"Oh, don't be so rough with her, Major Okewood!" entreated Barbara, "you'll hurt her!"

She had her back turned to Strangwise so she missed the very remarkable change that came over his features at her words.

"Okewood," he whispered but too low for the girl to distinguish the words, "Okewood? I might have guessed! I might have guessed!" Then he touched Barbara lightly on the shoulder.

"Come," he said, "we must be getting upstairs. We have much to do!"

He gently impelled her towards the ladder up which Bellward and Nur-el-Din had already disappeared. At the top, he took the lead and conducted Barbara into the taproom. A single candle stood on the table, throwing a wan light into the room. Rass lay on his back in the centre of the floor, one hand doubled up under him, one knee slightly drawn up.

Barbara started back in horror.

"Is he... is he..." she stammered, pointing at the limp still form.

Strangwise nodded.

"A spy!" he said gravely, "we were well rid of him. Go over there in the corner where you won't see it. Stay!" he added, seeing how pale the girl had become, "you shall have some brandy!"

He produced a flask and measured her out, a portion in the cup. Suddenly, the door leading from the bar opened and a woman came into the room. Her black velvet dress, her gray hair and general air of distinction made her a bizarre figure in that squalid room lit by the guttering candle.

"Time we were off!" she said to Strangwise, "Bellward's just coming down!"

"There's the maid..." began Strangwise, looking meaningly at Barbara.

The woman in black velvet cast a questioning glance at him.

Strangwise nodded.

"I'll do it," said the woman promptly, "if you'll call her down!"

Strangwise went to the other door of the tap-room and called:

"Marie!"

There was a step outside and the maid came in, pale and trembling.

"Your mistress wants you; she is downstairs in the cellar," he said pleasantly.

Marie hesitated an instant and surveyed the group.

"Non, non," she said nervously, "je n'veux pas descendre!"

Strangwise smiled, showing his teeth.

"No need to be frightened, ma fille," he replied. "Madame here will go down with you!" and he pointed to the woman in black velvet.

This seemed to reassure the maid and she walked across the room to the door, the woman following her. As the latter passed Strangwise he whispered a word in her ear.

"No, no," answered the other, "I prefer my own way," and she showed him something concealed in her hand.

The two women quitted the room together, leaving Strangwise and Barbara alone with the thing on the floor. Strangwise picked up a military great-coat which was hanging over the back of a chair and put it on, buttoning it all the way up the front and turning up the collar about the neck. Then he crammed a cap on his head and stood listening intently.

A high, gurgling scream, abruptly checked, came through the open door at the farther end of the room.

Barbara sprang up from the chair into which she had sunk.

"What was that" she asked, whispering.

Strangwise did not reply. He was still listening, a tall, well set-up figure in the long khaki great-coat.

"But those two women are alone in the cellar," exclaimed Barbara, "they are being murdered! Ah! what was that?"

A gentle thud resounded from below.

A man came in through the door leading from the bar:

He had a fat, smooth-shaven face, heavily jowled.

"All ready, Bellward?" asked Strangwise carelessly.

Barbara stared at the man thus addressed. She saw that he was wearing the same clothes as the man who had come down into the cellar with Strangwise but the beard was gone. And the man she saw before her was not Desmond Okewood.

Without waiting to reason out the metamorphosis, she ran towards Bellward.

"They're murdering those two women down in the cellar," she cried, "oh, what has happened? Won't you go down and see?"

Bellward shook her off roughly.

"Neat work!" said Strangwise.

"She's a wonder with the knife!" agreed the other.

Barbara stamped her foot.

"If neither of you men have the courage to go down," she cried, "then I'll go alone! As for you, Captain Strangwise, a British officer..."

She never finished the sentence. Strangwise caught her by the shoulder and thrust the cold barrel of a pistol in her face.

"Stay where you are!" he commanded. "And if you scream I shoot!"

Barbara was silent, dumb with horror and bewilderment, rather than with fear. A light shone through the open door at the end of the tap-room and the woman in black velvet appeared, carrying a lamp in her hand She was breathing rather hard and her carefully arranged gray hair was a little untidy; but she was quite calm and self-possessed.

"We haven't a moment to lose!" she said, putting the lamp down on the table and blowing it out.

"Bellward, give me my cloak!"

Bellward advanced with a fur cloak and wrapped it about her shoulders.

"You are the perfect artiste, Minna," he said.

"Practise makes perfect!" replied Mrs. Malplaquet archly.

Strangwise had flung open the door leading to the front yard. A big limousine stood outside.

"Come on," he said impatiently, "don't stand there gossiping you two!"

Then Barbara revolted.

"I'll not go!" she exclaimed, "you can do what you like but I'll stay where I am! Murderers..."

"Oh," said Strangwise wearily, "bring her along, Bellward!"

Bellward and the woman seized the girl one by each arm and dragged her to the car. Strangwise had the door open and between them they thrust her in. Bellward and the woman mounted after her while Strangwise, after starting the engine, sprang into the driving-seat outside. With a low hum the big car glided forth into the cold, starry night.

From the upper floor of the Dyke Inn came the sound of a woman's terrified sobs. Below there reigned the silence of death.



CHAPTER XXIV. THE TWO DESERTERS

Desmond drove to Wentfield Station in an angry and defiant mood. He was incensed against Francis, incensed against the Chief, yet, if the truth were told, most of all incensed against himself.

Not that he admitted it for a moment. He told himself that he was very hardly used. He had undergone considerable danger in the course of discharging a mission which was none of his seeking, and he had met with nothing but taunts from his brother and abuse from the Chief.

"I wash my hands of the whole thing," Desmond declared, as he paced the platform at Wentfield waiting for his train. "As Francis is so precious cocksure about it all, let him carry on in my place! He's welcome to the Chief's wiggings! The Chief won't get me to do his dirty work again in a hurry! That's flat!"

Yet all the while the little gimlet that men call conscience was patiently drilling its way through the wall of obduracy behind which Desmond's wounded pride had taken cover. Rail as he would against his hard treatment at the hands of the Chief, he knew perfectly well that he could never wash his hands of his mission until Barbara Mackwayte had been brought back into safety. This thought kept thrusting itself forward into the foreground of his mind; and he had to focus his attention steadfastly on his grievances to push it back again.

But we puny mortals are all puppets in the hands of Fate. Even as the train was bearing Desmond, thus rebellious, Londonwards, Destiny was already pulling the strings which was to force the "quitter" back into the path he had forsaken. For this purpose Fate had donned the disguise of a dirty-faced man in a greasy old suit and a spotted handkerchief in lieu of collar... but of him presently.

On arriving at Liverpool Street, Desmond, painfully conscious of his unkempt appearance, took a taxi to a Turkish bath in the West End. There his first care was to submit himself to the hands of the barber who, after a glance at his client's bandaged head, muddy clothes and shaggy beard, coughed ominously and relapsed into a most unbarber-like reserve.

Desmond heard the cough and caught the look of commiseration on the man's face.

"I rather think I want a shave!" he said, weakly. "I rather think you do, sir!" replied the man, busy with his lather.

"... Had a nasty accident," murmured Desmond, "I fell down and cut my head..."

"We're used to that here, sir," answered the barber, "but the bath'll make you as right as, rain. W'y we 'ad a genel'man in 'ere, only lars' week it was, as 'adn't been 'ome for five days and nights and the coat mos tore off 'is back along with a bit of turn-up 'e'd 'at one o' them night clubs. And drunk I... w'y 'e went to bite the rubber, so they wos tellin' me! But, bless you, 'e 'ad a nice shave and a couple of hours in the bath and a bit of a nap; we got him his clothes as was tore mended up fine for 'im and 'e went 'ome as sober as a judge and as fresh as a daisy!"

Desmond had it in his mind to protest against this material interpretation of his disreputable state; but the sight in the mirror of his ignominiously scrubby and battered appearance silenced him. The barber's explanation was as good as any, seeing that he himself could give no satisfactory account of the circumstances which had reduced him to his sorry pass. So Desmond held his peace though he felt constrained to reject the barber's offer of a pick-me-up.

From the shaving saloon, Desmond sent a messenger out for some clothes, and for the next three hours amused himself by exhausting the resources of the Turkish bath. Finally, about the hour of noon, he found himself, considerably refreshed, swathed in towel, reposing on a couch, a cup of coffee at his elbow and that morning's Daily Telegraph spread out before him.

Advertisements, so the experts say, are printed on the front and back of newspapers in order to catch the eye of the indolent, on the chance that having exhausted the news, they may glance idly over the front and back of the paper before laying it aside. So Desmond, before he even troubled to open his paper, let his gaze wander down the second column of the front page whence issue daily those anguishing appeals, mysterious messages, heart-rending entreaties and barefaced begging advertisements which give this column its characteristic name.

There his eye fell on an advertisement couched in the following terms:

"If Gunner Martin Barling, 1820th Battery, R.F.C., will communicate with Messrs. Mills & Cheyne, solicitors 130 Bedford Row, W. C., he will hear of something to his advantage. Difficulties with the military can be arranged."

Desmond read this advertisement over once and then, starting at the beginning, read it over again. Gunner Barling... the name conjured up a picture of a jolly, sun-burned man, always very spick and span, talking the strange lingo of our professional army gleaned from India, Aden, Malta and the Rock, the type of British soldier that put the Retreat from Mons into the history books for all time.

Advertisements like this; Desmond reflected dreamily, meant legacies as a rule; he was glad of it, for the sake of Barling whom he hadn't seen since the far-away days of Aldershot before the war.

