At all events, if such was not his sordid reasoning, the promptness with which he fell asleep indicated that he did not propose to squander useless time in wakeful speculation upon the intangible nothings to which his recollection of the narrative began to fade.

However, if Raikes had succeeded in passing the boundaries of slumber, he had admitted, at the same time, extravagances of which he would never have been guilty in his wakeful hours, for he found himself so engaged in all sorts of uneasy shiftlessness and inconsiderate expenditure that when morning came and he awoke, as usual, with the sunrise, he resumed his customary identity, peevish and unrefreshed.

For a moment he sat with his knees huddled to his chin, over which his eyes peered like vermin in the wainscoting, and then, urged by an impulse whose source he could not determine, he leaped with surprising agility to the floor and proceeded to the false radiator.

For a short space of inexplicable indecision he stood with his hands resting upon the button which released the fastenings in the rear, an uneasy thoughtfulness converging the ugly wrinkles downward to the root of his nose and contracting his eyebrows with senile apprehension.

Suddenly his wonted decision asserted itself. He pressed the button and the radiator swung toward him; a few moments later the inner compartments responded to his manipulation, and the last door opened.

Apparently everything was as he had left it.

To his rapid enumeration the quantity of the small bags, containing his beloved coin, remained undisturbed. But, upon nearer regard, one of them—that within easiest reach—seemed to betray, through its canvas sides, a variety of unusually sharp angles and definite lines.

With a suffocating sensation of impending disaster, Raikes grasped the bag.

It pended from his tense grip with a frightful lightness. He caught up its neighbor for further confirmation. It responded with reassuring bulk and weight. But this one from which all specific gravity seemed to have departed—what did it contain?

With trembling hands the terrified man unfastened the cord which bound it and inverted the bag over the table.

Instead of the sharp, musical collision and clink of metal, a sodden succession of thuds smote his ears.

With a shriek of utter wonderment and alarm, Raikes stood erect and petrified.

His hands fell, with inert palsies, to his sides. His eyes seemed about to start from his head, for, looming dully to his aching gaze, in place of the coin he had so confidently hidden away, was a rayless, squalid heap of small, black coals.

A moment he stood lean and limp; every particle of the fever which consumed him concentrated in his starting eyes, which turned, with savage inquiry, toward the fastenings of the door.

The next instant, with a leap like that of a wild beast, he reached the threshold, examined the bolt with vivid glance and searching fingers, then raised his hand to his forehead with a gesture of utter distraction.

Nothing had been disturbed.

Even the check-pin which he had inserted over the bar for additional security was in place.

The only other possible means of entrance was by a window at the other extreme of the room.

But this was not to be considered, for it opened, with sheer precipitation, upon the unrelieved front of the house.

The windows adjacent were removed at a distance which could afford no possible basis from which to reach the one from which Raikes glared so grimly.

Moreover, the shutters had been clasped and the inner sash secured.

The conclusion was inevitable.

No one had entered the room during the night. It was impossible for a stranger to have access to the apartment during the day unobserved, and the recess behind the radiator was known to himself alone.

Nevertheless there was the absurd substitution.

It was incredible!

The secret repository was of his own construction.

The room was secure against intrusion.

And opposed to all this the incontrovertible proof of his loss, a catastrophe all the more agonizing since the logic of the situation obliged him to eliminate any one from suspicion.

Raikes had always considered a loss of this character the climax of malignant fate. He had never been able to contemplate it without the mortal shudder which usually communicates its chill to a loving parent confronted with the prospect of the departure of a dear one.

The recess in the wall contained all that Raikes held dear in the world; every spasm of fear, each contraction of the heart, always began and concluded with the button which moved its protecting bolts.

But now a new element added its ugly emphasis; there was something supernatural about the episode.

Convinced of the impossibility of thievery in any of its ordinary forms, he was bewildered as to the inexplicable means of his present predicament.

His sense of security was shaken.

He promised himself to stand guard over his belongings jealously that day, and to make assurance doubly sure at night.

In the meantime Raikes decided to confide his misfortune to no one.

There was a meager possibility that the guilty one might be misled by his silence; he had heard of such cases; he had known of the culprit offering condolences to the silent victim on the assumption that the latter had discussed his mishap with others.

He would wait, and with Raikes to determine was to do.

With his obnoxious individuality rendered several degrees more unendurable by his catastrophe, if that was possible, Raikes, having assumed that portion of his attire in which he had not slept, double-locked the door of his room from the outside with a brace of keys that, in all likelihood, had not their duplicates in existence, and proceeded to the dining-room, whither he had been preceded by his parchment of a sister.

At once he began to rustle his exhausted sensibilities with an added menace, awakened by a manifest desire on the part of the famished woman to satisfy the cravings of an ungratified hunger with an extra help of bread and butter.

As he looked upon the attenuated creature, with a morose reflection of his loss, the latter, with a rebellion which she could not control, selected with trembling fortitude a thick slice of bread, which she buttered liberally and began to devour with pathetic haste, despite the rebuking gleam of the rat eyes opposite, an episode which, added to his already perturbed mind, exasperated his brutal temper to the point of snarling remonstrance, which was fortunately denied its utterance by the opportune arrival of the Sepoy, who smiled blandly upon the chill acknowledgment of the shriveled Raikes.

The Sepoy, at the conclusion of a hearty repast, which the spinster witnessed with famished envy and Raikes considered with ascetic disapproval, looked, with a scarcely concealed disdain, into the furtive, troubled eyes of the miser and said: "I will see you to-night?"

"Yes," replied Raikes promptly. "I will be there."

"Very well; I will not return until the time appointed," said the Sepoy. "I expect to show you a rarity."

"Another brilliant aggravation?" asked Raikes.

"Ah!" laughed the Sepoy, "is that your estimation of the sapphire?"

"Yes," returned Raikes with acid frankness. "To be permitted to appropriate the gleam and the radiance; to comprehend the cunning of the facets; to appraise its magnificent bulk intelligently, and witness the careless possession by another of all these beatitudes, I think that constitutes an aggravation."

"It has been known to degenerate into a temptation," continued the Sepoy, reflecting the cynical humor of the other.

"Aye!" admitted Raikes, "and has concluded in surrender."

With this the strangely assorted trio left the table directly, the Sepoy to his problematical business, the spinster to escape the reprimand foreshadowed in the eyes of her brother, and Raikes to keep his treasures under malicious surveillance.

All that day his diseased mind tortured itself with impossible theories and absurd speculations, until his attempts to explain the curious substitution degenerated into a perfect chaos of despair and bewilderment.

With an impatience he could not explain, Raikes at last presented himself at the apartment of the Sepoy as the hour of ten was striking.

He was greeted by the curious individual within with a demeanor which somehow offended Raikes with the impression that his prompt eagerness was the subject of amused calculation.

His irritation, however, was not permitted to develop, for no sooner had he seated himself in the chair indicated by his host than the latter placed upon the table, within easy reach of his harassed visitor, a small box of leather and directed him to press the spring.

Anticipating something of the nature of the contents of the case from the material of which it was made, Raikes, forgetting for the moment the futility of the day's researches, pressed his bony thumb upon the spring, and at once the lid flew back like a protest, disclosing the most superb diamond it had ever been his misfortune to see and not possess.

"Ah!" he cried in an ecstasy of tantalized contemplation, "the glass, the glass! Anything so precious must have had commensurate treatment. What color, what clarity, what bulk!" and as the unhappy creature yielded to that species of intoxication which even the grace of God seems unable to ameliorate, the Sepoy, with the easy poise and balance of intonation and phrase which had served as such facile vehicles for the previous instalments, began:

"When the bewildered prince realized the meaning of the worthless heap in the recess, and calculated, with familiar appraisement, the immense loss represented by the senseless substitution, he stood for a moment destitute of all dignity and as impotent as the meanest of his household.

"His thin, fine lips, which usually held such firm partnership and divided his words with such cynical scission, relaxed separately into the inane lines of superstitious fear, and the luster of his restless eyes seemed to have degenerated into that surrounding dullness of sickly white which would have provided the impressionable Lal Lu with an easy fortitude to deny the approaches of this semi-potentate.

"The next instant, like the doubled blade of Toledo steel, the prince recoiled to his lithe stature, and the customary brightness of his eyes returned shadowed with a degree of crafty reflection.

"One by one, lest a stray gem might be collected with the worthless debris, like the crew of Ulysses clinging to the sheep of the Cyclops, Prince Otondo removed the pebbles which intruded their sordid presence in this scintillant treasure-trove like a motley of base subjects in an assemblage of the nobility.

"When the last of these worthless objects had been cleared from the recess, the prince closed the panel, and seating himself before the rayless heap, surrendered himself to moody reflection, like a disabled enthusiast confronted by his disillusions.

"How did these pebbles reach this hiding place?

"In asking himself the question, the prince had absolute assurance that it was impossible for any one to enter his sleeping-apartment without his knowledge.

"The puzzled man also recollected, with a shudder, which he alone could explain, that he had taken radical means of making it impossible for the artisan who had contrived the hidden treasury to reveal its existence.

"He was positive, too, when he had retired the night before, that his jewels were undisturbed.

"Why just this exchange of a handful?

"For what reason had not double the quantity been removed? Nay, why not all, since it was possible to abstract a portion?

"At this question the eerie iteration of the merchant returned to his mind:

"'Pebbles for diamonds!'

"At once the distasteful alternative upon which it was based recurred to him.

"A quick radiation illumined his mind, and subsided to darkness as promptly.

"Ram Lal!

"It was he who had indicated the substitution. But the merchant could no more enter the room in which the prince was seated at this moment than the most abject menial in the palace.

"Still, the merchant had been able to predict the disaster.

