright light.

On a set of rails which ran the whole length of the gallery to a point which was out of
sight from where they stood, was a small trolley. It was unlike the average trolley in that
it was obviously electrically driven. A third rail supplied the energy, and271 the
controlling levers were at the driver's hand.

Farrington climbed to the seat, and his companion followed, and with a whirr of wheels
and a splutter of sparks where the motor brush caught the rail, the little trolley drove
forward at full speed.

They slowed at the gentle curves, increased speed again when any uninterrupted length
of gallery gave them encouragement, and after five minutes' travel Farrington pulled
back the lever and applied the brake. They stepped out into a huge chamber similar to
that which they had just left. There was the inevitable lift set, as it seemed, in the heart
of the rock, though in reality it was a bricked space. The two men entered and the lift
rose noiselessly.

"We will go up slowly," whispered Fall in the other's ear; "it will not do to make a noise
or to arouse any suspicions; we must not forget that we have T. B. Smith to deal with."
Farrington nodded, and presently the lift stopped of its own accord. They made no
attempt to open whatever door was before them. They could hear voices: one was T. B.'s,
and the other was unmistakably Poltavo's, and Poltavo was speaking.

Poltavo was offering in his eager way to betray the men who sat in the darkness listening
to his treachery. They heard the motor-car's arrival272 outside, and presently T. B.'s
voice announcing his temporary retirement. They heard the slam of the door, and the
key click in the lock, and then Dr. Fall stepped forward, pressed a spring in the rough
woodwork in front of him and one of the panels of the room slid silently back.

Poltavo did not see his visitors until they stood over him, then he read in those hateful
faces which were turned toward him an unmistakable forecast of his doom.

"What do you want?" he almost whispered.

"Do not raise your voice," said Farrington in the same tone, "or you are a dead man." He
held the point of a knife at the other's throat.

"To where are you taking me?" asked Poltavo, ghastly white of face and shaking from
head to foot.

"We are taking you to a place where your opportunity for betraying us will be a mighty
small one," said Fall.

There was a horrible smile on his thin lips, and Poltavo, with a premonition of what
awaited him beyond the tunnel, forgot the menacing knife at his throat and screamed.

Hands gripped him and strangled the cry as it escaped him. Something heavy struck him
behind the ear and he lost consciousness. He awoke to find himself travelling smoothly
along the rock gallery. He was half lying, half reclining on Fall's knees. He did not
attempt to move; he knew now that he was in mortal peril of his life. No word was
spoken when he was dragged roughly from the car, placed in another elevator and
whirled upwards, emerging into a little chamber at the end of the underground corridor
which ran beneath the Secret House.

A door was opened and he was thrust in without a word. He heard the clang of the steel
door behind him, and the lights came on to show him that once again he was in the
underground room where he had been confined before.

There was the table, there was the heavy chair, there in the far corner of the room was
the barred entrance to the other elevator. Anyway he was free from the police; that was
something. He was safe just so long as it suited the book of Farrington and his friend to
keep him safe. What would they do? What excuse could he offer? They had overheard
the conversation between himself and T. B., he knew that, and cursed his folly. He ought
to have kept away from Moor Cottage. He knew there was something sinister about the
place, but T. B. should have known that even better than he. Why had T. B. left him?

These and a thousand other thoughts shot through274 his mind as he paced the vaulted
apartment. They were in no hurry to feed him. He had almost forgotten what time it
was; whether it was day or night in that underground vault into which no ray of sunlight
ever penetrated. They had left him with the handcuffs on his wrists; they would come
and relieve him of these encumbrances. What were their plans with him? He felt his
pockets carefully. T. B. had taken away the only weapon he had had, and for the first
time for many years Count Poltavo was unarmed.