"Buzzer" Barling was the brother of one Private Henry Barling who had been Desmond's soldier-servant. He derived the nickname of "Buzzer" from the fact that he was a signaller. As the vicissitudes of service had separated the two brothers for many years, they had profited by the accident of finding themselves at the same station to see as much of one another as possible, and Desmond had frequently come across the gunner at his quarters in barracks. Henry Barling had gone out to France with Desmond but a sniper in the wood at Villers Cotterets had deprived Desmond of the best servant and the truest friend he had ever had. Now here was Henry's brother cropping up again. Desmond hoped that "Buzzer" Barling would see the advertisement, and half asleep, formed a mental resolve to cut out the notice and send it to the gunner who, he felt glad to think, was still alive. The rather curiously worded reference to difficulties with the military must mean, Desmond thought, that leave could be obtained for Martin Barling to come home and collect his legacy.

At this point the Daily Telegraph fell to the ground and Desmond went off to sleep. When he awoke, the afternoon hush had fallen upon the bath. He seemed to be the only occupant of the cubicles. His clothes which had arrived from the shop during his slumbers, were very neatly laid out on a couch opposite him.

He dressed himself leisurely. The barber was quite right. The bath had made a new man of him. Save for a large bump on the back of his head he was none the worse for Strangwise's savage blow. The attendant having packed Bellward's apparel in the suit-case in which Desmond's clothes had come from the club, Desmond left the suit-case in the man's charge and strolled out into the soft air of a perfect afternoon. He had discarded his bandage and in his well fitting blue suit and brown boots he was not recognizable as the scrubby wretch who had entered the bath six hours before.

Desmond strolled idly along the crowded streets in the sunshine. He was rather at a loss as to what his next move should be. Now that his mental freshness was somewhat restored, his thoughts began to busy themselves again with the disappearance of Barbara Mackwayte. He was conscious of a guilty feeling towards Barbara. It was not so much the blame he laid upon himself for not being at the Mill House to meet her when she came as the sense that he had been unfaithful to the cause of her murdered father.

Now that he was away from Nur-el-Din with her pleading eyes and pretty gestures, Desmond's thoughts turned again to Barbara Mackwayte. As he walked along Piccadilly, he found himself contrasting the two women as he had contrasted them that night he had met them in Nur-el-Din's dressing room at the Palaceum. And, with a sense of shame; he became aware of how much he had succumbed to the dancer's purely sensual influence; for away from her he found he could regain his independence of thought and action.

The thought of Barbara in the hands of that woman with the cruel eyes or a victim to the ruthlessness of Strangwise made Desmond cold with apprehension. If they believed the girl knew where the jewel had disappeared to, they would stop at nothing to force a confession from her; Desmond was convinced of that. But what had become of the trio?

In vain he cast about him for a clue. As far as he knew, the only London address that Strangwise had was the Nineveh; and he was as little likely to return there as Bellward was to make his way to his little hotel in Jermyn Street. There remained Mrs. Malplaquet who, he remembered, had told him of her house at Campden Hill.

For the moment, Desmond decided, he must put both Strangwise and Bellward out of his calculations. The only direction in which he could start his inquiries after Barbara Mackwayte pointed towards Campden Hill and Mrs. Malplaquet.

The delightful weather suggested to his mind the idea of walking out to Campden Hill to pursue his investigations on the spot. So he made his way across the Park into Kensington Gardens heading for the pleasant glades of Notting Hill. In the Bayswater Road he turned into a postoffice and consulted the London Directory. He very quickly convinced himself that among the hundreds of thousands of names compiled by Mr. Kelly's indefatigable industry Mrs. Malplaquet's was not to be found. Neither did the street directory show her as the tenant of any of the houses on Campden Hill.

I don't know that there is a more pleasant residential quarter of London than the quiet streets and gardens that straggle over this airy height. The very steepness of the slopes leading up from the Kensington High Street on the one side and from Holland Park Avenue on the other effectually preserves the atmosphere of old-world languor which envelops this retired spot. The hill, with its approaches so steep as to suggest to the imaginative the pathway winding up some rock-bound fastness of the Highlands, successfully defies organ-grinders and motor-buses and other aspirants to the membership in the great society for the propagation of street noises. As you near the summit, the quiet becomes more pronounced until you might fancy yourself a thousand leagues, instead of as many yards, removed from the busy commerce of Kensington or the rather strident activity of Notting Hill.

So various in size and condition are the houses that it is as though they had broken away from the heterogeneous rabble of bricks and mortar that makes up the Royal Borough of Kensington, and run up in a crowd to the summit of the hill to look down contemptuously upon their less fortunate brethren in the plain. On Campden Hill there are houses to suit all purses and all tastes from the vulgar mansion with its private garden to the little one-story stable that Art (which flourishes in these parts) and ten shillings worth of paint has converted into a cottage.

For half an hour Desmond wandered in a desultory fashion along the quiet roads of natty houses with brightly painted doors and shining brass knockers. He had no definite objective; but he hoped rather vaguely to pick up some clue that might lead him to Mrs. Malplaquet's. He walked slowly along surveying the houses and scrutinizing the faces of the passers-by who were few and far between, yet without coming any nearer the end of his search.

It was now growing dusk. Enthroned on the summit of the hill the water-tower stood out hard and clear against the evening sky. Desmond, who had lost his bearings somewhat in the course of his wanderings, came to a full stop irresolutely, where two streets crossed, thinking that he would retrace his footsteps to the main-road on the chance of picking up a taxi to take him back to town. He chose one of the streets at random; but it proved to be a crescent and brought him back practically to the spot he had started from. Thereupon, he took the other and followed it up, ignoring various side-turnings which he feared might be pitfalls like the last: But the second road was as bad as the first. It was a cul de sac and brought Desmond face to face with a blank wall.

He turned and looked about him for somebody of whom to ask the way. But the street was entirely deserted. He seemed to be on the very summit of the hill; for all the roads were a-tilt. Though the evening was falling fast, no light appeared in any of the houses and the street lamps were yet unlit. Save for the distant bourdon of the traffic which rose to his ears like the beating of the surf, the breeze rustling the bushes in the gardens was the only sound.

Desmond started to walk back slowly the way he had come. Presently, his eyes caught the gleam of a light from above a front door. When he drew level with it, he saw that a gas-jet was burning in the fanlight over the entrance to a neat little two-story house which stood by itself in a diminutive garden. As by this time he was thoroughly sick of wandering aimlessly about, he went up to the neat little house and rang the bell.

A maid-servant in a cap and apron who seemed to be drawn to the scale of the house, such an insignificant little person she was, opened the door.

"Oh, sir," she exclaimed when she saw him, "was it about the rooms?"

And she pointed up at the fan-light where, for the first time, Desmond noticed a printed card with the inscription-:

"Furnished Rooms to Let."

The servant's unexpected question put an idea into Desmond's head. He could not return to the club, he reflected, since he was supposed to be killed in action. Why not take a room in this house in the heart of the enemy's country and spend some days on the watch for Mrs. Malplaquet or for any clue that might lead him to her?

So Desmond answered, yes, it was about the rooms he had come.

Promising that she would tell "the missus," the little servant showed him into a tiny sitting-room, very clean and bright, with blue cretonne curtains and a blue carpet and an engraving of "King Cophetua and The Beggar Maid" over the mantelpiece. Directly you came into the room, everything in it got up and shouted "Tottenham Court Road."

Then the door opened and, with a great tinkling and rustling, a stoutish, brisk-looking woman sailed in. The tinkling proceeded from the large amount of cheap jewelry with which she was adorned; the rustling from a black and shiny glace silk dress. With every movement she made the large drops she wore in her ears chinked and were answered by a melodious chime from the charm bangles she had on her wrists.

She measured Desmond in a short glance and his appearance seemed to please her for she smiled as she said in rather a mincing voice:

"My (she pronounced it 'may') maid said you wished to see the rooms!"

Desmond intimated that such was his desire.

"Pray be seated," said the little woman: "You will understand, I'm sure, that ay am not in the habit of taking in paying guests, but may husband being at the front, ay have a bedroom and this sitting-room free and ay thought..."

She stopped and looked sharply at Desmond.

"You are an officer, I think" she asked.

Desmond bowed.

"May husband is also an officer," replied the woman, "Captain Viljohn-Smythe; you may have met him. No? Of course, had you not been of commissioned rank, ay should not..."

She trailed off vaguely.

Desmond inquired her terms and surprised her somewhat by accepting them on the spot.

"But you have not seen the bedroom!" protested Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe.

"I will take it on trust," Desmond replied, "and here," he added, pulling out his note-case, "is a week's rent in advance. I'll go along now and fetch my things. By the way," he went on, "I know some people here at Campden Hill but very foolishly, I've mislaid the address. Malplaquet... Mrs. Malplaquet. Do you happen to know her house?"

"Ay know most of the naice people living round about here," replied the lady, "but for the moment, ay cannot recollect... was it one of the larger houses on the hill, do you know?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," said Desmond. "You see, I've lost the address!"

"Quayte!" returned Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe. "Ay can't say ay know the name!" she added.

However, she consented to consult the handmaiden, who answered to the name of Gladays, as to Mrs. Malplaquet's address, but she was as ignorant as her mistress.

Promising to return in the course of the evening with his things and having received exact instructions as to the shortest way to Holland Park Avenue, Desmond took his leave. He felt that he had embarked on a wild goose chase; for, even if the fugitives had made their way to Mrs. Malplaquet's (which was more than doubtful) he imagined they would take care to lie very low so that his chances of coming across any of them were of the most meager.