"Some sort of association existed, but what it was, considered with the impracticability of unobserved entrance and exit, was beyond his comprehension.

"The incredible condition existed.

"In the light of its outrageous improbability, and the insuperable obstacles in the way of its accomplishment, the prince found himself compelled to dismiss every hypothesis.

"Still, he could subject Ram Lal to an investigation that would, at least, extort a confession as to his ability to allude to the episode in advance.

"In the meantime, with true Oriental craft, the prince determined to say nothing of his loss, and present an impassive demeanor to those by whom he was surrounded.

"With this purpose the prince proceeded to the apartment beyond, and was about to strike the gong to summon the servant charged with the preparation of his morning repast, when his attention was attracted to a slip of folded paper fluttering from the edge of the table-top and held in place by a diminutive bronze Buddha.

"With the weird certainty that this beckoning paper was another unaccountable feature of the savage perplexity he was compelled to endure, the prince, approaching, grasped the folded sheet with eager, trembling hands and exposed its inner surface to his vivid glance.

"'Ah!' With a burning sensation about his eyes, a fever of harassed impatience in his brain, and a sense of suffocation and impotent rage, he read:

* * * * *

"'MOST ILLUSTRIOUS!

"'Unless Lal Lu is returned to her father by nightfall, another handful of precious stones will be replaced by as many pebbles.

"'And this to warn thee:

"'The native troops at Meerut are in revolt.

"'They have shot the regimental officers, and have put to death every European they could find.

"'They are now on their way to Delhi to proclaim Dahbur Dhu, thy grandfather, sovereign of Hindustan.

"'The Moghul is old.

"'Thou art next in succession.'

* * * * *

"There was no signature.

"None was needed; the prince had preserved several specimens of that chirography at the bottom of various interesting bills of sale.

"As this bizarre scion of an incredibly ancient regime read this extraordinary missive, with its exasperating reference to the restitution of Lal Lu, and considered the prompt realization of the threatened reprisal which had followed his first failure to comply with the request of Ram Lal, a sense of fear and futility possessed him.

"With curious apathy, an unaccountable suggestion of impersonality, almost, he did not pause to consider the absence of the intolerant passion which his loss should have occasioned, or to wonder at his bewildered reception of this implication of further dispossession.

"The prince appeared to be moving as in a spell; but as he concluded the remainder of the missive and remembered, at its inspiration, that he was, indeed, the grandson of the Moghul and the heir-apparent of this pageant throne of Delhi, a sensible degree of his customary cynical assurance returned.

"Hastening to the ante-room, the prince, with alert reanimation, questioned the stalwart official who stood without.

"He indicated to his master that the missive had been left upon the outer sill of the threshold leading from the ante-room to the corridor which opened upon the courtyard.

"Beyond this nothing could be learned; but other and more absorbing information was conveyed to the prince.

"He learned that several bodies of Sepoys had already passed the palace, on the highway, in the direction of Delhi.

"Startled at this rapid confirmation of the statement conveyed in the strange communication which he had just read, the prince rapidly reviewed the singular cause of the mutiny.

"Great Britain had just supplied the native soldiery with the Enfield rifle.

"This weapon was rendered formidable by a new cartridge, which, in order that it might not bind in the barrel bore, was greased in England with the fat of beef or pork.

"With incredible indifference to the prejudices of the Sepoys, the military authorities at Calcutta ordered the low-caste Lascars to prepare the cartridges in a similar manner.

"To this direct invitation disaster was not slow to respond.

"The fat of pigs was sufficient to make a degenerate of a Mohammedan; and to devour the flesh of cows converted a Hindoo into a Mussulman.

"In this manner had Tippu Sultan enforced the faith of Islam on hordes of Brahmins, and with the abomination of pork had the Afghans prevailed upon the Hindoo Sepoys, captured in the Kabul war, to become Mohammedans.

"Exasperated by the unconcealed contempt of the Brahmins, the Lascars, with an easily understood rancor, managed to convey the startling information to their detested superiors that the cartridges they bit in loading the new rifles were greased with the fat of cows, and that they were, in consequence, defiled, and their boasted caste supremacy was destroyed.

"This revelation, so momentous to the Hindoo, found its way first to Barrackpore by reason of its nearness to Calcutta.

"At once an indescribable panic ensued, and in a marvelously short time every native regiment in Bengal was confronted with the possibility of lost caste, and terrified at the consequent belief that the British Government was making an attempt to Anglicize them with beef as they had already attempted to do with beer.

"The account of the greased cartridges, embellished as it speeded, traveled, with the rapidity which usually expedites evil rumor, along the Ganges and Jumna to Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi and Meerut, and the British authorities were confronted with a revolt which was to cost thousands of men and countless treasure.

"As the prince reflected upon the fever of events, and calculated their possible consequence to himself, the ambition—often napping, seldom in slumber—which he secretly cherished, awoke to disturbing vividness.

"His allowance was ample; his retinue, all things considered, impressive; and the Kutub, although in a state of disrepair in certain portions, was still unmistakably a royal residence. But he was thoroughly weary of the massive pile, and increasingly exasperated at the interdict of Delhi.

"Certain salacious possibilities within its walls still made their insidious appeals to him, and he had not forgotten the ceremonious deference accorded him in the household of the Moghul.

"At the Kutub he had to contrive his own dissipations and excesses.

"There was no need to be clandestine.

"The very frankness of his privileges discouraged his imagination. There was no spice of jeopardy in them; no preludes of intrigue.

"To relieve this surfeit, which is the worst of monotonies, eagerly would the prince have joined the revolting troops, detachments of which he could perceive from the walls of the Kutub hastening along the sun-scorched highway to Delhi.

"But his semi-majesty was cautious.

"It was characteristic of him that his mature reflections should frequently place his impulse under obligations; a condition that had resulted in many a salutary compromise with some proposed moral abandon.

"Should he show the slightest countenance to the native troops in the present emergency, the record of such an attitude would constitute anything but a passport to the continued consideration of the British Government, upon whose sufferance he not only enjoyed his present magnificent residence, but the acknowledgment of his right of succession as well.

"The prince was not yet inclined to believe that the Sepoys could make headway against his detested patrons.

"However, with his mind stimulated by the hazard of the prospect, this picturesque heir-apparent, who had assured himself, since his perusal of the unaccountably delivered missive, that Ram Lal had no intention of making his appearance that day, at least, returned to the apartment where his morning repast awaited him, which he dispatched with the preoccupied impersonality of a savant who consults his timepiece in order to determine the temperature.

"Advised of the fact that he had finished by a disposition to ignore his remaining privileges, the prince, as if to pursue the direction of the unseeing gaze which he projected into space, rose slowly, and with that moody deliberation which is so often the outward manifestation of an ignoble as well as an elevated determination, proceeded to the silken arras and disappeared from view between the folds.

"Quickly he traversed the passageway leading to the apartments of Lal Lu; and in response to a light touch upon the gong the same servile apparition emerged and vanished, with cringing obedience, down the passage.

"With a gleam in his eyes, which might have caused a magistrate to reflect or a moralist to anticipate, that was both sinister and engaging, eager and speculative, the prince, with a gesture that was not without its impatient majesty and lithe impressiveness, swept aside the curtains which guarded the entrance to the small ante-room and stepped within."

* * * * *

As the Sepoy reached this point of the narrative, arranged, perhaps, with shrewd malice to tantalize his eager listener, an expression of libidinous expectation and depraved absorption deepened upon the countenance of the latter, who, like an animal deprived of its prey, looked up suddenly as the narrator paused, with an exasperation which he made little attempt to conceal.

"Hell!" he muttered, "why do you pause? It is not late. This is an irritating trick of yours to leave off at the crucial juncture."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Sepoy mirthlessly. "You have attended me, then? Well, I can't admit you with the prince until to-morrow evening. I have much to do ere I retire."

"This is my dismissal, I presume," responded Raikes sourly as he replaced the gem, from which he seemed unable to remove his thieving eyes.

"Here, take this damned thing; it has demoralized me," and placing the shagreen case, with its priceless contents, in the hands of the evilly-smiling Sepoy, he disappeared through the doorway.

Arrived at the door which opened upon his room, Raikes was assured, by the familiar response of the locks to the pressure of his extraordinary keys, that his precautions of a few hours before had been undisturbed.

Moreover, his sister, seated in her room in a chair so placed as to command a view of the doorway opposite, and looking more effaced than ever from the weary vigil which her heartless brother had imposed upon her during his absence, advised him of the customary isolation and depression which distinguished this barren household.

Within, Raikes began to make himself secure for the night.

He double-locked the door, placed the heavy bar in the iron shoulders, over which he inserted a stout iron pin.

A brief investigation convinced him that it was out of the question to open the shutters from without.

Satisfied upon these points, Raikes proceeded to the radiator, which for a trembling space of apprehension he forbore to open.

However, since it was certainty he wanted, the valves shortly swung toward him, the inner door responded to the sesame of his touch, and the recess containing the tenets of his religion was exposed to view.

With trembling hands, which indicated the latent fear which unnerved him, and eyes aching with anxiety, the wretched man examined bag after bag of his precious coin with the solicitude one sees manifested by parents whose children are rendered doubly dear by the taking away of one of their number.

"Ah!" With a sigh, the relief of which almost concluded in physical collapse, Raikes was able to assure himself that his rapid inventory revealed no further loss.

Replacing his treasure with the indisposition he usually manifested to leave the vicinity of his hoard, the miser closed the various compartments with more than his accustomed certitude and began to prepare to respond to the lassitude of sleep which, for some unaccountable reason, was unusually insistent.

With the easy partition of attire already noted, Raikes presently found himself ready to tuck himself away for the night, which he did after rolling his bedstead directly in front of the false radiator.