His heart was beating with painful rapidity and his breath came laboriously. He was
terror-stricken. He turned to find the door through which he had come, and to his
surprise he could not see it. So far as he could detect, the stone wall ran without a break
from one end of the apartment to the other. Escape could not lie that way; of that he was
satisfied. There was nothing to do but to wait, with whatever patience he could summon,
to discover their plans. He did not doubt that he was to suffer. He had forfeited all right
to their confidence, but if this was to be the only consequence of his ill-doing he was not
greatly worried. Count Poltavo, as he had boasted before in this identical room, had
been in some tight corners and had faced death in many strange and terrible guises, but
the inevitability of doom was never so impressed upon his mind as it was at this
moment when he lay guarded by a hundred secret forces in the tomb of the Secret
House.

He had one hope, a faint one, that T. B. would discover the method of his exit from the
room in Moor Cottage and would track him here.

Evidently the occupants of the Secret House had the same fear, for even here, in the
quietness of his underground prison, Poltavo could hear strange whining noises,
rumbling, and groaning and grinding, as though the whole of the house were changing
its construction.

He had not long to wait for news. A corner lift came swiftly down and Fall stepped
briskly towards his prisoner.

"T. B. Smith is in the house," he said, "and is making an inspection; he will be down here
in a moment. In these circumstances I shall have to betray one of the secrets of this
house." He caught the other roughly by the arm and half led, half dragged, him to a
corner of the room. Handcuffed as he was, Poltavo could offer no resistance. Dr. Fall
apparently only touched one portion of the wall, but he must have moved, either with
his foot or with his hand, some particularly powerful276 spring, for a section of the
stone wall swung backwards revealing a black gap.

"Get in there," said Fall, and pushed him into the darkness.

A few moments later T. B. Smith, accompanied by three detectives, inspected the room
which Poltavo had left. There was no sign of the man, no evidence of his having so
recently been an occupant of his prison house. For an interminable time Poltavo stood
in the darkness. He found he was in a small cell-like apartment with apparently no
outlet save that through which he had come.

He was able to breathe without difficulty, for the perfect system of ventilation
throughout the dungeons of the Secret House had been its architect's greatest triumph.

It seemed hours that he waited there, though in reality it was less than twenty minutes
after his entrance that the door swung open again and he was called out.

Farrington was in the room now, Farrington with his trusty lieutenant, and behind them
the one-eyed Italian desperado whom Poltavo remembered seeing in the power house
one day, when he had been allowed the privilege of inspection.

Some slight change had been made in the room since he was there last. Poltavo's nerves
were in277 such a condition that he was sensitive to this variation. He saw now what the
change was. The table had been drawn back leaving the chair where it was fixed.

Yes, it was a fixed chair, he remembered that and wondered why it had been screwed to
the wood block floor. Dr. Fall and the engineer grasped him roughly and hurried him
across the room, thrusting him into the chair.

"What are you going to do?" asked Poltavo, white as death.

"That you shall see."

Deftly they strapped him to the chair; his wrists and elbows were securely fastened to
the arms, and his ankles to the legs of the massive piece of furniture.

From where he sat Poltavo confronted Farrington, but the big man's mask-like face did
not move, nor his eyes waver as he surveyed his treacherous prisoner. Then Fall knelt
down and did something, and Poltavo heard the ripping and tearing of cloth.
They were slitting up each trouser leg, and he could not understand why.

"Is this a joke?" he asked with a desperate attempt at airiness.

No reply was made. Poltavo watched his captors curiously. What was the object of it all?
The two men busy at the chair lifted a number of curious-looking objects from the floor;
they clamped one on each wrist, and he felt the cold surface of some instrument
pressing against each calf. Still he did not realize the danger, or the grim determination
of these men whose secret he would have betrayed.

"Mr. Farrington," he appealed to the big man, "let us have an understanding. I have
played my game and lost."

"You have indeed," said Farrington.

They were the first words he had spoken.

"Give me enough to get out of the country," Poltavo appealed, "just the money that I
have in my pocket, and I promise you that I will never trouble you again."

"My friend," said Farrington, "I have trusted you too long. You forced yourself upon me
when I did not desire you, you thwarted me at every turn, you betrayed me whenever it
was possible to betray me, or whenever it was to your advantage to do so, and I am
determined that you shall have no other chance of doing me an injury."