Following the directions he had received, he made his way easily back to the main road. He halted under a street-lamp to catch the eye of any passing taxi which might happen to be disengaged. A dirty faced man in a greasy old suit and a spotted handkerchief knotted about his throat came slouching along the pavement, keeping close to the wall. On catching sight of Desmond's face by the light of the lamp, he stopped irresolutely and then advanced slowly towards him.

"Excuse me, sir!" he said falteringly.

Desmond looked round at the sound of the man's voice and seeing a typical street loafer, asked the fellow to get him a taxi.

"It is Captain Okewood," said the loafer, "you don't remember me, sir?"

Desmond looked at the dirty, rather haggard face with its unshaven chin and shook his head.

"I don't think I do," he answered, "though you seem to know my name!"

The vagrant fumbled in his pocket for a minute and extracting a scrap of paper, unfolded it and held it out to Desmond.

"That's me, sir!" he said, "and, oh, sir! if you would kindly help me with a word of good advice, just for old times' sake, I'd be very grateful!"

Desmond took the scrap of paper which the man tendered and held it so as to catch the rays of the lamp. It was a fragment torn from a newspaper. He had hardly set eyes on the cutting than he stretched out his hand to the vagrant.

"Why, Gunner Barling," he cried, "I didn't know you! How on earth do you come to be in this state?"

The man looked shamefacedly down on the ground.

"I'm a deserter, sir!" he said in a low voice.

"Are you, by George?" replied Desmond, "and now I come to think of it, so am I!"



CHAPTER XXV. TO MRS. MALPLAQUET'S

Clasping Barbara's wrist in a bony grip, Mrs. Malplaquet sat at the girl's side in the back seat of the limousine whilst Bellward placed himself on the seat opposite. The car was powerfully engined; and, once the cart track up to the inn was passed and the main road reached, Strangwise opened her out.

By the track leading to the inn the high road made a right angle turn to the right. This turn they took, leaving the Mill House away in the distance to the left of them, and, after skirting the fen for some way and threading a maze of side roads, presently debouched on a straight, broad road.

Dazed and shaken by her experiences, Barbara lost all count of time, but after running for some time through the open country in the gray light of dawn, they reached the edge of those long tentacles of bricks and mortar which London thrusts out from her on every side. The outer fringes of the metropolis were still sleeping as the great car roared by. The snug "High Streets," the red brick "Parades" and "Broadways," with their lines of houses with blinds drawn, seemed to have their eyes shut, so blank, so somnolent was their aspect.

With their lamps alight, the first trams were gliding out to begin the new day, as the big car swiftly traversed the eastern suburbs of London. To Barbara, who had had her home at Seven Kings, there was something familiar about the streets as they flickered by; but her powers of observation were dulled, so great was the sense of helplessness that weighed her down.

High-booted scavengers with curious snake-like lengths of hose on little trolleys were sluicing the asphalt as the limousine snorted past the Mansion House into Poultney and Cheapside. The light was growing clearer now; the tube stations were open and from time to time a motor-bus whizzed by.

Barbara stirred restlessly and Mrs. Malplaquet's grip on her wrist tightened.

"Where are you taking me?" the girl said.

Mrs. Malplaquet spoke a single word.

"Bellward!" she said in a gentle voice; but it was a voice of command.

Bellward leaned forward.

"Look at me, Miss Mackwayte!" he said.

There was a curious insistence in his voice that made Barbara obey. She struggled for a moment against the impulse to do his bidding; for some agency within her told her to resist the summons. But an irresistible force seemed to draw her eyes to his. Bellward did not move. He simply leaned forward a little, his hands on his knees, and looked at her. Barbara could not see his eyes, for the light in the car was still dim, but inch by inch they captured hers.

She looked at the black outline of his head and instantly was conscious of a wave of magnetic power that transmitted itself from his will to hers. She would have cried out, have struggled, have sought to break away; but that invisible dance held her as in a vice. A little gasp broke from her lips; but that was all.

"So!" said Bellward with the little sigh of a man who has just accomplished some bodily effort, "so! you will keep quiet now and do as I tell you. You understand?"

No reply came from the girl. She had thrust her head forward and was gazing fixedly at the man. Bellward leaned towards the girl until his stubbly hair actually touched her soft brown curls. He was gazing intently at her eyes.

He was apparently well satisfied with his inspection, for he gave a sigh of satisfaction and turned to Mrs. Malplaquet.

"She'll give no more trouble now!" he remarked airily.

"Ah! Bellward," sighed Mrs. Malplaquet, "you're incomparable! What an undefeatable combination you and I would have made if we'd met twenty years sooner!"

And she threw him a coquettish glance.

"Ah, indeed!" returned Bellward pensively. "But a night like this makes me feel twenty years older, Minna. He's a daredevil, this Strangwise. Imagine going back to that infernal inn when the police might have broken in on us any minute. But he is a determined chap. He doesn't seem to know what it is to be beaten. He wanted to make sure that Nur-el-Din had not recovered the jewel from him, though he declares that it has never left him day or night since he got possession of it. He fairly made hay of her room back at the inn there."

"Well," said Mrs. Malplaquet rather spitefully, "he seems to be beaten this time. He hasn't found his precious Star of Poland."

"No," answered the man reflectively, "but I think he will!"

Mrs. Malplaquet laughed shrilly.

"And how, may I ask? From what Strangwise told me himself, the thing has utterly vanished. And he doesn't seem to have any clue as to who has taken it!"

"Perhaps not," replied Bellward, who appeared to have a high opinion of Strangwise, "but, like all Germans, our friend is thorough. If he does not see the direct road, he proceeds by a process of elimination until he hits upon it. He did not expect to find the jewel in Nur-el-Din's room; he told me as much himself, but he searched because he is thorough in everything. Do you know why he really went back to the Dyke Inn?"

"Why?" asked Mrs. Malplaquet.

"To secure our young friend here," answered Bellward with a glance at Barbara.

Mrs. Malplaquet made a little grimace to bid him to be prudent in what he said before the girl.

"Bah!" the man laughed, "you understand nothing of what we are saying, do you?" he said, addressing Barbara.

The girl moved uneasily.

"I understand nothing of what you are saying," she replied in a strained voice.

"This girl was the last person to have the jewel before Strangwise," Bellward said, continuing his conversation with Mrs. Malplaquet, "and she is employed at the Headquarters of the Secret Service. Strangwise was satisfied that nobody connected him with the theft of the silver box which Nur-el-Din gave to this girl until our young lady here appeared at the Dyke Inn yesterday afternoon. Nur-el-Din played his game for him by detaining the girl. Strangwise believes—and I must say I agree with him—that probably two persons know where the Star of Poland is. One is this girl..."

"The other being the late Mr. Bellward?" queried Mrs. Malplaquet.

"Precisely. The late Mr. Bellward or Major Desmond Okewood!" said Bellward. "Between him and this girl here I think we ought to be able to recover Strangwise's lost property for him!"

"But you haven't got Okewood yet!" observed the lady in a mocking voice.

The man looked evilly at her, his heavy, fat chin set square.

"But we shall get him, never fear. With a little bird-lime as attractive as this—"

He broke off and jerked his head in the direction of Barbara.

"... I shall do the rest!" he added.

"Ah!"

Mrs. Malplaquet drew a deep sigh of admiration.

"That's a clever idea. He is so ruse, this Strangwise. You are quite right, Bellward, he never admits himself beaten. And he never is! But tell me," she added, "what about Nur-el-Din? They'll nab her, eh?"

"Unless our British friends are even more inefficient than I believe them to be, they most certainly will," he replied.

"And then?"

Bellward shrugged his shoulders and spread wide his hands.

"A little morning ceremony at the Tower," he answered, "unless these idiotic English are too sentimental to execute a woman..."

The car was running down the long slope to Paddington Station. It drew up at the entrance to the booking office, and Strangwise, springing from the driver's seat, flung open the door.

"Come on!" he cried, "we must look sharp or we'll miss our train!"

He dragged a couple of bags off the roof and led the way into the station. In the booking-hall he inquired of a porter what time the express left for Bath, then went to the ticket office and took four first-class tickets to that place. Meanwhile, the car remained standing empty in the carriageway.

Strangwise led his little party up some stairs and across a long bridge, down some stairs and up some stairs again, emerging, finally, at the Bakerloo Tube Station. There he despatched Bellward to fetch a taxi.

Taxis are rare in the early hours of the morning in war-time and Bellward was gone fully twenty minutes. Strangwise fidgeted continually, drawing out his watch repeatedly and casting many anxious glances this way and that.

His nervous demeanor began to affect Mrs. Malplaquet, who had linked her arm affectionately in Barbara's. The girl remained absolutely apathetic. Indeed, she seemed almost as one in a trance.

"Aren't we going to Bath?" at length demanded Mrs. Malplaquet of Strangwise.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped the latter.

"But the car?" asked the lady.

"Hold your tongue!" commanded the officer; and Mrs. Malplaquet obeyed.

Then Mr. Bellward returned with the news that he had at last got a taxi. Strangwise turned to Bellward.

"Can Minna and the girl go to Campden Hill alone?" he asked. "Or will the girl try and break away, do you think?"

Bellward held up his hand to enjoin silence.

"You will go along with Mrs. Malplaquet," he said to Barbara in his low purring voice, "you will stay with her until I come. You understand?"

"I will go with Mrs. Malplaquet!" the girl replied in the same dull tone as before.

"Upon my word," exclaimed Mrs. Malplaquet, "you might have told me that we were going to my own place..."

But Strangwise shut her up.

"Bellward and I will come on by tube... it is safer," he said, "hurry, hurry! We must all be under cover by eight o'clock... we have no time to lose!"