This unusual measure of precaution consummated, Raikes, with the first sense of security he had felt for the last twenty-four hours, presently succumbed to a sleep remarkable for its quick approach and its subsequent soundness.

Until early dawn, with the relaxation which is commonly the reward of innocence, Raikes slept away in unconscious travesty.

And when at last he opened his eyes he was as alertly awake as he had been profoundly asleep.

With a promptness due to his retiring forebodings, his habitual unrest and suspicion returned to him.

He was as vitally alive to the disturbing conditions of the day before as if they had been the subjects of an all-night meditation.

But the confidence of his bolts and bars, the recollection of his unusual measures of safety, reassured him somewhat.

It was, therefore, with a degree of composure he approached the door and satisfied himself that the bar and the locks had been undisturbed.

With equal assurance he rolled the bedstead from the radiator and pressed the button which operated the concealed spring, with a deliberation in which no suggestion of uneasiness appeared.

A quick revolution or so and the inner recess was revealed.

To his rapid accounting the quantity of bags was the same, and their relative positions, which he had so carefully arranged the night before, were undisturbed—but this one, that within easiest reach! What was it caused those sharp suggestions in its accustomed rotundity—those angular points?

In a quiver the man was transformed.

With a cry such as must have been forced from the Jew of old, compelled by the rough levies of his time to part at once with his teeth and his treasure, Raikes grasped the bag, which came away in his clutch with the agonizing lightness that had preceded his first loss.

Quickly he unfastened the mouth of the fateful packet and inverted it over the table.

The next instant there rattled to view a soulless, sodden shower of lack-luster, heart-breaking coals.

(To be continued on Dickey No. 2, Series B.)

* * * * *

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Dennis, "an' it's there ye are again," as the familiar phrase at the bottom of bosom No. 1 met his glance.

But it did not exasperate him on this occasion, for the young man, true to his determination to be liberal with himself, had still bosoms No. 2 and No. 3 at his disposal.

As he was about to separate No. 2 from its duplicate, his eyes, glancing aimlessly about for the moment, caught sight of a trim female figure sitting not far away on a bench diagonally opposite.

Hovering near her, a man, of a species Dennis had not seen before on the street corners of New York, seemed determined to intrude upon her attention.

Convinced of his purpose, the lady, for such she unmistakably appeared, rose from the seat as the fellow was about to raise his hat as a preliminary to further overtures, and sought another bench directly opposite the one from which Dennis had been a witness to her apparent persecution.

The intruder, however, refusing evidently to believe that the action of the lady had a personal application, deliberately walked past this new resting place and surveyed its occupant with insolent estimation.

A short distance away his pace slackened; he was about to return.

With genuine Irish impulse, Dennis, rising hurriedly, proceeded to the bench occupied by the disturbed lady, and, with a bow that was not deficient in grace and evident good intention, said:

"Excuse me, but say the wurrd, madam, and I'll see that you are troubled no more with that loafer."

For an instant, with an expression of countenance that suggested a fear that the flight from one intrusion was but the introduction to another, the lady looked upon Dennis with an astonishment that was partly the result of his picturesque contrasts of voice and visage.

Then, with fine intuition realizing, in the ingenuous face of the young Irishman, the unmistakable evidence of kindly impulse, she said, with a modulation in which Dennis was able to detect the accent of good breeding:

"I thank you, sir; I am tired; that man annoys me; but I would rather move on than be the cause of a disturbance."

"If you will permit me," responded Dennis promptly, "I will sit beside you long enough to indicate that you have met a friend; then I think that he will move off."

The lady looked at Dennis with an uncertain smile, in which there was just enough restraint to urge the young man to add hastily: "An' when he is gone for good, I will go too."

"Oh, I was not thinking of that, I assure you!" the lady hastened to say. "That would be rather ungrateful on my part. I accept your suggestion. May I ask you to be seated?" and Dennis promptly complied.

As he had predicted, the fellow, who had witnessed the conversation, was compelled to accept its ostensible suggestion, and departed finally with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders and a Tammany tilt of his hat over his eyebrows.

In yielding to his gallant impulse, Dennis was unaware of the fact that he held, with not exactly picturesque abandon, bosom No. 1 in his right hand and the other two in his left, which gave him the appearance of having disposed, in some violent way, of the remainder of several shirts.

Awakened by the puzzled amusement depicted in the curious gaze with which the lady surveyed the various bosoms which he held, and encouraged by the impromptu nature of the entire episode, Dennis, as he realized the spectacle which he presented, indulged himself in a frank laugh, in which his companion seemed inclined to join.

The next moment he apologized, and, yielding to the obligation enforced by the situation, explained his possession of the dickey bosoms and the curious story which had gone before.

As he proceeded with the candor of genuine enthusiasm, and related the incredible narrative in his rich, Irish brogue, which affected his hearer, as it did every one else, with such singular sentiments in contrast with his remarkable countenance, all traces of punctilious restraint and artificial reticence vanished, and with the mien of one who proposes to extract all the entertainment possible from an undreamed-of experience, the lady urged Dennis to continue.

"I can't do that unless I read the balance from the dickey," said Dennis. "Would you mind?"

"I should like it very much," replied the lady with gratifying readiness.

"Well, then," said Dennis, "here goes," and with his musical voice, which was one of his most inviting characteristics, the young man, on the basis of all that had preceded the bosom from which he was about to read, and which he had narrated to his auditor with refreshing verve and an ingenuousness whose vitalizing effect upon her sensibilities he was far from suspecting, began.



CHAPTER VI

Whoever has witnessed Kean's superb delineation of the ruthless Richard in the scene where, in the illusion of his dying agony, swordless, he continues to lunge and feint, may comprehend the frightful mental overturn which prompted Raikes to sink inertly into a chair near the table, and with foam-flecked lips fall to counting, one by one, the miserable coals in the dull heap before him.

A silly smile overspread his sharp features like an apologetic sunbeam intruding upon a bleak landscape.

A gleam of shrewd transaction shone in his eyes.

The clutch of unwonted acquisition contracted his hands.

Slowly he made partition of the large from the small coals; regretfully he acknowledged the presence of the lesser bits as, with a chuckle of greedy appreciation, he grouped the relative piles.

"Ha, ha! ha, ha! ha, ha!" What a laugh! What a frightful mockery of mirth! "Ha, ha! ha, ha!" and raising both hands above his head he brought them down upon the table with the lax inertia of utter collapse, and fell forward upon his extended arms, his face buried in the squalid heap beneath.

For a dreary hour he lay there without the twitch of a muscle, the well of a sigh.

Like a Cyclop's eye the button at the bottom of the concave in the wall seemed to stare with wonder upon this unfamiliar Raikes, who could thus permit the radiator to swing open so heedlessly, and the inner recess to expose its golden glut.

Suddenly there came a sharp rap upon the door, then a pause; but its quick reverberations were unheeded by the prostrate man.

Again the thuds were administered to the echoing panels, and still no response.

"Uncle, I say, uncle!" cried a man's voice. "Uncle!" and the shout was followed by a vigorous kick upon the woodwork; "Uncle! Uncle!"

At this last appeal Raikes stirred uneasily, and as the assault was continued with still greater stress, he managed finally to stagger uncertainly to his feet.

As he raised his head to listen to the clamor without, the meanness of his face, emphasized by the smudges of the coal in which it had so recently reposed, presented itself to the scandalized eye in the wall.

The miserable creature depicted the last degree of absurdity, and yet the ugly pathos of it all would have moved to pity.

"Uncle, I say!" and at the sound of the voice, which he recognized as that of his lusty nephew, Raikes, with a return of his accustomed intelligence, which had received its kindly repairs at the hands of nature during his brief coma, cried sharply: "Well, well!"

"Ah!" exclaimed the voice outside with an unmistakable accent of relief in its tone as it added, with unlettered eagerness: "It's me—Bob!"

However, if his reawakened animation had revived his deadened spirit, it also restored the appreciation of his disaster, as, with a glance of vivid comprehension, he looked from the coal heap to the register, toward which he leaped with astonishing agility.

In an instant the inner recess was secure; in another the radiator was replaced, and Raikes, proceeding to the door, raised the bar, unlocked the catches and exclaimed, "Enter!"

As the breezy Bob crossed the threshold, the question of his eyes was instantly transformed to an expression of utter astonishment as he beheld the extraordinary blend of soil and pallor upon the countenance of his uncle.

"For the Lord's sake!" he cried, "what ails your face?" and strongly tempted to laugh at the absurd spectacle, and as urgently impelled to restrain himself by the glittering eyes of the raging Raikes, he added, by way of apology for his noisy intrusion:

"We knew that you were in here, but could not make you hear us. You are almost two hours beyond your usual time."

Directly in the rear of the young man stood the spinster, who gazed with widened eyes and parted lips upon her brother's soiled visage.

"Well," snarled Raikes, "I am all right, you see; now leave me until I get myself in shape to make an appearance."

As the door closed behind the pair, Raikes hurried to the mirror, and above the crack which extended, like a spasm, diagonally across its surface he beheld his bloodless cheeks and forehead, and below, the dry slit of his mouth and his chin spattered with black and white.

As he witnessed the sorry sight, the unhappy man, unable for the moment to account for his plight, stood aghast, until his gaze, penetrating to the rear of his smudged physiognomy, beheld the reflection of the coal heaps upon the table.

At once a savage grin distorted his features into the degree of ugliness not already accomplished by its dusky resting place of the hour previous. A grin that was scarcely human and almost diabolical, as if the miserable creature had caught sight of the shriveled soul peering through the chinks which imprisoned his rat eyes and found a malignant enjoyment in the contemplation of its contemptible littleness.