"What is this foolery?" asked Poltavo, in a mixture of blind fear and rage. They had
unlocked279 the handcuffs and taken them off him, and now for the first time Poltavo
noticed that the curious bronze clamps on his wrists were attached by thick green cords
to a plug in the wall.

He shrieked aloud as he saw this, and the full horror of the situation flashed upon him.

"My God," he screamed, "you are not going to kill me?"

Farrington nodded slowly.

"We are going to kill you painlessly, Poltavo," he said. "It was your life or ours. We do
not desire to cause you unnecessary suffering, but here is the end of the adventure for
you, my friend."
"You are not going to electrocute me?" croaked the man in the chair, in a hoarse cracked
voice. "Don't say that you are going to electrocute me, Farrington! It is diabolical, it is
terrible. Give me a chance of life! Give me a pistol, give me a knife, but fight me fair.
Treat me as you will; hand me to the police, anything but this; for God's sake,
Farrington, don't do this!"

The doctor reached down and lifted a leather helmet from the floor and placed it gently
over the doomed man's head.

"Don't do it, Farrington." Poltavo's muffled voice came painfully from behind the leather
screen. "Don't! I swear I will not betray you."

Farrington made a little signal and the doctor walked to the wall and placed his hand
upon a black switch.

"I will not betray you," said the man in the chair in hollow tones. "Give me a chance. I
will not tell them anything that you——"

He did not speak again, for the black switch had been pressed down and death came
with merciful swiftness.

They stood watching the figure. A slight quivering of the hands and then Farrington
nodded and the doctor turned the switch over again.

Rapidly they unfastened the straps, and the limp thing which was once human, with a
brain to think and a capacity for life and love, slipped out of the chair in an inanimate
heap upon the ground.

So passed Ernesto Poltavo, an adventurer and a villain, in the prime of his life.

Farrington looked down upon the body with sombre eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

He had opened his mouth to speak and Fall had walked to the switchboard and was
about to put the deadly apparatus out of gear, when a sharp voice made them both turn.

"Hands up!" it said.

The stone door, through which Poltavo had281 passed to his doom from the corridor
without, was wide open, and in the doorway stood T. B. and a little behind him Ela, and
in T. B.'s hand was a pistol.
 CHAPTER XX

T. B. Smith's inspection of the Secret House had yielded nothing satisfactory; he had not
expected that it would; he was perfectly satisfied that the keen, shrewd brains which
dominated the menage would remove any trace there was of foul play.

"Where now?" asked Ela, as they turned out of the house.

"Back to Moor Cottage," said T. B., climbing into the car. "I am certain that we are on
the verge of our big discovery. There is a way out of the cottage by some underground
chamber, a way by which first Lady Constance and then Poltavo were smuggled, and if it
is necessary I am going to smash every panel in those two ground floor rooms, but I will
find the way in to Mr. Farrington's mystery house."

For half an hour the two men were engaged in283 the room from which Poltavo had
been taken. They probed with centre bits and gimlets into every portion of the room.

The first discovery that they made was that the oaken panels of the chamber were
backed with sheet iron or steel.

"It is a hopeless job; we shall have to get another kind of smith here to tear down all the
panellings," said T. B., lighting the gloom of his despair with a little flash of humour.

He fingered the tiny locket absently and opened it again.

"It is absurd," he laughed helplessly. "Here is the solution in these simple words, and yet
we brainy folk from the Yard cannot understand them!"

"God sav the Keng!" said Ela ruefully. "I wonder how on earth that is going to help us."

A gasp from T. B. made him turn his face to his chief.

T. B. Smith was pointing at the piano. In two strides he was across the room, and sitting
on the stool he lifted the cover and struck a chord. The instrument sounded a little flat
and apparently had not received the attention of a tuner for some time.

"I am going to play 'God save the King,'" said284 T. B. with a light in his eyes, "and I
think something is going to happen."