CHAPTER XXVI. THE MAN IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE

The hour of the theatre rush was long since over and its passing had transformed the taxi-drivers from haughty autocrats to humble suppliants. One taxi after another crawled slowly past the street corner where Desmond had stood for over an hour in deep converse with Gunner Barling, but neither flaunting flag nor appealingly uplifted finger attracted the slightest attention from the athletic-looking man who was so earnestly engaged in talk with a tramp. But at last the conversation was over; the two men separated and the next taxi passing thereafter picked up a fare.

At nine o'clock the next morning Desmond appeared for breakfast in his sitting-room at Santona Road; for such was the name of the street in which his new rooms were situated. When he had finished his meal, he summoned Gladys and informed her that he would be glad to speak to Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe. That lady having duly answered the summons, Desmond asked whether, in consideration of terms to be mutually agreed upon, she could accommodate his soldier servant. He explained that the last-named was of the most exemplary character and threw out a hint of the value of a batman for such tasks as the cleaning of the family boots and the polishing of brass or silver.

The landlady made no objections and half an hour later a clean and respectable-looking man arrived whom Desmond with difficulty recognized as the wretched vagrant of the previous evening. This was, indeed, the Gunner Barling he used to know, with his smooth-shaven chin and neat brown moustache waxed at the ends and characteristic "quiff" decorating his brow. And so Desmond and his man installed themselves at Santona Road.

The house was clean and comfortable, and Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe, for all her "refaynement," as she would have called it, proved herself a warm-hearted, motherly soul. Desmond had a small but comfortably furnished bedroom at the top of the house, on the second floor, with a window which commanded a view of the diminutive garden and the back of a row of large houses standing on the lower slopes of the hill. So precipitous was the fall of the ground, indeed, that Desmond could look right into the garden of the house backing on Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's. This garden had a patch of well-kept green sward in the centre with a plaster nymph in the middle, while in one corner stood a kind of large summer-house or pavilion built on a slight eminence, with a window looking into Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's' back garden.

In accordance with a plan of action he had laid down in his mind, Desmond took all his meals at his rooms. The rest of the day he devoted to walking about the streets of Campden Hill and setting on foot discreet inquiries after Mrs. Malplaquet amongst the local tradespeople.

For three or four days he carried out this arrangement without the slightest success. He dogged the footsteps of more than one gray-haired lady of distinguished appearance without lighting upon his quarry. He bestowed largesse on the constable on point duty, on the milkman and the baker's young lady; but none of them had ever heard of Mrs. Malplaquet or recognized her from Desmond's description.

On the morning of the fourth day Desmond returned to lunch, dispirited and heart-sick. He had half a mind to abandon his quest altogether and to go and make his peace with the Chief and ask to be sent back to France. He ate his lunch and then, feeling that it would be useless to resume his aimless patrol of the streets, lit a cigar and strolled out into the little back-garden.

It was a fine, warm afternoon, and already the crocuses were thrusting their heads out of the neat flower-beds as if to ascertain whether the spring had really arrived. There was, indeed, a pleasant vernal scent in the air.

"A fine day!" said a voice.

Desmond looked up. At the open window of the summerhouse of the garden backing on Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's, his elbows resting on the pitch-pine frame, was a middle-aged man. A cigarette was in his mouth and from his hands dangled a newspaper. He had a smooth-shaven, heavily-jowled face and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his nose.

Desmond remembered to have seen the man already looking out of a window opposite his on one of the upper floors of the house. In reply to a casual inquiry, Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe had informed him that the house was a nursing home kept by a Dr. Radcombe, a nerve specialist.

"It is quite like spring!" replied Desmond, wondering if this were the doctor. Doctors get about a good deal and Dr. Radcombe might be able to tell him something about Mrs. Malplaquet.

"I think we have seen one another in the mornings sometimes," said the heavily-fowled man, "though I have noticed that you are an earlier riser than I am. But when one is an invalid—"

"You are one of Dr. Radcombe's patients, then!" said Desmond.

"I am," returned the other, "a great man, that, my dear sir. I doubt if there is his equal for diagnosis in the kingdom."

"He has lived here for some years, I suppose?"

"Oh yes!" answered the man, "in fact, he is one of the oldest and most-respected residents of Kensington, I believe!"

"I am rather anxious to find some friends of mine who live about here," Desmond remarked, quick to seize his opportunity, "I wonder whether your doctor could help me..."

"I'm sure he could," the man replied, "the doctor knows everybody..."

"The name—" began Desmond, but the other checked him.

"Please don't ask me to burden my memory with names," he protested. "I am here for a complete rest from over-work, and loss of memory is one of my symptoms. But look here; why not come over the wall and step inside the house with me? Dr. Radcombe is there and will, I am sure, be delighted to give you any assistance in his power!"

Desmond hesitated.

"Really," he said, "it seems rather unconventional. Perhaps the doctor would object..."

"Object" said the heavily-fowled man, "tut, tut, not at all. Come on, I'll give you a hand up!"

He thrust out a large, white hand. Desmond was about to grasp it when he saw gleaming on the third finger a gold snake ring with emerald eyes—the ring that Mrs. Malplaquet had given Bellward. He was about to draw back but the man was too quick for him. Owing to the slope of the ground the window of the summer-house was on a level with Desmond's throat. The man's two hands shot out simultaneously. One grasped Desmond's wrist in a steel grip whilst the other fastened itself about the young man's throat, squeezing the very breath out of his body. It was done so quickly that he had no time to struggle, no time to shout. As Bellward seized him, another arm was shot out of the window. Desmond felt himself gripped by the collar and lifted, by a most amazing effort of strength, bodily over the wall.

His brain swimming with the pressure on his throat, he struggled but feebly to recover his freedom. However, as Desmond was dropped heavily on to the grass on the other side of the wall, Bellward's grip relaxed just for a second and in that instant Desmond made one desperate bid for liberty. He fell in a crouching position and, as he felt Bellward loosen his hold for a second with the jerk of his victim's fall, Desmond straightened himself up suddenly, catching his assailant a violent blow with his head on the point of the chin.

Bellward fell back with a crash on to the timber flooring of the pavilion. Desmond heard his head strike the boards with a thud, heard a muttered curse. He found himself standing in a narrow lane, less than three feet wide, which ran between the garden wall and the summer-house; for the pavilion, erected on a slight knoll surrounded by turf, was not built against the wall as is usually the case with these structures.

In this narrow space Desmond stood irresolute for the merest fraction of a second. It was not longer; for, directly after Bellward had crashed backwards, Desmond heard a light step reverberate within the planks of the summerhouse. His most obvious course was to scramble back over the wall again into safety, in all thankfulness at having escaped so violent an attack. But he reflected that Bellward was here and that surely meant that the others were not far off. In that instant as he heard the stealthy footstep cross the floor of the summer-house, Desmond resolved he would not leave the garden until he had ascertained whether Barbara Mackwayte was there.

Desmond decided that he would stay where he was until he no longer heard that footstep on the planks within; for then the person inside the summer-house would have reached the grass at the door. Desmond remembered the arm which had shot out beside Bellward at the window and swung him so easily off his feet. He knew only one man capable of achieving that very respectable muscular performance; for Desmond weighed every ounce of twelve stone. That man was Maurice Strangwise.

As soon as the creaking of the timbers within ceased, Desmond moved to the left following the outer wall of the pavilion. On the soft green sward his feet made no sound. Presently he came to a window which was let in the side of the summerhouse opposite the window from which Bellward had grappled with him. Raising his eyes to the level of the sill, Desmond took a cautious peep. He caught a glimpse of the face of Maurice Strangwise, brows knit, nostrils dilated, the very picture of venomous, watchful rancor.

Strangwise had halted and was now looking back over the wall into Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's back garden. Was it possible, Desmond wondered, that he could believe that Desmond had scrambled back over the wall? Strangwise remained motionless, his back now fully turned to Desmond, peering into the other garden.

The garden in which the summer-house stood was oblong in shape and more than twice as broad as it was long. The pavilion was not more than forty yards from the back entrance of the house. Desmond weighed in his mind the possibility of being able to dash across those forty yards, the turf deadening the sound of his feet, before Strangwise turned round again. The entrance to the back of the house was through a door in the side of the house, to which two or three wrought-iron steps gave access. Once he had gained the steps Desmond calculated that the side of the house would shelter him from Strangwise's view. He turned these things over in his mind in the twinkling of an eye; for all his life he had been used to quick decision and quick action. To cover those forty yards across the open in one bound was, he decided, too much to risk; for he must at all costs gain access to the house and discover, if possible, whether Barbara Mackwayte were confined within, before he was caught.

Then his eye fell on the plaster nymph in the middle of the grass. She was a stoutly-built female, life-size, standing upon a solid-looking pedestal fully four feet broad. Desmond measured the distance separating him from the nymph. It was not more than twenty yards at the outside and the pedestal would conceal him from the eyes of Strangwise if the latter should turn round before he had made his second bound and reached the steps at the side of the house.

He peeped through the window again. Strangwise stood in his old attitude gazing over the garden wall. Then Desmond acted. Taking long strides on the points of his toes, he gained the statue and crouched down behind it. Even as he started, he heard a loud grunt from the inside of the summerhouse and from his cover behind the nymph saw Strangwise turn quickly and enter the summerhouse. On that Desmond sprang to his feet again, heedless of whether he was seen from the house, ran lightly across the grass and reached the steps at the side of the house.

The door stood ajar.

He stood still on the top step and listened for a moment. The house was wrapped in silence. Not a sign of life came from within.

But now he heard voices from the garden and they were the voices of two angry men, raised in altercation. As he listened, they drew nearer.