From this debasing inspection Raikes turned slowly to the washstand to remove the grime from his face, with an impersonal deliberation that was not only unnatural under the circumstances, but which awakened the eerie suggestion that he was expending his effort upon another than himself.

From this moment he became strangely calm; the sharp decision of his lips was never so pronounced.

A baleful, unwavering gleam distinguished his glance. He had evidently arrived at some determination, one that levied upon the last limit of his endurance.

All that day the unhappy man sat in his room, sullen and pondering.

The timid offers of nourishment made by his sister were either ignored or refused with such an ill grace that she finally forbore further overtures and left him to his morose reflections, to improve her opportunities of enjoying, unrebuked, the privileges of the table, until, by nightfall, an indigestion, which she welcomed on account of its occasion, disturbed her with its unfamiliar pangs.

In response to his nephew's concern as to his condition Raikes replied by saying: "I may have something to tell you by eleven o'clock to-night; will you be on hand?"

"Sure!" answered Bob with breezy goodwill.

From time to time Raikes glanced at the clock.

His last scrutiny had revealed the hour of nine. Sixty interminable minutes more remained ere he could see the Sepoy.

Slowly the leaden hands crawled over the indifferent face.

At last the half hour struck.

A strange impatience possessed him.

Perhaps the Sepoy might begin a little earlier than usual. He could, at least, suggest such a courtesy by his precipitation; it was far better than this unendurable wait.

With this anticipation he decided to proceed to the apartment of this singular narrator.

After taking his usual precautions, which seemed more or less of a mockery in view of the succession of disasters which had overtaken him, and again establishing the spinster in a position where she could maintain an unobstructed view of the entrance to his room, Raikes proceeded hurriedly along the various passageways, which finally concluded in his point of destination.

He rapped gently upon the door, which he discovered to be slightly ajar.

There was no response.

His second attempt to attract attention was pronounced enough to urge the door aside and enable him to make a comprehensive survey of the interior.

It was unoccupied; and of his last assault upon the panel the only recognition was a sullen echo in the hallway.

About to retire, his glance fell upon the table in the center of the room.

At once a sudden trembling seized him.

A burning fever surged through his veins; an irresistible impulse overwhelmed; for there, in inconceivable negligence, lay the shagreen case which he had so reluctantly returned to its owner only the night before.

And then—the malign agreement of his outward husk with his inner degradation was revealed.

His eyes, already criminal, reflected the kaleidoscopic succession of temptation and surrender; desire and thievery.

He scanned the passageway without in either direction.

No one was in sight.

A silence of respectable retirement prevailed that enabled him to hear his heartbeats almost, which surged along his veins to his ears and stifled the final gasp of the still, small voice within.

The next instant, with a lithe animal leap of astonishing quickness, Raikes, darting into the apartment, grasped the precious case and retreated as rapidly over the threshold.

Scarcely had the stealthy rogue vanished from the room when the door of a closet in the rear opened softly and revealed the Sepoy.

Upon his face a smile, surely evil, otherwise inscrutable, appeared, as he proceeded to the chair by the table, turned down the light in the lamp a trifle, and abstracted from his waistcoat pocket a small red case, the contents of which he examined with absorbed attention.

Arrived at his room, Raikes was elated to discover that he was not due at the Sepoy's apartment until twenty minutes later.

"What a providence!" he murmured.

He would arrive late; he would make his approach as ostensible as possible; he would apologize for his tardiness.

His alibi would be perfect.

During these proposed depravities Raikes had closed and fastened the door, seated himself at the table, and pressed the spring which detained the lid of the shagreen case.

In a dazzling instant it flew open.

"Ah!" A very riot of irradiation and gleam met his eyes.

Here was rehabilitation! Here was amendment!

The diamond was a liberal equivalent for his losses.

Another glance at the clock revealed to him that he had exhausted ten minutes in his exultation.

This left a balance of ten minutes for a compunction or two.

Apparently he did not realize his opportunity, for half of the remaining time was consumed in the intoxication of the facets and the glamor, the thrill of intelligent valuation; and the other half to a grim calculation as to the usury that might accrue after the account with his losses was balanced.

These perjured figures were scarcely arranged to his satisfaction when the clock struck ten.

The strokes seemed like as many separate accusations.

"Bah! what are they to me?" he asked himself. He had been robbed; he had found a way to restitution; a man's providence must measure to his necessities.

To arrive at these conclusions put him five minutes in arrears. Five more for a leisurely arrival would be ten; enough to apologize for; sufficient for his purposes.

He consumed as much time as possible secreting the stone in the recess. That accomplished, Raikes emerged from his room and proceeded down the hallway.

When he reached the apartment occupied by the Sepoy he breathed a sigh of relief.

The door was closed.

In response to his rap upon the panel, a voice which he recognized as that of the Sepoy cried: "Come in!"

With a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, where, with him, the only conscience he had was located, Raikes complied with these instructions, and, closing the door softly, established himself, in his customary expectant attitude, in the chair indicated by his host.

"I have been told," began the latter abruptly, "that there is a flaw in the sapphire."

"What!" exclaimed Raikes with genuine concern. Two things he could comprehend: a loss and the abuse of property. The announcement of the Sepoy awakened the same misgiving which commonly affected his mind at a suggestion of defective title.

"Yes," continued the Sepoy; "it was pointed out to me. But I am not convinced, or it may be that I refuse to be. A man often elects to be blind when confronted with a suggestion of disaster. I want to be candid with myself. I require your assistance. While I continue the narrative, kindly see if you can discover any sign of blemish."

Raikes, only too willing to engage himself upon anything which would assist his attempt at outward poise, seized the glass offered him and began a close inspection of the gem, as the Sepoy, with an indescribably insinuating modulation, resumed:

* * * * *

"As the prince advanced, Lal Lu, advised of his approach by the hasty exit of the waiting-woman and the soft alarm of the gong in the passageway, stood ready to receive him.

"A slight flush suffused her cheeks, a brighter luster beamed from her eyes.

"With a fervor which was evidently unembarrassed by any anticipation of denial, the prince approached the trembling Lal Lu, who seemed to his enamored glance unspeakably bewitching in the graceful attitude, of which she was thoroughly unconscious, which she had naturally assumed, and which gave unmistakable expression to the hope, trepidation and regard awakened by his presence.

"And yet his eagerness was not reflected.

"There was little in the demeanor of the beautiful girl that was responsive; no indication of the sweet surrender that doubly endears, and which makes such irresistible appeals for protection and sensitive understanding to a man worthy of the name; and what evidences of confusion she betrayed were rather those which commonly prelude the execution of unwelcome resolution; a suggestion of a lurking disposition to readmit the Peri into Paradise, restrained by a knowledge of conditions unfulfilled.

"With the rapid interchange and subtle apprehension characteristic of a passion which has no definite assurances as to its right to monopolize the regard of the object of jealous consideration, the prince was compelled to acknowledge, in these vague suggestions, an intangible but no less real succession of barriers opposed to his ardent advances, and with a scarcely concealed and certainly undiplomatic irritation he paused before Lal Lu and demanded:

"'What is it, Lal Lu? Thou art not glad to see me. I expected a reception other than this.'

"'My father?' demanded Lal Lu, ignoring the question and the yearning intonation of his address, each word of which was like a caress; 'my father, what of him?'

"'Ah!' muttered the prince with deepening choler at the disturbing conditions introduced by the name, and a gleam strangely suggestive of menace. 'Why speak of him now? Is not the present enough?'

"Lal Lu gazed upon the speaker with astonishment. How could he so easily forget what he had said the day before? And with a scarcely perceptible tightening of her beautiful lips, she said:

"'Dost remember thy promise to give me news of him to-day?'

"'I do,' replied the prince. 'I received word that he will not be here to-day.'

"'Who told thee so?' demanded Lal Lu.

"'A writing so informed me.'

"'Is it with thee?'

"'No,' replied the prince. 'It is in my cabinet. Is not my word sufficient?'

"To this Lal Lu did not reply, but searched his countenance with a scrutiny which he found it difficult to endure, as he cried with renewed animation:

"'Oh, Lal Lu, be not so cold! Hearken! The native regiments of Meerut are in revolt and on their way to Delhi.

"'It is their purpose to re-establish Dahbur Dhu, my grandfather, upon the throne of the moghuls.

"'As thou knowest, I am next in succession, and Dahbur Dhu is feeble and decrepit.

"'The British are not in sufficient force to withstand a combined attack.

"'See, then, Lal Lu, what this means for me; what it means for thee.'

"'Oh!' repeated the girl with curious emphasis, 'what it means for thee, I know; but what it means for me'—and she paused with disconcerting deliberation as she added—'thou hast not said.'

"'Everything, my own!' exclaimed the prince with generous ardor—'everything! Thou hast but to command and thy will is done.'

"'Everything?' re-echoed Lal Lu with a questioning stress which the prince could not ignore—'everything?'

"'I have said,' replied the prince.

"'Am I then to be thy queen?'

"For a moment, a vital moment, the prince hesitated, but brief as the pause, scarcely the durance of an eye-flash, Lal Lu saw it, and gazed upon the prince with a disconcerting directness as he added, with the haste we note in the accused who attempt to distract suspicion by the utterance of glib generalities:

"'My queen! Thou art always that!'

"'Hold, Prince Otondo!' exclaimed Lal Lu as the prince seemed about to surrender to an impulse to clasp her in his arms—'hold! Thy answers suit me not. Reply, then, to this: Thy wife—am I to be thy wedded wife?'

"An expression like that of a peevish child tantalized by obstacles intruded to enhance its appreciation of favor withheld brightened his eyes and sent sullen lines converging in his forehead.