Slowly he pounded forth the familiar tune; from beginning to end he played it, and when
he had finished he looked at Ela.
"Try it in another key," suggested Ela, and again T. B. played the anthem. He was
nearing the last few bars when there was a click and he leapt up. One long panel had
disappeared from the side of the wall. For a moment the two men looked at one another.
They were alone in the house, although a policeman was within call. The main force was
gathered in the vicinity of the Secret House.

T. B. flashed the light of his indispensable and inseparable little electric lamp into the
dark interior.

"I will go in first and see what happens," he said.

"I think we will both go together," said Ela grimly.

"There is a switch here," said T. B.

He pulled it down and a small lamp glowed, illuminating a tiny lift cage.

"And here I presume are the necessary controlling buttons," said T. B., pointing to a
number of white discs; "we will try this one."

He pressed the button and instantly the cage began to fall. It came to a standstill after a
while and the men stepped out.

"Part of the old working," said T. B.; "a very ingenious idea."

He flashed his lamp over the walls to find the electrical connection. They were here, as
they were at the other end, perfectly accessible. An instant later the long corridor was
lighted up.

"By heavens," said T. B. admiringly, "they have even got an underground tramway; look
here!"

At this tiny terminus there were two branches of rails and a car was in waiting. A few
minutes later T. B. Smith had reached the other end of the mine gallery and was seeking
the second elevator.

"Here we are," he said—"everything run by electricity. I thought that power house of

Farrington's had a pretty stiff job, and now I see how heavy is the load which it has to
carry. Step carefully into this," he continued, "and make a careful note of the way we are
going. I think we must be about a hundred feet below the level of the earth; just gauge it
roughly as we go up. Here we go."

He pressed a button and up went the lift. They passed out of the little mine chamber,
carefully286 propping back the swing door, and made their way along the corridor.

"This looks like an apartment," said T. B., as he stopped before a red-painted steel door
in one of the walls. He pressed it gently, but it did not yield. He made a further
examination, but there was no keyhole visible.

"This is either worked by a hidden spring or it does not work at all," he said in a low
voice.

"If it is a spring," said Ela, "I will find it."

His sensitive hands went up and down the surface of the door and presently they
stopped.

"There is something which is little larger than a pin hole," he said. He took from his
pocket a general utility knife and slipped out a thin steel needle. "Pipe cleaners may be
very useful," he said, and pressed the long slender bodkin into the aperture. Instantly,
and without sound, the door opened.

T. B. was the first to go in, revolver in hand. He found himself in a room which, even if it
were a prison, was a well-disguised prison. The walls were hung with costly tapestry, the
carpet under foot was thick and velvety and the furniture which garnished the room was
of a most costly and luxurious description.

"Lady Constance!" gasped T. B. in surprise.

A woman who was sitting in a chair near the reading lamp rose quickly and turned her
startled gaze to the detective.

"Mr. Smith," she said, and ran towards him. "Oh, thank God you have come!"

She grasped him by his two arms; she was half hysterical in that moment of her release,
and was babbling an incoherent string of words; a description of her capture—her fear—
her gratitude—all in an inextricably confused rush of half completed phrases.
"Sit down, Lady Constance," said T. B. gently; "collect yourself and try to remember—
have you seen Poltavo?"

"Poltavo?" she said, startled into coherence. "No, is he here?"

"He is somewhere here," said T. B. "I am seeking for him now. Will you stay here or will
you come with us?"

"I would rather come with you," she said with a shiver.

They passed through the door together.

"Do all these doors open upon rooms similar to this?" asked T. B.

"I believe there are a number of underground cells," she answered in a whisper, "but the
principal one is that which is near." She pointed to a288 red-painted door some twenty
paces away from the one from which they were emerging. There was another pause
whilst Ela repeated his examination of the door.

Apparently they all worked on the pick system, a method which medieval conspirators
favoured, and which the Italian workmen probably imported from the land of their
birth; a land which has given the world the Borgias and the Medicis and the Visconti.

"Stay here," said T. B. in a low voice, and Lady Constance shrank back against the wall.