Desmond tarried no longer. He preferred the unknown perils which that silent house portended to the real danger advancing from the garden. He softly pushed the door open and slipped into the house.



CHAPTER XXVII. THE RED LACQUER ROOM

The side-door led into a little white passage with a green baize door at the end. A staircase, which from its white-washed treads, Desmond judged to be the back stairs, gave on the passage. Calculating that the men in the garden would be certain to use the main staircase, Desmond took the back stairs which, on the first landing, brought him face to face with a green baize door, similar in every respect to that on the floor below.

He pushed this door open and listened. Hearing nothing he passed on through it. He found himself in a broad corridor on to which gave the main staircase from below and its continuation to the upper floors. Three rooms opened on to this corridor, a large drawing-room, a small study and what was obviously the doctor's consulting room, from the operating table and the array of instruments set out in glass cases. The rooms were empty and Desmond was about to return to the back stairs and proceed to the next floor when his attention was caught by a series of framed photographs with which the walls of the corridor were lined.

These were groups of doctors taken at various medical congresses. You will find such photographs in many doctors' houses. Below each group were neatly printed the names of the persons therein represented. Anxious to see what manner of man was this Doctor Radcombe in whose house spies were apparently at liberty to consort with impunity, Desmond looked for his name.

There it was—Dr. A. J. Radcombe. But, on looking at the figure above the printed line, what was his astonishment to recognize the angular features and drooping moustache of "No. 13"!

There was no possible mistake about it. The photographs were excellent and Desmond had no difficulty in identifying the eccentric-looking German in each of them. So this was Mrs. Malplaquet's house, was it? A nursing-home run by "No. 13," who in addition to being a spy, would seem to have been a nerve specialist as well. In this guise, no doubt, he had made trips to the South of England which had gained for him that intimate acquaintance with Portsmouth and Southsea of which he had boasted at the gathering in the library. In this capacity, moreover, he had probably met Bellward whose "oggult" powers, to which "No. 13" had alluded, seem to point to mesmerism and kindred practices in which German neurasthenic research has made such immense progress.

Pondering over his surprising discovery, Desmond pursued his way to the floor above. Here, too, was a green baize door which opened on to a corridor. Desmond walked quickly along it, glancing in, as he passed, at the open doors of two or three bedrooms. Just beyond where the staircase crossed the corridor were two doors, both of which were closed. The one was a white door and might have been a bathroom; the other was enameled a brilliant, glossy red.

The second floor was as silent and deserted as the corridor below. But just as Desmond passed the head of the main staircase he heard the sound of voices. He glanced cautiously down the well of the stairs and saw Strangwise and Bellward talking together. Bellward was on the stairs while Strangwise stood in the corridor.

"It's our last chance," Strangwise was saying.

"No, no," Bellward replied heatedly, "I tell you it is madness. We must not delay a minute. For Heaven's sake, leave the girl alone and let's save ourselves."

"What?" cried Strangwise, "and abandon Minna!"

"Minna is well able to look after herself," answered Bellward in a sulky voice, "it's a question of sauve qui peut now... every man for himself!"

"No!" said Strangwise firmly, "we'll wait for Minna, Bellward. You exaggerate the danger. I tell you I was at the garden wall within a few seconds of our friend laying you out, and I saw no sign of him in his garden. It was a physical impossibility for him to have got over the wall and back into the house in the time. And in his garden there's nowhere to hide. It's as bare as the Sahara!"

"But, good Heavens!" cried Bellward, throwing his hands excitedly above his head, "the man can't dissolve into thin air. He's gone back to the house, I tell you, and the police will be here at any minute. You know he's not in our garden; for you searched every nook and corner of it yourself. Okewood may be too clever for you, Strangwise; but he's not a magician!"

"No," said Strangwise sternly, "he is not." And he added in a low voice:

"That's why I am convinced that he is in this house!"

Desmond felt his heart thump against his ribs.

Bellward seemed surprised for he cried quickly:

"What? Here?"

Strangwise nodded.

"You stand here gossiping with that man loose in the house?" exclaimed Bellward vehemently, "why the next thing we know the fellow will escape us again!"

"Oh, no, he won't" retorted the other. "Every window on the ground floor is barred... this is a home for neurasthenics, you know, and that is sometimes a polite word for a lunatic, my friend... and the doors, both front and back are locked. The keys are here!"

Desmond heard a jingle as Strangwise slapped his pocket.

"All the same," the latter went on, "it is as well to be prepared for a sudden change of quarters. That's why I want you to finish off the girl at once. Come along, we'll start now..."

"No, no!" declared Bellward. "I'm far too upset. You seem to think you can turn me on and off like you do the gas!"

"Well, as you like," said Strangwise, "but the sooner we clear up this thing the better. I'm going to see if our clever young friend has taken refuge in the servants' quarters upstairs. He's not on this floor, that's certain!"

Desmond drew back in terror. He heard the green baize door on the floor below swing back as Strangwise went out to the back stairs and Bellward's heavy step ascended the main staircase. There was something so horribly sinister in that firm, creaking tread as it mounted towards him that for the moment he lost his head. He looked round wildly for a place of concealment; but the corridor was bare. Facing him was the red enamel door. Boldly he turned the handle and walked in, softly closing the door behind him.

It was as though he had stepped into another world. The room in which he found himself was a study in vivid red emphasized by black. Red and black; these were the only colors in the room. The curtains, which were of black silk, were drawn, though it was not yet dark outside, and from the ceiling was suspended a lamp in the shape of a great scarlet bowl which cast an eerie red light on one of the most bizarre apartments that Desmond had ever seen.

It was a lacquer room in the Chinese style, popularized by the craze for barbaric decoration introduced by Bakst and the Russian Ballet into England. The walls were enameled the same brilliant glossy red as the door and hung at intervals with panels of magnificent black and gold lacquer work. The table which ran down the centre of the room was of scarlet and gold lacquer like the fantastically designed chairs and the rest of the furniture. The heavy carpet was black.

Desmond did not take in all these details at once; for his attention was immediately directed to a high-backed armchair covered in black satin which stood with its back to the door. He stared at this chair; for, peeping out above the back, making a splash of deep golden brown against the black sheen of the upholstery, was a mass of curls... Barbara Mackwayte's hair.

As he advanced towards the girl, she moaned in a high, whimpering voice:

"No, no, not again! Let me sleep! Please, please, leave me alone!"

Desmond sprang to her side.

"Barbara!" he cried and never noticed that he called her by her Christian name.

Barbara Mackwayte sat in the big black armchair, facing the black-curtained window. Her face was pale and drawn, and there were black circles under her eyes. There was a listless yet highly-strung look about her that you see in people who habitually take drugs.

She heeded not the sound of his voice. It was as though he had not spoken. She only continued to moan and mutter, moving her body about uneasily as a child does when its sleep is disturbed by nightmares. Then, to his inexpressible horror, Desmond saw that her feet were bound with straps to the legs of the chair. Her arms were similarly tethered to the arms of the chair, but her hands had been left free.

"Barbara!" said Desmond softly, "you know me! I'm Desmond Okewood! I've come to take you home!"

The word "home" seemed to catch the girl's attention; for now she turned her head and looked at the young man. The expression in her eyes, wide and staring, was horrible; for it was the look of a tortured animal.

Desmond was bending to unbind the straps that fastened Barbara's arms when he heard a step outside the door. The curtains in front of the window were just beside him. They were long and reached to the floor. Without a second's hesitation he slipped behind them and found himself in the recess of a shallow bow window.

The bow window was in three parts and the central part was open wide at the bottom. It gave on a little balcony which was in reality the roof of a bow window of one of the rooms on the floor below. Desmond promptly scrambled out of the window and letting himself drop on to the balcony crouched down blow the sill.

A door opened in the room he had just left. He heard steps moving about and cupboards opened and shut. Then, there was the sound of curtains being drawn back and a voice said just above him:

"He's not here! I tell you the fellow's not in the house! Now perhaps you'll believe me!"

The balcony was fairly deep and it was growing dusk; but Desmond could scarcely hope to escape detection if Bellward, for he had recognized his voice, should think of leaning out of the window and looking down upon the balcony. With his coat collar turned up to hide the treacherous white of his linen, Desmond pressed himself as close as possible against the side of the house and waited for the joyful cry that would proclaim that he had been discovered. There was no possible means of escape; for the balcony stood at an angle of the house with no windows or water-pipes anywhere within reach, to give him a foothold, looking out on an inhospitable and gloomy area.

Whether Bellward, who appeared bent only on getting away from the house without delay, examined the balcony or not, Desmond did not know; but after the agony of suspense had endured for what seemed to him an hour, he heard Strangwise say:

"It's no good, Bellward! I'm not satisfied! And until I am satisfied that Okewood is not here, I don't leave this house. And that's that!"

Bellward swore savagely.

"We've searched the garden and not found him: we've ransacked the house from top to bottom without result. The fellow's not here; but by God, he'll be here presently with a bunch of police, and then it'll be too late! For the last time, Strangwise, will you clear out?"

There was a moment's pause. Then Desmond heard Strangwise's clear, calm voice.

"There's a balcony there... below the window, I mean."

"I've looked," replied Bellward, "and he's not there. You can see for yourself!"

The moment of discovery had arrived. To Desmond the strain seemed unbearable and to alleviate it, he began to count, as one counts to woo sleep. One! two! three! four! He heard a grating noise as the window was pushed further up. Five! six! seven! eight!

"Strange!"

Strangwise muttered the word just above Desmond's head. Then, to his inexpressible relief, he heard the other add:

"He's not there!"