"His hands clenched and opened; a faint suggestion of disdain curled his thin lips; the amiable inclination of his figure was transformed to an erect intolerance—and Lal Lu was answered.

"When the unfortunate girl could no longer doubt the unlovely evidence provided by the prince, and apprehended the humiliating significance of his hesitation, a majesty surer than his own, a presence superb in its elevation, encompassed her, and she gazed upon the perturbed man with an expression from which every trace of tenderness appeared to have vanished.

"With an angry sweep of his arm, as if to banish with a peremptory gesture the kneeling envoys of compunction, manliness and nobility, the prince stepped forward.

"'What is that?' At this moment the gong in the passageway responded to three measured strokes.

"'Confusion!' muttered the prince. 'What does this mean?' and turning abruptly, he hastened to the doorway, swept aside the curtains, and revealed the trembling figure of the wrinkled crone who had quitted the apartment at his entrance.

"'What now?' cried the exasperated prince as he fixed his eyes, vivid with rage at the unwelcome interruption, upon the miserable creature.

"In reply the woman raised her shriveled hand, with a gesture that was not without its weird impressiveness, and pointed to his apartments.

"'Speak!' he demanded with a modification of his intensity, which he perceived deprived the waiting-woman of the power of speech.

"'A messenger,' she croaked, 'from the palace of the moghul; he must speak with thee at once.'

"With one long glance of such concentrated determination that it caused the beautiful girl to tremble anew, the prince vanished through the portal and hastened along the passageway.

"Scarcely had he departed when the demeanor of the waiting-woman underwent a startling transformation.

"An incredible degree of energy quickened in the recoil of her bent form to a disproportionate erectness of stature.

"Beneath level, unwavering lids, her eyes emitted gleams which had pierced the retreating figure with deadly viciousness had they been poniards.

"The servile vanished, the abject; and she stood, the silent embodiment of evil, restrained purpose.

"The next instant, with an angry gesture that was vaguely significant of future requital and present impotence, the vindictive creature swept aside the curtains and re-entered the room leading to the apartment occupied by Lal Lu.

"As she approached the disturbed beauty, the tension in her mien relaxed, and she regarded the distrait countenance before her with a glance that was anything but unfriendly, in so far as it was possible to determine the nature of the sentiment in hiding behind that austere visage.

"Directly she stood by the table which Lal Lu had interposed as a sort of barricade against advances of her impetuous lover, and with an attempt at a smile, which could as readily find acceptance as a repentant scowl, this singular being inserted her hand in the folds of the tunic which defended her parchment bosom, and produced from that barren demesne a folded missive, which she placed in the hands of the astonished Lal Lu.

"With trembling haste she exposed the inner surface of the paper, and with a glad heart and filial trust read:

"'Be not afraid; relief is at hand.'

"There was no signature; none was needed.

"In a moment Lal Lu recognized her father's familiar chirography, and as she reflected upon his well-known sagacity and resourceful boldness, her hope and courage renewed their belated assurances.

"'Who gave you this?' she asked.

"The waiting-woman, after a brief hesitation, in which inclination and restraint left their disturbing traces, replied:

"'That I must not reveal.'

"'At least,' insisted Lal Lu, whose quick glance had detected the irresolution of the instant preceding, 'at least, tell me this: Was it my father?'

"'No,' replied the other promptly. With a barely perceptible grin of amusement at this ingenuous betrayal of the author of the few words which had awakened such animation, she added:

"'One sent by him, it may be.'

"'True,' assented the girl.

"'And now,' exclaimed the woman with a return of her vindictive aspect, which the harassed beauty, unaware of its inspiration, witnessed with vague misgiving and a futile attempt to associate herself with its ugly manifestation; 'and now, I would ask a question of you.'

"'Yes?' responded Lal Lu, perplexed at the baleful emphasis which preceded this announcement.

"'Well, then,' continued the woman with startling and uncompromising abruptness, 'am I wrong in thinking that you would defend your honor with your life?'

"Before the astonished Lal Lu could reply, or encouraged, it may be, by some subtle confirmation in the look which shot from the distended eyes of the young girl, the eccentric speaker, again inserting her hands in the folds of her tunic, withdrew a short, slender poniard, at sight of which Lal Lu recoiled.

"'Ha, ha!' laughed the withered creature mirthlessly as she gazed with unsmiling eyes upon the shrinking beauty. 'Be not afraid; this weapon is intended for you, but not to your hurt.'

"'What, then?' asked Lal Lu breathlessly, unable to adjust the peaceful assurance of the grim-visaged woman with the menace of the glittering blade.

"'Listen!' exclaimed the woman impressively: 'I know Prince Otondo of old; he meditates no good for you. Were I in your place, I would receive his detested advances upon the point of this blade. Your protestations he will not heed, but this'—and the speaker advanced the dagger with a savage gesture which caused a shudder to pervade the trembling frame of Lal Lu—'this is an argument he can understand.'

"'Oh,' cried the terrified girl, 'I could not!'

"'You could not?' repeated the other with chilling emphasis. 'Ha, ha! you could not! But you will submit to the advances of this monster!

"'Believe me, you are not the sole object of his regard.

"'There have been others caged within these walls who have been less obdurate than you, or whose resistance has availed them nothing.'

"'Alas!' exclaimed Lal Lu with an inexpressibly melancholy accent, as she considered the empty pedestal from which her ideal had fallen, and recalled with a shudder the caress which she had permitted and bestowed in that fervid interview with the prince. 'Can this be true?'

"'Aye!' exclaimed the woman with savage affirmation. 'Do not doubt it. Sooner than submit to the embraces of that wretch I would turn that weapon against myself.'

"'Oh!' exclaimed Lal Lu with a superb gesture and the light of unmistakable resolution in her eyes, 'that I can do; but the other——' And the poor girl trembled at the spectacle pictured in her mind.

"'Well,' exclaimed the woman, 'I will leave this dagger here; do as you will; I have done for you what I could,' and she turned to depart, unmindful, apparently, of Lal Lu's tremulous 'And I am grateful to you.'

* * * * *

"When the prince arrived at the apartment in which he accorded his audiences, if the attention he bestowed upon the meager assemblages which presented themselves occasionally can be dignified by that description, he found awaiting him a Hindoo, whom he recognized at once, and whose presence invariably preceded the recital of important information.

"To the degree that Prince Otondo had reason to suspect that his grandfather had certain of his servants subsidized at the Kutub, he measured secretly by similar secret embassies at the Delhi palace.

"The egotistical old moghul, with a vanity which even his anomalous situation with the British had not impaired, wished to assure himself that he would be worthily succeeded, and the prince was equally solicitous concerning the advancing senility of the moghul.

"In such bloodless intrigues this picturesque pair kept their servants engaged, until this germ of mutual distrust infected every dependent in the two households with that singular propensity to conspire which the studious historian of this mysterious country cannot have failed to record.

"On this basis certain shrewd spirits among the British intruders at this period were able to discover more of the character of the people under their unwelcome rule, in a single establishment of native servants, than in the general observations of a hundred English households.

"Awaiting, therefore, the conclusion of the ceremonies of approach, upon which he always insisted and which were shortly to be rendered so absurd, the prince at last, calling the Hindoo by name, demanded the occasion of his presence.

"'It is an ill service, O prince,' replied the Hindoo, 'which I am about to render you.'

"'What, then?' exclaimed the prince. 'To the point, to the point!'

"'Your grandfather——'

"'Is dead?' inquired the prince with badly disguised eagerness.

"'Nay; worse.'

"'Proceed!' demanded the prince. 'What can be worse?'

"'Your grandfather,' replied the messenger, in evident haste to conclude a disagreeable task, 'has taken to himself a young wife.'

"'Ah!' cried the prince, startled into a degrading abandonment of his customary elevation of demeanor. 'The dotard, the imbecile! Married? To whom?'

"'A daughter of the house of Nadis Shah, Rani Rue.'

"'I know her!' cried the prince savagely. 'Implacable, ambitious, unscrupulous. What will she not attempt with that old driveller?' Then, evidently impressed by something shadowed in the expression of his ill-omened Mercury, he exclaimed: 'You have more to tell me?'

"The Hindoo bowed his head in perturbed affirmation.

"'Quickly, then!' demanded his august listener.

"'The British forces have concentrated at the cantonment without the walls of Delhi; a detachment is even now on the way to your palace, which they propose to seize and garrison.'

"'Ah!' murmured the prince, 'the freshet is turning to a deluge. Is there more?'

"'Yes, O prince,' returned the Hindoo; 'the British intend to hold you as a hostage for the safety of the English resident, who is a prisoner at the palace in Delhi.'

"'So!' exclaimed this royal reprobate as he reflected upon the picturesque possibilities to himself, in view of the sanguinary temptation which the helpless resident would present to the ambitious Queen Rani Rue. 'How far in advance of the detachment are you?'

"'About one hour's march.'

"'This is short reckoning. You have hastened with leaden feet.'

"'Nay, your highness,' cried the Hindoo, 'I came the instant I heard. There is still time to escape, and the way is known to you alone.'

"'So be it,' returned the prince as an expression of savage determination compressed his thin lips and ignited baleful fires in his restless eyes. 'Await me without; I will join you presently.'

"As the Hindoo turned to obey, the prince darted, with lithe haste, into the inner room and pressed the spring in the wall.

"Slowly the panel rolled aside and revealed the glittering pyramid of gems within.

"From the depths, just in the rear of the priceless heap, he withdrew a sort of jacket, separated upon its upper edge into a series of openings similar to the partitions of a cartridge-belt.

"Into these, with a sort of clumsy trepidation, he began to pack the almost elusive portions of the gleaming mass of brilliants from the recess.