Ela pressed in his little needle and again the result was satisfactory. The door opened
slowly and T. B. stepped in.

He stood for a moment trying to understand all that the terrible scene signified. The
limp body on the floor; the two remorseless men standing close by; Farrington with
folded arms and his eye glowering down upon the dead man at his feet. Fall at the
switchboard.

Then T. B.'s revolver rose swiftly.

"Hands up!" he said.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the room was plunged in darkness, his
companion was flung violently backward as the electrical control came into operation
and the door slammed in289 Ela's face. He pressed it without avail. He brought to his
aid the little needle, but this time the lock would not move.

Ela's face went chalk white.

"My God!" he gasped, "they've got T. B.!"

He stood for a moment in indecision. He had visualized the scene and knew what fate
would befall his chief.

"Back to the gallery," he said harshly, and led the way, holding the woman's arm in
support. He found his way without difficulty to the lift, sprang into it, after Lady
Constance, and pressed the button.... Now they were speeding along the sparking rail ...
now they were in the lift rising swiftly to the room in Moor Cottage. T. B.'s car was
outside.

"You had better come with me," said Ela quickly.

Lady Constance jumped into the car after him.

"To the Secret House," said Ela to the chauffeur, and as the car drove forward he turned
to the woman at his side.

"I will put you amongst your friends in a few moments," he said; "at present I dare not
risk the loss of a second."

"But what will they do?"

"I pretty well know what they will do," said Ela grimly. "Farrington is playing his last
hand, and T. B. Smith is to be his last victim."

In the darkness of the underground chamber T. B. faced his enemies, striving to pierce
the gloom, his finger in position upon the delicate trigger of his automatic pistol.

"Do not move," he said softly; "I will shoot without any hesitation."
"There is no need to shoot," said the suave voice of the doctor; "the lights went out, quite
by accident, I assure you, and you and your friends have no need to fear."

T. B. groped his way along the wall, his revolver extended. In the gloom he felt rather
than saw the bulky figure of the doctor and reached out his hand gingerly.

Then something touched the outstretched palm, something that in ordinary

circumstances might have felt like the rough points of a bass broom. T. B. was flung
violently backwards and fell heavily to the ground.

"Get him into the chair quick," he heard Farrington's voice say. "That was a good idea of
yours, doctor."

"Just a sprayed wire," said Dr. Fall complacently; "it is a pretty useful check upon a man.
You took a wonderful assistant when you pressed electricity to your aid, Farrington."

The lights were all on now, and T. B. was being strapped to the chair. He had recovered
from the shock, but he had recovered too late. In the interval of his unconsciousness the
body of Poltavo had been removed out of his sight. They were doing to him all that they
had done to Poltavo. He felt the electrodes at his calf and on his wrists and clenched his
teeth, for he knew in what desperate strait he was.

"Well, Mr. Smith," said Farrington pleasantly, "I am afraid you have got yourself into
rather a mess. Where is the other man?" he asked quickly. He looked at Fall, and the
doctor returned his gaze.

"I forgot the other man," said Fall slowly; "in the corridor outside." He went to the
invisible door and it opened at his touch. He was out of the room a few minutes, and
returned looking old and drawn.

"He has got away," he said; "the woman has gone too."

Farrington nodded.

"What does he matter?" he asked roughly; "they know as much as they are likely to
know. Put the control on the door."

Fall turned over a switch and the other renewed his attention to T. B.
"You know exactly how you are situated, Mr. Smith," said Farrington, "and now I am
going to tell you exactly how you may escape from your position."

"I shall be interested to learn," said T. B. coolly, "but I warn you before you tell me that if
my escape is contingent upon your own, then I am afraid I am doomed to dissolution."

The other nodded.

"As you surmise," he said, "your escape is indeed contingent upon mine and that of my
friends. My terms to you are that you shall pass me out of England. I know you are going
to tell me that you have not the power, but I am as well acquainted with the
extraordinary privileges of your department as you are. I know that you can take me out
of the Secret House and land me in Calais to-morrow morning, and there is not one man
throughout the length and breadth of England who will say you nay. I offer you your life
on condition that you do this, otherwise——"

"Otherwise?" asked T. B.