And Desmond realized that the depth of the balcony had saved him. Short of getting out of the window, as he had done, the others could not see him.

The two men returned to the room and silence fell once more. Outside on the damp balcony in the growing darkness Desmond was fighting down the impulse to rush in and stake all in one desperate attempt to rescue the girl from her persecutors. But he was learning caution; and he knew he must bide his time.

Some five minutes elapsed during which Desmond could detect no definite sound from the red lacquer room except the occasional low murmur of voices. Then, suddenly, there came a high, quavering cry from the girl.

Desmond raised himself quickly erect, his ear turned so as to catch every sound from the room. The girl wailed again, a plaintive, tortured cry that seemed to issue forth unwillingly from her.

"My God!" said Desmond to himself, "I can't stand this!"

His head was level with the sill of the window which was fortunately broad. Getting a good grip on the rough cement with his hands, he hoisted himself up on to the sill, by the sheer force of his arms alone, sat poised there for an instant, then very lightly and without any noise, clambered through the window and into the room. Even as he did so, the girl cried out again.

"I can't! I can't!" she wailed.

Every nerve in Desmond's body was tingling with rage. The blood was hotly throbbing against his temples and he was literally quivering all over with fury. But he held himself in check. This time he must not fail. Both those men were armed, he knew. What chance could he, unarmed as he was, have against them? He must wait, wait, that they might not escape their punishment.

Steadying the black silk curtains with his hands, he looked through the narrow chink where the two panels met. And this was what he saw.

Barbara Mackwayte was still in the chair; but they had unfastened her arms though her feet were still bound. She had half-risen from her seat. Her body was thrust forward in a strained, unnatural attitude; her eyes were wide open and staring; and there was a little foam on her lips. There was something hideously deformed, horribly unlife-like about her. Though her eyes were open, her look was the look of the blind; and, like the blind, she held her head a little on one side as though eager not to miss the slightest sound.

Bellward stood beside her, his face turned in profile to Desmond. His eyes were dilated and the sweat stood out in great beads on his forehead and trickled in broad lanes of moisture down his heavy cheeks. He was half-facing the girl and every time he bent towards her, she tugged and strained at her bonds as though to follow him.

"You say he has been here. Where is he? Where is he? You shall tell me where he is."

Bellward was speaking in a strange, vibrating voice. Every question appeared to be a tremendous nervous effort. Desmond, who was keenly sensitive to matters psychic, could almost feel the magnetic power radiating from the man. In the weird red light of the room, he could see the veins standing out like whipcords on the back of Bellward's hands.

"Tell me where he is? I command you!"

The girl wailed out again in agony and writhed in her bonds. Her voice rose to a high, gurgling scream.

"There!" she cried, pointing with eyes staring, lips parted, straight at the curtains behind which Desmond stood.



CHAPTER XXVIII. AN OFFER FROM STRANGWISE

Desmond sprang for the window; but it was too late. Strangwise who had not missed a syllable of the interrogatory was at the curtains in a flash. As he plucked the hangings back, Desmond made a rush for him; but Strangwise, wary as ever, kept his head and, drawing back, jabbed his great automatic almost in the other's face.

And then Desmond knew the game was up.

Barbara had collapsed in her chair. Her face was of an ivory pallor and she seemed to have fallen back into the characteristic hypnotic trance. As for Bellward, he had dropped on to a sofa, a loose mass, exhausted but missing nothing of what was going forward, though, for the moment, he seemed too spent to take any active part in the proceedings. In the meantime Strangwise, his white, even teeth bared in a quiet smile, was very steadily looking at his prisoner.

"Well, Desmond," he said at last, "here's a pleasant surprise! I thought you were dead!"

Desmond said nothing. He was not a coward as men go; but he was feeling horribly afraid just then. The deviltry of the scene he had just witnessed had fairly unmanned him. The red and black setting of the room had a suggestion of Oriental cruelty in its very garishness. Desmond looked from Strangwise, cool and smiling, to Bellward, gross and beastly, and from the two men to Barbara, wan and still and defenceless. And he was afraid.

Then Bellward scrambled clumsily to his feet, plucking a revolver from his inside pocket as he did so.

"You sneaking rascal," he snarled, "we'll teach you to play your dirty tricks on us!"

He raised the pistol; but Strangwise stepped between the man and his victim.

"Kill him!" cried Bellward, "and let's be rid of him once and for all!"

"What" said Strangwise. "Kill Desmond? Ah, no, my friend, I don't think so!"

And he added drily:

"At least not quite yet!"

"But you must be mad," exclaimed Bellward, toying impatiently with his weapon, "you let him escape through your fingers before! I know his type. A man like him is only safe when he's dead. And if you won't..."

"Now, Bellward," said Strangwise not budging but looking the other calmly in the eye, "you're getting excited, you know."

But Bellward muttered thickly:

"Kill him! That's all I ask. And let's get out of here! I tell you it isn't safe! Minna can shift for herself!" he added sulkily.

"As she has always done!" said a voice at the door. Mrs. Malplaquet stood there, a very distinguished looking figure in black with a handsome set of furs.

"But who's this?" she asked, catching sight of Desmond, as she flashed her beady black eyes round the group. Of Barbara she took not the slightest notice. Desmond remarked it and her indifference shocked him profoundly.

"Of course, you don't recognize him!" said Strangwise. "This is Major Desmond Okewood, more recently known as Mr. Basil Bellward!"

The woman evinced no surprise.

"So!" she said, "I thought we'd end by getting him. Well, Strangwise, what are we waiting for? Is our friend to live for ever?"

"That's what I want to know!" bellowed Bellward savagely.

"I have not finished with our friend here!" observed Strangwise.

"No, no," cried Mrs. Malplaquet quickly, Strangwise, "you've had your lesson. You've lost the jewel and you're not likely to get it back unless you think that this young man has come here with it on him. Do you want to lose your life, the lives of all of us, as well? Come, come, the fellow's no earthly good to us! And he's a menace to us all as long as he's alive!"

"Minna," said Strangwise, "you must trust me. Besides..." he leaned forward and whispered something in her ear. "Now," he resumed aloud, "you shall take Bellward downstairs and leave me to have a little chat with our friend here."

To Bellward he added:

"Minna will tell you what I said. But first," he pointed to Barbara who remained apparently lifeless in her chair, "bring her round. And then I think she'd better go to bed."

"But what about the treatment to-night" asked Mrs. Malplaquet.

Strangwise smiled mysteriously.

"I'm not sure that any further treatment will be required," he said.

In the meantime, Bellward had leaned over the girl and with a few passes of his hand had brought her back to consciousness. She sat up, one hand pressed to her face, and looked about her in a dazed fashion. On recognizing Desmond she gave a little cry.

"Take her away!" commanded Strangwise.

Bellward had unfastened the ropes binding her feet, and he and Mrs. Malplaquet between them half-dragged, half-lifted the girl (for she was scarcely able to walk) from the room.

When the door had closed behind them, Strangwise pointed to a chair and pulled out his cigarette case. "Sit down, Desmond," he said, "and let's talk. Will you smoke?"

He held out his case. A cigarette was the one thing for which Desmond craved. He took one and lit it. Strangwise sat down on the other side of a curiously carved ebony table, his big automatic before him.

"I guess you're sharp enough to know when you're beaten, Desmond," he said. "You've put up a good fight and until this afternoon you were one up on me. I'll grant you that. And I don't mind admitting that you've busted up my little organization—for the present at any rate. But I'm on top now and you're in our power, old man."

"Well," replied Desmond shortly, "what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to utilize my advantage to the best I know how," retorted Strangwise, snapping the words, "that's good strategy, isn't it, Desmond? That's what Hamley and all the military writers teach, isn't it? And I'm going to be frank with you. I suppose you realize that your life hung by a thread in this very room only a minute ago. Do you know why I intervened to save you?"

Desmond smiled. All his habitual serenity was coming back to him. He found it hard to realize that this old brother officer of his, blowing rings of cigarette smoke at him across the table, was an enemy.

"I don't suppose it was because of the love you bear me," replied Desmond.

And he rubbed the bump on his head.

Strangwise noted the action and smiled.

"Listen here," he resumed, planking his hands down on the table and leaning forward, "I'm ready and anxious to quit this spying business. It was only a side line with me anyway. My main object in coming to this country was to recover possession of that diamond star. Once I've got it back, I'm through with England..."

"But not with the army," Desmond broke in, "thank God, we've got a swift way with traitors in this country!"

"Quite so," returned the other, "but you see, my friend, the army hasn't got me. And I have got you! But let us drop talking platitudes," he went on. "I'm no great hand at driving a bargain, Desmond—few army men are, you know—so I won't even attempt to chaffer with you. I shall tell you straight out what I am ready to offer. You were given the job of breaking up this organization, weren't you?"

Desmond was silent. He was beginning to wonder what Strangwise was driving at.

"Oh, you needn't trouble to deny it. I never spotted you, I admit, even when the real Bellward turned up: that idea of putting your name in the casualty list as 'killed' was a masterstroke; for I never looked to find you alive and trying to put it across me. But to return to what I was saying—your job was to smash my little system, and if you pull it off, it's a feather in your cap. Well, you've killed two of my people and you've arrested the ringleader."

"Meaning Behrend?" asked Desmond.

"Behrend be hanged! I mean Nur-el-Din!"

"Nur-el-Din was not the ringleader," said Desmond, "as well you know, Strangwise!"

"Your employers evidently don't share your views, Desmond," he replied, "all the documents were found on Nur-el-Din!"

"Bah!" retorted Desmond, "and what of it? Mightn't they have been planted on her in order to get her arrested to draw the suspicion away from the real criminal, yourself?"