"At the conclusion of fifteen vital minutes the prince had deposited the last of the gems in the receptacles of this curious jacket, and, if the reports of the Hindoo were to be credited, the advancing British were that much nearer the Kutub.

"With desperate rapidity he disengaged the folds of the delicate cambric which covered the upper portion of his body, inserting the precious jacket beneath, and after adjusting it to his figure, strapped it securely in place and rearranged his attire into non-committal contours.

"'And now,' he cried with an expression of savage determination, 'and now for the rarest gem of all!' and darting through the silken hangings which concealed his extreme of the passageway leading to the apartments of Lal Lu, he hastened along that dingy bypath and presently reached the threshold from which he had issued but a short time before with such little credit to himself.

"Without pausing to announce himself or consider the impropriety of his abrupt intrusion and its possible influence upon Lal Lu, the impetuous heir-apparent swept aside the curtains and rushed into the room.

"Startled at the rattling rings which held the hangings in place, and the impetuous swish of its folds, Lal Lu sprang to her feet and gazed with indignant rebuke upon the inconsiderate prince.

"Heedless of the unconcealed disdain of her glance and ignoring the presence of the furtive-eyed waiting-woman, he cried:

"'Lal Lu, the time for further parley is past. The Kutub is shortly to be attacked by the British. We must fly—come!' and the speaker advanced with unreflective haste to the side of the palpitating girl.

"In an instant, however, his headlong progress was checked as Lal Lu, with a superb gesture, raised the gleaming dagger above her head and cried, encouraged by the lowering eyes of the evilly-expectant waiting-woman: 'With thee—never! I will die first!'

"As the prince recoiled a step at sight of the flashing blade, Lal Lu, with contemptuous emphasis, exclaimed: 'Be not afraid, Prince Otondo, this is not for thee. Advance but a step and it will be but an empty casket that awaits thee!'

"Never had Lal Lu appeared so desirable in the eyes of this royal rogue, and never had he been more resolute to possess her.

"With misleading quiet, therefore, he gazed upon the upraised hand which menaced the one unattained object of his desire. Quickly he measured the distance between them. Slowly he removed one foot behind the other. Lightly he pressed the slipper's point upon the tessellated floor, and then with a leap of incredible quickness, he darted forward, caught the descending arm of Lal Lu in his grasp, and, with his disengaged hand, wrenched the dagger from her and threw it away from him into the center of the apartment.

"But as rapidly as he had moved, the prince had not been able to prevent the incision which the dagger's point made in his wrist and from which a thin stream of blood issued.

"'Ah, ha, my beauty!' he cried as he released the struggling girl and retreated a step, the better to enjoy her discomfiture; 'ah, ha! I like thy spirit. I would not have thee mar the lovely casket which contains it. Here!' he called to the waiting-woman, who had witnessed the episode and into whose quick eyes, which had detected the slight wound upon the wrist of the prince, there crept a strange, inexplicable expression of leering triumph, 'here, guard this maiden for a space. Your life shall pay the penalty if aught befalls her in my absence.

"'I shall return presently with the help I need to overcome such elevated objection'; and turning abruptly, the prince hastened toward the doorway, pausing a second to regain possession of the dagger which he had cast from him during the brief struggle.

"'Alas!' cried the unhappy girl, 'what shall I do? He has gone to get some of his creatures to help him in his evil purposes.'

"For a moment a tense silence prevailed.

"The next instant, with eerie, jubilant interruption, the waiting-woman made the very air shudder with a laugh of such shrill exultation and riotous abandon that Lal Lu, for a moment forgetful of her own extremity, gazed with unconcealed amazement and alarm upon the almost hysterical creature.

"'Ha, ha!' she raved; 'be not afraid, Lal Lu. This royal pest, this insolent prince, will trouble you no more; you will never see him again.'

"'Ha!' exclaimed Lal Lu. 'You seem strangely positive. What do you mean?'

"'Did you see that scratch which the point of your dagger made upon the wrist of the prince?'

"'No,' replied Lal Lu, shrinking from the picture presented to her mind.

"'Well,' returned the grim-visaged woman with a return to her customary austerity, 'I did. The wound was slight; only a few easily subdued drops of blood followed; but, believe me, maiden, it will be sufficient.'

"'What do you mean?' demanded Lal Lu.

"'This,' returned the weird creature with repulsive, evil joy, which she made no attempt to disguise: 'The point of that dagger was steeped in the most deadly poison known in India. In twenty minutes, ha, ha! it is the prince who will be the empty casket.'"

* * * * *

As the Sepoy reached this point in his narrative he paused with startling abruptness.

Raikes, no longer under the influence of the seductive cadences, looked up sharply.

"Well?" inquired the Sepoy as he met the inquiring glance of his furtive auditor, "what of the flaw in the sapphire? Can you trace the blemish?"

"Devil seize me!" exclaimed Raikes, as he offered, by this apostrophe, an invitation which was certain, at no distant date, to be accepted.

"Devil seize me if I have thought of the sapphire!" and he began at once an apologetic inspection of the brilliant with the magnifying glass.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Sepoy. "I must congratulate myself upon my powers of narration."

"Aye!" replied Raikes, as he continued his examination of the flaming bauble, "and also upon your irritating habit of concluding at the anxious moment. But see here," and he held the sapphire up to view; "I can see nothing wrong; possibly the light is bad. The searching glare of day is required to discover a blemish such as you speak of."

"Suppose you return to-morrow, then, directly after breakfast?" suggested the Sepoy.

"I want your judgment. I dare not trust my own; my blindness may be voluntary."

"Very well, then," assented Raikes, who, now that he had nothing upon which to fasten his eyes, felt an easily comprehended uneasiness to leave the Sepoy. "I will be here at that time"; and with his customary emotionless adieux the guilty creature slipped through the doorway and speeded like a shriveled shadow along the various passages.

As he was about to enter his room he was hailed by his nephew.

"Uncle, you wanted to see me."

"True," replied Raikes, with a start of recollection, "I do; but suppose we postpone the interview until to-morrow."

"Very well," replied the young man easily, and Raikes, entering his room, fastened the door with his usual elaborate precaution.

His first movement was to disclose the interior of the recess containing his coin and his conscience.

A rapid examination convinced him that no further depredations had been committed upon the former, and the latter he secreted in the pocket of his waistcoat along with the diamond, which flashed its unregarded rebuke into his eager eyes.

At this juncture the singular drowsiness which had overtaken him so persistently in the past few days began to steep his dulling senses.

Warned by its approach, Raikes began to put into execution a newly conceived plan of retiring for the night and effective vigil over his treasure-trove.

Hastily drawing a chair before the radiator, and placing directly in front of that the table, from which with a savage sweep of the arm he swept the dull heap of coals rattling to the floor, Raikes established himself in the seat so provided and, leaning forward, awaited the final blandishments of the drowsiness which was not long in lulling him into that profound degree of slumber which is commonly supposed to be the reward of sound morals and Christian resignation.

(To be continued on Dickey No. 3, Series B.)

* * * * *

During the reading of this impossible helter-skelter of unrestrained imagination and composite style, the expression in the countenance of the listening woman had developed from its original sadness to an unmistakable geniality.

The pensive droop of her lips, little by little, nestled away into a smiling seriousness, and when Dennis, confronted with the habitual conclusion in italics, looked up with a grimace of recognition, his glance was met by a pair of kindly blue eyes, in which he believed he traced a charming suggestion of unaffected good fellowship.

Altogether unsuspected by himself, Dennis, with his intent, intelligent countenance, and the contrasting vivacity of his rich, Irish accent, had awakened an interest in the mind of his companion which months of adroit approach could not have achieved.

His genuineness was unquestionable.

His entire absorption in the story, his delightful and unconscious elimination of self, supplied this tired woman with elements of mental refreshment and genuine enjoyment which circumstances had compelled her to decide no longer existed.

Encouraged, therefore, by this unmistakable interest and the amiable attitude of attention which Dennis, with characteristic ingenuousness, accepted as a tribute to the narrative, he exclaimed:

"An' isn't it great, now? Did you ever hear such a tale as that?"

"I never did," was the smiling reply.

"An' wasn't that Raikes a div—a tight one, I mean?"

"He was, indeed," assented the lady, as she reviewed this sordid character and the incidents surrounding him, and contrasted the tumult of phrase and situation with her genial Addison and her placid Irving.

"An' would you like to hear the rest?" asked Dennis, as he produced the remaining bosom of Series B.

"Yes," replied the lady, "I believe I would. But just a moment before you begin," and regarding this oblivious young man with an expression in which a degree of speculation still lingered to tantalize its suggestion of frank indorsement, she hazarded:

"You have not lived in New York long?"

Wondering at the acuteness of this observation, Dennis responded by according to her the exact time of his brief residence.

"Ah!" exclaimed the lady, "I thought so."

"May I ask," inquired Dennis, wondering if, like the visitor from the bucolic district, he supplied unconscious data in his appearance for classification, "may I ask how you are able to tell that I'm here for a short time only?"

"Well," returned his companion with a degree of hesitation exquisitely refined as it shadowed through her fine countenance, and which she presently conquered as she replied to his question with that shade of frankness which, in the well-bred, can never be mistaken for anything else: "It requires about a year's residence in this bedlam to replace the genuine with the artificial; I see no evidence of such an unhappy transformation in you."

"Oh, I see," responded Dennis. "An' you never will, either."

"I am almost prepared to believe that," answered the lady with a reassuring cordiality which somehow indicated to this young man that she had already become convinced of more than she was willing to acknowledge.

"You may do so entirely," said Dennis simply.

"Now, one question more," continued his companion, "and do not consider me inquisitive, since I may have something to suggest to your advantage if your reply is satisfactory. What is your business?"

Dennis blushed.