"Otherwise I shall kill you," said Farrington briefly, "just as I killed Poltavo. You are the
worst enemy I have and the most dangerous. I293 have always marked you down as one
whose attention was to be avoided, and I shall probably kill you with less compunction
because I know that but for you I should not have been forced to live this mad dog's life
that has been mine for the past few months. You will be interested, Mr. Smith, to learn
that you nearly had me once. You see the whole wing of the house in which Mr. Moole
lies," he smiled, "works on the principle of a huge elevator. The secret of the Secret
House is really the secret of perfectly arranged lifts; that is to say," he went on, "I can
take my room to the first floor and I can transport it to the fourth floor with greater ease
than you can carry a chair from a basement to an attic."

"I guessed that much," said T. B. "Do you realize that you might have made a fortune as
a practical electrician?"

Farrington smiled.

"I very much doubt it," he said coolly; "but my career and my wasted opportunities are
of less interest to me at the moment than my future and yours. What are you going to
do?"

T. B. smiled.
"I am going to do nothing," he said cheerfully, "unless it be that I am going to die, for I
can imagine no circumstance or danger that threatens294 me or those I love best which
would induce me to loose upon the world such dangerous criminals as yourself and your
fellow-murderers. Your time has come, Farrington. Whether my time comes a little
sooner or later does not alter the fact that you are within a month of your own death,
whether you kill me or whether you let me go."

"You are a bold man to tell me that," said Farrington between his teeth.

T. B. saw from a glance at the blanched faces of the men that his words had struck home.

"If you imagine you can escape," T. B. went on unconcernedly, "why, I think you are
wasting valuable time which might be better utilized, for every moment of delay is a
moment nearer to the gallows for both of you."

"My friend, you are urging your own death," said Fall.

"As to that," said T. B., shrugging his shoulders, "I have no means of foretelling, because
I cannot look into the future any more than you, and if it is the will of Providence that I
should die in the execution of my duty, I am as content to do so as any soldier upon the
battle-field, for it seems to me," he continued half to himself, "that the arrayed enemies
of society are more terrible, more formidable, and more dangerous than the massed
enemies that a295 soldier is called upon to confront. They are only enemies for a period;
for a time of madness which is called 'war'; but you in your lives are enemies to society
for all time."

Fall exchanged glances with his superior, and Farrington nodded.

The doctor leant down and picked up the leather helmet, and placed it with the same
tender care that he had displayed before over the head of his previous victim.

"I give you three minutes to decide," said Farrington.

"You are wasting three minutes," said the muffled voice of T. B. from under the helmet.

Nevertheless Farrington took out his watch and held it in his unshaking palm; for the
space of a hundred and eighty seconds there was no sound in the room save the loud
ticking of the watch.

At the end of that time he replaced it in his pocket.

"Will you agree to do as I ask?" he said.

"No," was the reply with undiminished vigour.

"Let him have it," said Farrington savagely.

Dr. Fall put up his hand to the switch, and as he did so the lights flickered for a moment
and slowly their brilliancy diminished.

"Quick," said Farrington, and the doctor brought the switch over just as the lights went
out.

T. B. felt a sharp burning sensation that thrilled his whole being and then lost
consciousness.
 CHAPTER XXI

There was a group of police officers about the gates of the Secret House as the car
bearing Ela and the woman came flying up.

The detective leapt out.

"They have taken T. B.," he said. He addressed a divisional inspector, who was in charge
of the corps.

"Close up the cordon," he went on, "and all men who are armed follow me."

He raced up the garden path, but it was not toward the Secret House that he directed his
steps; he made a detour through a little plantation to the power house.

A man stood at the door, a grimy-faced foreign workman who scowled at the intruders.
He tried to pull the sliding doors to their place, but Ela caught the blue-coated man
under the jaw and sent him sprawling into the interior.