Strangwise laughed a low, mellow laugh.

"You're devilish hard to convince," he remarked. "Perhaps you'll change your mind about it when I tell you that Nur-el-Din was sentenced to death by a general court-martial yesterday afternoon."

The blow struck Desmond straight between the eyes. The execution of spies followed hard on their conviction, he knew. Was he too late?

"Has... has she... has the sentence already been carried out?" he asked hoarsely.

Strangwise shrugged his shoulders.

"My information didn't go as far as that!" he replied. "But I expect so. They don't waste much time over these matters, old man! You see, then," he continued, "you've got the ringleader, and you shall have the other two members of the organization and save your own life into the bargain if you will be reasonable and treat with me."

Desmond looked straight at him; and Strangwise averted his eyes.

"Let me get this right," said Desmond slowly. "You let me go free—of course, I take it that my liberty includes the release of Miss Mackwayte as well—and in addition, you hand over to me your two accomplices, Bellward and the Malplaquet woman. That is your offer, isn't it? Well, what do you want from me in exchange?"

"The Star of Poland!" said Strangwise in a low voice.

"But," Desmond began. He was going to add "I haven't got it," but checked himself in time. Why should he show his hand?

Strangwise broke in excitedly.

"Man," he cried, "it was grandly done. When first I discovered the gem, I opened the package in which the silver box was wrapped and took the jewel from its case to make sure that it was there. Then I sealed it up again, silver box and all, with the firm intention that no other hand should break the seals but the hand of His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince when I reported to him that I had fulfilled my mission. So you will understand that I was loth to open it to satisfy those blockheads that evening at the Mill House.

"I carried the package on me night and day and I could hardly believe my eyes when I discovered that a box of cigarettes had been substituted for the silver casket containing the jewel. I then suspected that Barbara Mackwayte, in collusion with Nur-el-Din, whom she had visited at the Dyke Inn that evening, had played this trick on me. But before I escaped from the Mill House I picked up one of the cigarettes which fell from the box when I broke the seals. Ah! There you made a slip, Desmond. When I looked at the cigarette I found it was a 'Dionysus'—your own particular brand—why, I have smoked dozens of them with you in France. The sight of the familiar name reminded me of you and then I remembered your unexpected visit to me at the Nineveh when I was packing up to go away on leave the evening you were going back to France. I remembered that I had put the package with the jewel on my table for a moment when I was changing my tunic. Your appearance drove it out of my head for the time, and you utilized the chance to substitute a similar package for mine. It was clever, Desmond, 'pon my word it was a stroke of genius, a master coup which in my country would have placed you at the very top of the tree in the Great General Staff!"

Desmond listened to this story in amazement. He did not attempt to speculate on the different course events would have taken had he but known that the mysterious jewel which had cost old Mackwayte his life, had been in his, Desmond's, possession from the very day on which he had assumed the guise and habiliments of Mr. Bellward. He was racking his brains to think what he had done with the box of cigarettes he had purchased at the Dionysus shop on the afternoon of the day he had taken the leave train back to France.

He remembered perfectly buying the cigarettes for the journey. But he didn't have them on the journey; for the captain of the leave boat had given him some cigars as Desmond had nothing to smoke. And then with a flash he remembered. He had packed the cigarettes in his kit—his kit which had gone over to France in the hold of the leave boat? And to think that there was a 100,000 pound jewel in charge of the M.L.O. at a French port!

The idea tickled Desmond's sense of humor and he smiled.

"Come," cried Strangwise, "you've heard my terms. This jewel, this Star of Poland, it is nothing to you or your Government. You restore it to me and I won't even ask you for a safe conduct back to Germany. I'll just slide out and it will be as if I had never been to England at all. As for my organization, you, Desmond Okewood, have blown it sky-high!"

He stretched out his hand to Desmond as though he expected the other to produce the gem from his pocket. But Desmond rose to his feet and struck the hand contemptuously on one side. The smile had vanished from his face.

"Are you sure that is all you have to say to me?" he asked.

Strangwise had stood up as well.

"Why, yes!" he said, "I think so!"

"Well, then," said Desmond firmly, "just listen to me for a moment! Here's my answer. You've lost the jewel for good and all, and you will never get it back. Your offer to betray your accomplices to me in exchange for the Star of Poland is an empty one; for your accomplices will be arrested with you. And lastly I give you my word that I shall make it my personal duty to see that you are not shot by clean-handed British soldiers, but strung up by the neck by the common hangman—as the murderer that you are!"

Strangwise's face underwent an extraordinary change. His suavity vanished, his easy smile disappeared and he looked balefully across the table as the other fearlessly confronted him.

"If you are a German, as you seem to be," Desmond went on, "then I tell you I shall never have guessed it until this interview between us. But a man who can murder a defenceless old man and torture a young girl and then propose to sell his pals to a British officer at the price of that officer's honor can only be a Hun! And you seem to be a pretty fine specimen of your race!"

Strangwise mastered his rising passion by an obvious effort; but his face was evil as he spoke.

"I put that Malplaquet woman off by appealing to her avarice," he said, "I've promised her and Bellward a thousand pounds apiece as their share of my reward for recovering the jewel. I only have to say the word, Okewood, and your number's up! And you may as well know that Bellward will try his hand on you before he kills you. If that girl had known where the Star of Poland was, Bellward would have had it out of her! Three times a day he's put her into the hypnotic sleep. I warn you, you won't like the interrogatory!"

The door flew open and Bellward came in. He went eagerly to Strangwise.

"Well, have you got it!" he demanded.

"Have you anything further to say, Desmond?" asked Strangwise. "Perhaps you would care to reconsider your decisions?"

Desmond shook his head.

"You've had my answer!" he said doggedly.

"Then, my friend," said Strangwise to Bellward, "after dinner you shall try your hand on this obstinate fool. But first we'll take him upstairs."

He was close beside Desmond and as he finished speaking he suddenly caught him by the throat and forced him back into the chair to which Barbara had been tethered. To struggle was useless, and Desmond suffered them to bind his arms and feet to the arms and legs of the chair. Then the two men picked him up, chair and all, and bore him from the room upstairs to the third floor. There they carried him into a dark room where they left him, turning the key in the lock as they went away.



CHAPTER XXIX. DOT AND DASH

For a long time after the retreating footsteps of Strangwise and Bellward had died away, Desmond sat listless, preoccupied with his thoughts. They were somber enough. The sinister atmosphere of the house, weighing upon him, seemed to deepen his depression.

About his own position he was not concerned at all. This is not an example of unselfishness it is simply an instance of the force of discipline which trains a man to reckon the cause as everything and himself as naught. And Desmond was haunted by the awful conviction that he had at length reached the end of his tether and that nothing could now redeem the ignominious failure he had made of his mission.

He had sacrificed Barbara Mackwayte; he had sacrificed Nur-el-Din; he had not even been clever enough to save his own skin. And Strangwise, spy and murderer, had escaped and was now free to reorganize his band after he had put Barbara and Desmond out of the way.

The thought was so unbearable that it stung Desmond into action. Strangwise should not get the better of him, he resolved, and he had yet this brief interval of being alone in which he might devise some scheme to rescue Barbara and secure the arrest of Strangwise and his accomplices. But how?

He raised his head and looked round the room. The curtains had not been drawn and enough light came into the room from the outside to enable him to distinguish the outlines of the furniture. It was a bedroom, furnished in rather a massive style, with some kind of thick, soft carpet into, which the feet sank.

Desmond tested his bonds. He was very skillfully tied up. He fancied that with a little manipulation he might contrive to loosen the rope round his right arm, for one of the knots had caught in the folds of his coat. The thongs round his left arm and two legs were, however, so tight that he thought he had but little chance of ridding himself of them, even should he get his right arm free; for the knots were tied at the back under the seat of the chair in such a way that he could not reach them.

He, therefore, resigned himself to conducting operations in the highly ridiculous posture in which he found himself, that is to say, with a large arm-chair attached to him, rather like a snail with its house on its back. After a certain amount of maneuvering he discovered that, by means of a kind of slow, lumbering crawl, he was able to move across the ground. It might have proved a noisy business on a parquet floor; but Desmond moved only a foot or two at a time and the pile carpet deadened the sound.

They had deposited him in his chair in the centre of the room near the big brass bedstead. After ten minutes' painful crawling he had reached the toilet table which stood in front of the window with a couple of electric candles on either side of the mirror. He moved the toilet table to one side, then bumped steadily across the carpet until he had reached the window. And then he gave a little gasp of surprise.

He found himself looking straight at the window of his own bedroom at Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's. There was no mistaking it. The electric light was burning and the curtains had not yet been drawn. He could see the black and pink eiderdown on his bed and the black lining of the chintz curtains. Then he remembered the slope of the hill. He must be in the room from which he had seen Bellward looking out.

The sight of the natty bedroom across the way moved Desmond strangely. It seemed to bring home to him for the first time the extraordinary position in which he found himself, a prisoner in a perfectly respectable suburban house in a perfectly respectable quarter of London, in imminent danger of a violent death.

He wouldn't give in without a struggle. Safety stared him in the face, separated only by a hundred yards of grass and shrub and wall. He instinctively gripped the arms of the chair to raise himself to get a better view from the window, forgetting he was bound. The ropes cut his arms cruelly and brought him back to earth.