"My business?" he repeated with a droll accent and an amusing grimace; and then, encouraged by the friendly invitation and subtle encouragement in the manner of his sweet-faced listener, with a straightforward recital which the lady had expected from him, and which advanced him several leagues in her estimation, Dennis recounted his experiences from the time of his arrival up to the present moment.

"It isn't much," he concluded apologetically, "not anywhere as interesting as the dickey back; but it's all there is, an' it's true, every word."

"It is more than you suspect," dissented his hearer. "You have enabled me to come to a decision, at least, and may help me to solve a vexed problem. In the meantime, let us finish the story. While you are reading my mind will clear; I will make my suggestion when you conclude."

Wondering, and yet with a prompt confidence which conveyed an agreeable flattery which the cleverest diplomacy could not have achieved, Dennis, holding his absurd medium at a level which permitted him to receive the stimulation of a sympathetic glance now and then, began.



CHAPTER VII

Considering the unaccustomed position in which Raikes had placed himself in arranging to retire the night before, he awoke with considerable astonishment to the realization that he had passed a night of undisturbed slumber.

Aside from a slight disposition to stretch his lean limbs unduly, and a feeling of insecurity attending his first efforts to stand, he was not aware of any inconvenience from his singular siesta.

At last, after having re-established his creaking equilibrium and resumed his accustomed furtive regard of things, he was suddenly reminded by the shifted position of the furniture of the purpose of this makeshift barricade.

At once the shuddering dread which had attended his recent visits to the secret recess returned with numbing chills and sinking spirit.

He advanced his bony hand, gnarled and mean with useless abstemiousness and miserable abnegations, and revolved the button in the concave. In response, the false register swung back; in another tense moment the inner space was revealed, and his treasury laid bare.

For an instant, in the manner of an apprehensive child who postpones as long as possible some unwelcome confirmation, Raikes closed his eyes, and when he opened them again they rested, with unerring precision, upon a bag somewhat detached from the others, which protruded at its sides with those frightful points and angles with which he had become so unhappily familiar of late.

With a smothered cry he sprang forward, gripped the bag in a trembling, faltering clutch, and dropped it with a groan to the floor, where it fell with a heart-breaking, distracting lightness, which, nevertheless, smote like a mighty weight upon his bursting heart.

"My God!" he cried, "this is incredible!" and the miserable creature stood for a moment with an appalling vacancy shadowing in his countenance, which was illumed for one fitful moment with a ray of hope as he inserted his hand in his waistcoat pocket to assure himself that the diamond which he had placed in that receptacle the night before at least was safe.

The diamond—ah, yes!

There was still some consolation in that.

Its value still maintained a close proportion to his loss. If there was no gain there was, at least, a sort of evil restitution.

But his exploring fingers found only an empty pocket.

In a palsy of fear, and with the demeanor of one who feels the first twinge of a mortal affliction and awaits in fearful silence the grewsome confirmation of another, he stood without sound or motion, his set, staring eyes directed with unseeing intensity upon the vacant air.

The next instant, with feverish animation and impotent apprehension, five writhing fingers leaped from their futile search, like scotched reptiles, into the opposite pocket and withdrew the two useless keys with which he fastened his abortive latch on the door.

And then, with a frightful glitter in his eyes, an ugly ooze about his bloodless lips, a flickering effort of his shriveled fingers to adjust themselves to some ribald rhythm, Raikes began to sing, with the dry rasp and ancient husk of a galvanized sphinx:

"And her name it was Dinah, Scarce sixteen years old; She'd a very large fortune In greenbacks and gold. Sing turi-li-luri——

Ha, ha! ha, ha!" and supporting himself along the wall he made his way slowly to the threshold, unfastened the locks, removed the heavy bar, opened the door, and cried out in a voice that was not human, that shuddered its way along the chill passage through the shrinking air:

"Robert—Robert!" and then, reeling, stumbling toward a near-by chair, he fell ere he could reach it, in utter collapse to the floor, and lay there—shriveled, grotesque, in no way pathetic, in all points contemptible, as his nephew, in response to his uncle's unearthly summons, rushed into the room, followed by the wide-eyed spinster.

For three days during the week that followed Raikes lay oblivious to the considerations of loss or gain.

The utmost of the young medical attendant, who had been selected on the basis of the small charges incident to a beginning practice, had failed to restore the emaciated man to his suspended consciousness, until, toward the morning of the fourth day, the spinster, who sat near-by in weary vigil, was startled to behold the dull eyes of her brother fastened upon her with the faraway, questioning look of one returning from the confines of the nether to the sharp realities of existence.

"Rodman?" she inquired with anxious interrogation.

In response the thin lips of the sufferer moved slowly.

Approaching the bed, his sister, leaning over the unfortunate Raikes, heard him articulate with difficulty "Water!"

Supporting his head with one hand, the spinster supplied his feebly-sighed request, and when the last difficult swallow conveyed the refreshing draught along his fevered throat, she restored his head to the pillow and awaited developments.

As she sat at the bedside in an attitude of fearful expectation, it was evident that some transformation, more wholesome than subtle, had manifested itself in the mien and physique of his nurse.

A large degree of her pitiful attenuity had vanished; a legible vestige of placid well-being seemed to have replaced the hunger of her eyes; there was a vague, unsubstantial promise of possible comeliness in the restoration of her cheeks.

Aware of these changes herself, and fearful lest her brother's sharp eyes would discover them, the spinster recalled, with a sort of troubled gratification, the occasion of the improvement.

Undisturbed by the rebuking glances of the abstemious Raikes, and secretly abetted by the amused Sepoy, the poor woman had enjoyed the privileges of the table with a relish and surrender which had begun to result in the manner indicated.

For several days previous to the catastrophe which had concluded in the prostration of her brother, the spinster had supplied the cravings of her appetite with a gusto that was a revelation to her, and which would have evoked a profound rebuke from the wretched creature on the bed.

It was therefore with secret misgiving and a qualified delight she heard her brother at last call feebly: "Sarah!"

In answer to the exhausted interrogation in his utterance of the name, his sister hastened to recount to him the incident of his collapse and his subsequent unconsciousness.

Little by little his intelligence began to resume its abandoned functions, and at last he recalled the whole evil situation.

"Where's Robert?" he said. "I want him."

"I will send him to you," exclaimed his sister, and she hastened from the room.

"Well, uncle!" exclaimed Robert as he entered with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling as he witnessed that emaciated countenance; "better, I see."

"I congratulate you upon your imagination," replied Raikes, with a feeble attempt at his customary incivility; "but lock the door and listen to me carefully."

These instructions complied with, Robert seated himself in the chair just vacated by the spinster, which provided his uncle an unobstructed view of the embonpoint and general aspect of well-being which were so obnoxious to the singular man on the bed.

"In the first place," resumed Raikes weakly, "move the bed around so that I can see the register in the wall."

The wondering Robert did as he was ordered.

"Take hold of the button that moves the valves and pull it toward you."

Robert followed these instructions minutely, and to his astonishment and the miser's consternation the radiator itself swung away from the wall.

"What!" cried the startled invalid as he beheld this confirmation of his fear that he had neglected to spring the catch that held the radiator on the occasion of the mishap which resulted in his confinement to the bed, "Look within. Is the inner compartment closed?"

"No!" replied Robert.

"My God!" groaned Raikes as he realized that his treasury had been thus unguarded during his illness. "Tell me how many bags there are."

Robert removed them one by one, and deposited them on the table.

As the miser followed the movements of his nephew with anxious notation, a sigh of unutterable relief welled from the innermost depths of his bosom.

The bags had been untouched!

There was no further loss, and the clinking weight assured him that his nocturnal visitor had made no more of his gross substitutions.

"Listen, Robert," said Raikes with laborious amiability, as his astonished nephew seated himself near the bedside, "it has been my purpose to conceal this hiding place from any living soul, but I find that I have not succeeded.

"Some one has made three visits to that recess and helped himself to as many bags of coin."

Robert, remembering his uncle's well-known secrecy and the unusual precautions taken by him to secure his room from intrusion, looked his incredulity, which stimulated Raikes into exclaiming:

"Ah, but you do not know how incredible it is. Wait until you hear all. You will wonder what human agency could penetrate these locks, open the doors of this hiding place, extract the plunder, restore the locks to their original condition, and re-issue into the passageway without disturbing the latches or the crossbar. My losses are supernatural. Now follow me carefully and confess that you have not heard anything so ghastly, so unreal as what I am about to relate."

As Raikes proceeded in his narrative, his nephew was at first inclined to receive these weird confidences as features of the unhappy man's condition, but as the latter progressed, with a constantly increasing degree of his customary emotionless lucidity, his sincerity became apparent.

"And now," concluded Raikes, "what have you to say to all this? Is it not worthy of a Poe or a Maupassant? I tell you, I must have some explanation of this mystery or I shall go mad."

During this singular recital the young man's mind, stimulated by the eerie perplexities and the unhappy denouement, had been busy.

It was not difficult to convince himself of the futility of any of his own speculations; the nearness of the calamity affected him, in a degree, as it did the withered invalid.

He had a sound brain, nourished by a well sustained body; his intelligence was apt and rapid, but these unheard-of complications demanded a morbid analysis of which he was incapable.

On this basis, however, as his uncle had proceeded, Robert had been able to develop a suggestion; he could offer that, at least.

In reply, therefore, to the feverish questions of his uncle, the young man said:

"In so far as I am able to see, your disasters have narrowed your range of discernment. They are too recent; they affect you too nearly. Under such conditions we take counsel of our prejudices instead of our judgment. Your thoughts are apt to return to the central feature of your loss. It is not natural to expect one to dismiss such a consideration in order to make way for others which might help you in your search.