In an instant the detective was inside, confronting more scowling workmen. A tall, good-
looking man of middle age, evidently a decent artisan, was in control, and he came
forward, a spanner in his hand, to repel the intruders.

But the pistol Ela carried was eloquent of his earnestness.

"Stand back," he said. "Are you in charge?"

The detective spoke Italian fluently.

"What does this mean, signor?" asked the foreman.

"It means that I give you three minutes to stop the dynamo."

"But that is impossible," said the other. "I cannot stop the dynamo; it is against all
orders."

"Stop that dynamo," hissed Ela between his teeth. "Stop it at once, or you are a dead
man."
The man hesitated, then walked to the great switchboard, brilliant with a score of lights.

"I will not do it," he said sulkily. "There is the signal; give it yourself."

A little red lamp suddenly glowed on the marble switchboard.

"What is that?" asked Ela.

"That is a signal from the lower rooms," said the man sullenly; "they want more power."

Ela turned on the man with a snarl, raised his pistol and there was murder in his eyes.

"Mercy!" gasped the Italian, and putting out his hand he grasped a long red switch
marked 'Danger' and pulled it over. Instantly all the lights in the power house went dim,
and the great whirling wheels slowed down and stopped. Only the light of day
illuminated the power house. Ela, standing on the controlling platform, wiped his
perspiring face with the back of a hand which was shaking as though with ague.

"I wonder if I was in time?" he muttered.

The big machinery hall was now alive with detectives.

"Take charge of every man," Ela ordered; "see that nobody touches any of these
switches. Arrest stokers and keep them apart. Now you," he said, addressing the
foreman in Italian, "you seem a decent fellow, and I am going to give you a chance of
earning not only your freedom, but a substantial reward. I am a police officer and I have
come to make an inspection of this house. You spoke of the lower rooms—do you know
the way there?"

The man hesitated.

"The lift cannot work, signor," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "now that the
electric current is stopped."

"Is there no other way?"

Again the man hesitated.

"There are stairs, signor," he stammered after a while, then continued rapidly: "If this is
a crime and Signor Moole is an anarchist, I know nothing of it, I swear to you by the
Virgin. I am an honest man from Padua, and I have no knowledge of such things as your
Excellency speaks about."

Ela nodded.

"I am willing to believe that," he said in a milder tone. "Now, my friend, you shall undo a
great deal of mischief that has been done by showing me the way to the underground
rooms."

"I am at your service," said the man helplessly. "I call all men to witness that I have done
my best to carry out the instructions which the padrone has given me."

He led the way out of the power house through a door which led to a large stretch of
private garden behind the main building, across a well-kept lawn to an area basement
which ran the whole length of the house.

In this, at the far end, was a door, and the man301 opened it with a key upon a bunch
which he took from his pocket. They had to pass through two more doors before they
came to the spiral staircase which led down into the gloomy depths beneath the Secret
House.

To Ela's surprise they were illuminated and he feared that against his orders the dynamo
had been restarted, but the man reassured him.

"They are from the storage batteries," he said. "There is sufficient to afford light all over
the house, but not enough to give power."

The steps seemed never ending. Ela counted eighty-seven before at last they came to a
landing from which one door opened. The detective noticed that the man employed the
same method of entering here as he himself had done. A bodkin slipped into an almost
invisible hole produced the mechanical unsealing of this doorway.

Ela stepped through the open door. Two lights burned dimly; he saw the strapped figure
in the chair and his heart sank. He went forward at a run and Farrington was the first to
hear him.
The big man turned, a revolver in his hand. There was a quick deafening report, and
another, and a third. Ela stood up unmoved, unharmed, but Farrington, rocking as he
staggered to the table, slid to the ground with a bullet through his heart.

"Take that man," said Ela, and in an instant Fall was handcuffed and secure.

Then Ela heard a silent sneeze and through the smoke from the revolver shots the voice
of T. B. Smith, saying: "A pity it takes such ill-smelling powder to send our clever friend
on his long journey."