He tested again the thongs fastening his right arm. Yes! they were undoubtedly looser than the others. He pulled and tugged and writhed and strained. Once in his struggles he crashed into the toilet table and all but upset one of the electric candles which slid to the table's very brink and was saved, as by a miracle, from falling to the floor. He resumed his efforts, but with less violence. It was in vain. Though the ropes about his right arm were fairly loose, the wrist was solidly fastened to the chair, and do what he would, he could not wrest it free. He clawed desperately with his fingers and thumb, but all in vain.

In the midst of his struggles he was arrested by the sound of whistling. Somebody in the distance outside was whistling, clearly and musically, a quaint, jingling sort of jig that struck familiarly on Desmond's ear. Somehow it reminded him of the front. It brought with it dim memory of the awakening to the early morning chill of a Nissen hut, the smell of damp earth, the whirr of aircraft soaring through the morning sky, the squeak of flutes, the roll of drums... why, it was the Grand Reveille, that ancient military air which every soldier knows.

He stopped struggling and peered cautiously out into the dusk. The time for darkening the windows must be at hand, he thought, for in most of the houses the blinds were already drawn. Here and there, however, an oblong of yellow light showed up against the dark mass of the houses on the upper slopes of the hill. The curtains of his bedroom at Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's were not yet drawn and the light still burned brightly above the bed.

The whistling continued with occasional interruptions as though the whistler were about some work or other. And then suddenly "Buzzer" Barling, holding something in one hand and rubbing violently with the other, stepped into the patch of light between the window and the bed in Desmond's bedroom.

Desmond's heart leaped within him. Here was assistance close at hand. Mechanically he sought to raise his hand to open the window, but an agonising twinge reminded him of his thongs. He swiftly reviewed in his mind the means of attracting the attention of the soldier opposite. Whatever he was going to do, he must do quickly; for the fact that people were beginning to darken their windows showed that it must be close on half-past six, and about seven o'clock, Barling, after putting out Desmond's things, was accustomed to go out for the evening.

Should he shout? Should he try and break the window? Desmond rejected both these suggestions. While it was doubtful whether Barling would hear the noise or, if he heard it, connect it with Desmond, it was certain that Strangwise and Bellward would do both and be upon Desmond without a moment's delay.

Then Desmond's eye fell upon the electric candle which had slid to the very edge of the table. It was mounted in a heavy brass candle-stick and the switch was in the pedestal, jutting out over the edge of the table in the position in which the candle now stood. The candle was clear of the mirror and there was nothing between it and the window. Desmond's brain took all this in at a glance. That glance showed him that Providence was being good to him.

A couple of jerks of the chair brought him alongside the table. Its edge was practically level with the arms of the chair so that, by getting into the right position, he was able to manipulate the switch with his fingers. And then, thanking God and the Army Council for the recent signalling course he had attended, he depressed the switch with a quick, snapping movement and jerked it up again, sending out the dots and dashes of the Morse code.

"B-A-R-L-I-N-G" he spelt out, slowly and laboriously, it is true; for he was not an expert.

As he worked the switch, he looked across at the illuminated window of the room in which Barling stood, with bent head, earnestly engaged upon his polishing.

"B-a-r-l-i-n-g-ack-ack-ack-B-a-r-l-i-n-g-ack-ack-ack"

The light flickered up and down in long and short flashes. Still "Buzzer" Barling trilled away at the "Grand Reveille" nor raised his eyes from his work.

Desmond varied the call:

"O-K-E-W-O-O-D T-O B-A-R-L-I-N-G" he flashed.

He repeated the call twice and was spelling it out for the third time when Desmond saw the "Buzzer" raise his head.

The whistling broke off short.

"O-k-e-w-o-o-d t-o B-a-r-l-i-n-g" flickered the light.

The next moment the bedroom opposite was plunged in darkness. Immediately afterwards the light began to flash with bewildering rapidity. But Desmond recognized the call.

"I am ready to take your message," it said.

"S-t-r-a-n-g-w-i-s-e h-a-s g-o-t m-e ack-ack-ack," Desmond flashed back, "f-e-t-c-h h-e-l-p a-t o-n-c-e ack-ack-ack: d-o-n-t r-e-p-l-y; ack-ack-ack; s-e-n-d o-n-e d-o-t o-n-e d-a-s-h t-o s-h-o-w y-o-u u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d ack-ack-ack!"

For he was afraid lest the light flashing from the house opposite might attract the attention of the men downstairs.

He was very slow and he made many mistakes, so that it was with bated breath that, after sending his message, he watched the window opposite for the reply.

It came quickly. A short flash and a long one followed at once. After that the room remained in darkness. With a sigh of relief Desmond, as quietly as possible, manoeuvred the dressing-table back into place and then jerked the chair across the carpet to the position where Strangwise and Bellward had left him in the middle of the floor:

It was here that the two men found him, apparently asleep, when they came up half-an-hour later. They carried him down to the red lacquer room again.

"Well, Desmond!" said Strangwise, when their burden had been deposited on the floor under the crimson lamp.

"Well, Maurice?" answered the other.

Strangwise noticed that Desmond had addressed him by his Christian name for the first time since he had been in the house and his voice was more friendly when he spoke again.

"I see you're going to be sensible, old man," he said. "Believe me, it's the only thing for you to do. You're going to give up the Star of Poland, aren't you?"

"Oh, no, Maurice, I'm not," replied Desmond in a frank, even voice. "I've told you what I'm going to do. I'm going to hand you over to the people at Pentonville to hang as a murderer. And I shouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't run up old Bellward there alongside of you!"

Strangwise shook his head at him.

"You are very ill-advised to reject my offer, Desmond," he said, "for it simply means that I can do nothing more for you. Our friend Bellward now assumes the direction of affairs. I don't think you can realize what you are letting yourself in for. You appear to have been dabbling in Intelligence work. Perhaps it would interest you to hear something about this, our latest German method for extracting accurate information from reluctant or untruthful witnesses. Bellward, perhaps you would enlighten him."

Bellward smiled grimly.

"It is a blend," he explained glibly, "of that extreme form of cross-examination which the Americans call 'the third degree' and hypnotic treatment. Many people, as you are doubtless aware, are less responsive to hypnotic influence than others. An intensified course of the third degree and lack of sleep renders such refractory natures extraordinarily susceptible to mesmeric treatment. It prepares the ground as it were!"

Bellward coughed and looked at Desmond over his tortoise-shell spectacles which he had put on again.

"The method has had its best results when practised on women," he resumed. "Our people in Holland have found it very successful in the case of female spies who come across the Belgian frontier. But some women—Miss Barbara, for example—seem to have greater powers of resistance than others. We had to employ a rather drastic form of the third degree for her, didn't we, Strangwise?"

He laughed waggishly.

"And you'll be none too easy either," he added.

"You beasts," cried Desmond, "but just you wait, your turn will come!"

"Yours first, however," chuckled Bellward. "I rather fancy you will think us beasts by the time we have done with you, my young friend!"

Then he turned to Strangwise.

"Where's Minna?" he asked.

"With the girl."

"Is the girl sleeping?"

Strangwise nodded.

"She wanted it," he replied, "no sleep for four days... I tell you it takes some constitution to hold out against that!"

"Well," said Bellward, rubbing the palms of his hands together, "as we're not likely to be disturbed, I think we'll make a start!"

He advanced a pace to where Desmond sat trussed up, hand and foot, in his chair. Bellward's eyes were large and luminous, and as Desmond glanced rather nervously at the face of the man approaching him, he was struck by the compelling power they seemed to emit.

Desmond bent his head to avoid the insistent gaze. But in a couple of quick strides Bellward was at his side and stooping down, had thrust his face right into his victim's. Bellward's face was so close that Desmond felt his warm breath on his cheek whilst those burning eyes seemed to stab through his closed eyelids and steadily, stealthily, draw his gaze.

Resolutely Desmond held his head, averted. All kinds of queer ideas were racing through his brain, fragments of nursery rhymes, scenes from his regimental life in India, memories of the front, which he had deliberately summoned up to keep his attention distracted from those merciless eyes, like twin search-lights pitilessly playing on his face.

Bellward could easily have taken Desmond by the chin and forced his face up until his eyes came level with the other's. But he offered no violence of any kind. He remained in his stooping position, his face thrust forward, so perfectly still that Desmond began to be tormented by a desire to risk a rapid peep just to see what the mesmerist was doing.

He put the temptation aside. He must keep his eyes shut, he told himself. But the desire increased, intensified by the strong attraction radiating from Bellward, and finally Desmond succumbed. He opened his eyes to dart a quick glance at Bellward and found the other's staring eyes, with pupils distended, fixed on his. And Desmond felt his resistance ebb. He tried to avert his gaze; but it was too late. That basilisk glare held him fast.

With every faculty of his mind he fought against the influence which was slowly, irresistibly, shackling his brain. He laughed, he shouted defiance at Bellward and Strangwise, he sang snatches of songs. But Bellward never moved a muscle. He seemed to be in a kind of cataleptic trance, so rigid his body, so unswerving his stare.

The lights in the room seemed to be growing dim. Bellward's eyeballs gleamed redly in the dull crimson light flooding the room. Desmond felt himself longing for some violent shock that would disturb the hideous stillness of the house. His own voice was sounding dull and blunted in his ears. What was the use of struggling further? He might as well give up...

A loud crash, the sound of a door slamming, reechoed through the house. The room shook. The noise brought Desmond back to his senses and at the same time the chain binding him to Bellward snapped. For Bellward started and raised his head and Strangwise sprang to the door. Then Desmond heard the door burst open, there was the deafening report of a pistol, followed by another, and Bellward crashed forward on his knees with a sobbing grunt. As Desmond had his back to the door he could see nothing of what was taking place, but some kind of violent struggle was going on; for he heard the smash of glass as a piece of furniture was upset.