"On my part, the incident is new and stimulating, but the ideas it awakens lead to nothing. However, I should not regard the case as impossible until I had tried at least one means of solution."

"What is that?" demanded Raikes, diverted, if not convinced, by the sensible observations of his nephew.

"You have heard of Gratz?" inquired Robert.

"Of the secret service?"

"Yes."

"Ah!" cried the old man; "to submit the case to him means another in the secret, with little prospect of advantage."

"I am not so sure about that," returned Robert. "Do you recall the Dupont mystery?"

Raikes nodded.

"Well," continued Robert, "you must also remember the Belmont scandal. Gratz certainly let daylight into that."

"Ah," cried Raikes, "I do not like your suggestions; they encourage me and alarm me at the same time. Think of the cost."

Irritated at the intrusion of this frugal proviso at this juncture, Robert exclaimed with some warmth: "Yes, but think, also, how insignificant that would be if he discovered the thief and recovered the money."

"If—if——" repeated Raikes with impatience.

"And I can say this," continued Robert: "It is the ambition of Gratz to be appointed chief of the bureau to which he belongs. Whatever can be placed to his credit in the meantime will serve as an additional reason for his advancement.

"I believe that he would be more persuaded to undertake the case with this prospect in view than for a mercenary reason."

"But," interrupted Raikes, "can you get him?"

"I think I can answer for that," replied Robert. "I know him very well. If you will consent to leave the matter in my hands, I will attend to Gratz."

"Well," exclaimed Raikes, as Robert concluded, "have it your own way; anything is better than this killing suspense. I do not believe that I could endure a repetition of the incidents of the last few nights. But return the bags before you go, and shut the radiator; it will lock in closing."

When Robert at last reached the dining-room he discovered his aunt at the table, seated opposite the Sepoy.

Instructing the spinster to resume her vigil until his return, Robert proceeded to his own table, and from that point of observation occupied himself, during the next twenty minutes, partly with his breakfast and partly in regarding this illy-assorted duet.

The Sepoy was as gravely urbane as ever; his browns and blacks intermingled harmoniously; his eyes were bright; his teeth still suggestive of restrained sarcasm in their dull, red sheaths, as, with grave courtesy, he made himself agreeable to his companion by abetting her newly-awakened appetite with recommendations of the steak and eulogies of the butter.

The spinster was no longer ravenous; the advantages she had enjoyed during the absence of her domestic Argus had made her cravings more equable, and she accepted the edible suggestions of the Sepoy with an approach to placid satisfaction that hinted at the imminence of repletion.

This disposition to make the most of her privileges, with what composure she could assume, would have added the basis of a serious relapse on the part of the invalid could he have witnessed the phenomenon.

It was remarkable how promptly the poor creature evinced the effects of her nourishment.

Beginning, as already indicated, with a logical indigestion, she progressed to the point of a possible filling out of the crevices of her countenance, and her eyes certainly had lost the expression of appeal characteristic of the mendicant in the doorway.

All this, minutely noted by her watchful nephew, was thoroughly enjoyed with a sort of chuckling collusion and vicarious gratification.

On her return to the invalid she was requested by him to provide whatever nourishment was needed, and then to leave him alone for a couple of hours.

These instructions fulfilled, the spinster sought the retirement of her room, surrendered herself to the enjoyment of reminiscent digestion, and Raikes began to pull himself together.

His method was characteristic.

On the basis that he could not afford to enjoy himself like any normally constituted being, he assured his mind that he could not submit to the expense of illness.

According to his rigid logic, sickness was more the result of indulgence than self-denial.

He proposed to have the credit of his abnegations.

Therefore he directed his perverse will to the contemplation of the rational aspect of his condition, and presently had managed to convince himself that if he did not entertain the belief of suffering, this untoward condition would cease to exist.

As this singular being combatted all that was unwelcome to this point of view, the grim lines tightened about the corners of his mouth, the deep fissures in his forehead established a communication with the obstinate wrinkles at the root of his nose, and by noon he was well on his way to the mastery of his indisposition, and by nightfall he scandalized the young medical attendant by standing up to receive him.

Extending to himself a chuckling tribute of his resolution, he received the incredulity of his nephew as additional indorsement when the latter made his appearance that evening, accompanied by the colorless negation of a man whom he could scarcely persuade himself to believe was the celebrated Gratz.

However, no more ideal countenance could have been created for the purposes to which it was applied by its owner.

Pallid, expressionless, vacant, it was as nearly a canvas upon which to delineate almost anything in the range of emotion as it was possible for a visage of flesh and blood to be.

As to the details of features, these were altogether subordinate, and as devoid of physiognomical meaning as the dull integument which encompassed them.

It had about the same amount of character as a bald baby.

One received the impression that a seismic disturbance might awaken some show of emotion, but design—never.

And yet, behind that pale disguise, between sleepy, level lids, two points of concentrated fire and ceaseless animation gleamed their startling significance to any one able to comprehend.

In stature he was adjusted to his visage.

His frame was lean enough to repudiate the incredible agility and recuperative strength it housed, and his carriage was consistently "out of plumb."

Altogether it was an identity that would have been overlooked in any gathering, and was almost nondescript enough to establish an eligibility to the most exclusive function.

This unpromising ensemble, however, was not misleading to Raikes, who had looked up quickly at the first appearance of the detective, and had seen the sharp, penetrating glance with which Gratz had for an instant surveyed the apartment.

Moreover, the very leanness of the famous official appealed to him.

Here, at least, were none of the obnoxious evidences of repletion which he viewed with such disapprobation in his sturdier nephew.

The man's attire, too, commended him to the starved graces of his spare host. It was as characterless as it was possible for fabric to be, and considered with his meager physique and vacant physiognomy, was a fitting complement to both; an adjustment of component detail too consistent to have been the needless aspect it was designed to present.

With a voice in which the character had been trained away as surely as the charity from the opinions of the social elite, this descendant of Lecocq accosted his patron, and with business-like brevity indicated that he was already familiar with the situation as outlined by Robert, and if Mr. Raikes would consent to reply to a few questions it would facilitate matters.

His hearer indicated that he was entirely at the disposal of the detective.

With characteristic concentration, therefore, Gratz began:

"Do you suspect anybody in particular?"

"No."

"That is singular," commented Gratz. "May I ask why? Under such circumstances the mind generally proceeds in some unhappy direction."

"Not in this instance," returned Raikes. "Before I suspect any one, I must assign to him supernatural powers, almost. I will have to explain how it is possible for any one to enter this room, penetrate that recess, make the substitution, and retire, leaving the door in the same condition, precisely as left by me the night before."

"That is the point," replied Gratz. Then, after a moment's reflection, he inquired: "Am I at liberty to nose around this room?"

"Help yourself," answered Raikes.

With this assent, Gratz hurried to the window, examined the sash, considered the sheer depths immediately below, its lack of vicinity to other windows, and last, the strong fastenings, to disturb which would involve a degree of rasp and wrench sufficient to disturb the slumbers of a Rip Van Winkle.

With a countenance as impassive as ever, he returned to Raikes and said:

"Now for the hiding place."

With a grimace of reluctant acquiescence, Raikes, closely regarded by the detective, proceeded to the button in the concave, which he moved with slow manipulation for the edification of the alert watcher, who witnessed, without comment, the displacement of the register and the subsequent revelation of the inner compartment.

"Remove the bags."

At the conclusion of this labor, this impenetrable being produced a small rod of steel from one of his pockets, one end of which concluded in a round knob.

With this he proceeded to rap the walls of the inner recess, a proceeding of which Raikes inquired the purpose.

"I want to ascertain," replied Gratz, "if there is any vacancy on the other side."

"I could have saved you all that trouble," replied Raikes. "This is a false radiator, the real flue is on the other side of the room.

"The rear of this small safe backs up against nearly two feet of solid brickwork.

"Exactly behind that is a room occupied by one no more burglarious than a dressmaker's apprentice."

"Thank you," replied Gratz. "Your information is helpful, but I am never satisfied to rely upon description when investigation is possible.

"Whatever deductions I make from this examination I do not want disturbed, so all the doubts they dissipate are not likely to intrude upon my calculations again."

After a few further taps, in which Raikes could see no better purpose than to retire from an embarrassing position with some show of satisfied motive, Gratz directed that the bags be returned.

For the next few minutes he busied himself with the locks, upon which he experimented with the extraordinary keys which Raikes had given him. He shot the bolts backward and forward; noted the stout bar and the precautions for keeping it in place, and then resumed the seat near the table.

After a few moments he said:

"Tell me what has occurred to you between sunrise and sunset during the last three days."

Raikes recounted his usual round of petty detail, which had no possible bearing upon the problem.

When he had concluded this meager resume, Gratz continued:

"Now tell me about the nights."

Raikes complied with a statement of his careful precautions; the watch of his sister upon the doorway during his absence, and his visits to the room of the Sepoy.

"The Sepoy?" inquired Gratz. "Why do you call him that?"

"On account of his swarthy complexion, his bright eyes, and his general alien aspect," replied Robert.

"Describe him to me as carefully as you can," said Gratz.

When Robert had concluded his brief delineation, Raikes hastened to inquire: "Why do you ask about him so particularly? He could no more enter my room, under the conditions I have described to you, than you could."

"I realize that," admitted the detective, "but I gather from what you have just said that you visit this Sepoy, as you call him, with some degree of regularity. May I ask if you have business transactions with him?"

"I have not," replied Raikes.

Then, in response to the unchanging look of inquiry in the countenance of the detective, he added:

"The Sepoy has been telling me an extraordinary story. It has been too elaborate to confine to one sitting, and my purpose in re-visiting him was to get at the conclusion. It is most interesting, and apparently interminable."