With a curse Fall dashed into the little elevator.

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

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



CHAPTER XII

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

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

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

"Here it is," said T. B.

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

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

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

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

"Here is one," he said, suddenly.

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

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

They found this, too, and carefully negotiated it.

"Down!" whispered T. B. suddenly, and the party sank flat on the turf.

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

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

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

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

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

"Better remain in the hall," said T. B. "We shall have to chance the guard not noticing what has happened to the curtain, anyway; perhaps he will not be round for some time," he added, hopefully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To what do I owe the honour of this visit, Mr. Smith?" he said, in his dry, grim way.

"A spirit of curiosity," said T. B., coolly. "I was anxious to secure another peep at your Mr. Moole."

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

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

Dr. Fall frowned.

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

"Perhaps if I were to follow you back to the room," said T. B. good-humouredly, "you might understand better."

He heard a strange wailing sound and a shivering motion beneath his feet, as though a heavy traction engine were passing close to the house.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It is one of the unpleasant consequences of building one's house over a disused coal-mine," said the doctor easily; "but as regards your strange hallucination," he went on, "I should rather like to disabuse your mind of your fantastic vision."

He walked slowly back to the room which T. B. had quitted, and the inner door yielded to his touch. It was in darkness. Dr. Fall put his hand inside the room and there was a click of a switch.

"Come in," he said, and T. B. stepped into the room.

It was the room he had left in the earlier part of the day. There was the blue square of carpet and the silver bedstead, and the same yellow face and unwinking eyes of the patient. The walls were panelled in myrtle, the same electrolier hung from the ceiling as he had seen on his previous visit. Smith gasped, and passed his hand over his forehead.

"You see," said the secretary, "you have been the victim of a peculiar and unhappy trick of eyesight; in fact, Mr. Smith, may I suggest that you have been dreaming?"

"You may suggest just what you like," said T. B. pleasantly. "I should like to see the room below and the room above."

"With pleasure," said the other; "there is a storeroom up above which you may see if you wish."

He led the way upstairs, unlocked the door of the room immediately over that which they had just left, and entered. The room was bare, and the plain deal floor, the distempered walls, and the high skylight showed it to be just as the doctor had described, a typical storeroom.

"You do not seem to use it," said T. B.

"We are very tidy people," smiled the doctor; "and now you shall see the room below."

As they went down the stairs again they heard the curious wail, and T. B. experienced a tremulous jar which he had noted before.

"Unpleasant, is it not?" said Dr. Fall. "I was quite alarmed at that at first, but it has no unpleasant consequences."

On the second floor he entered the third room, immediately below that in which the sick Mr. Moole was lying. He unlocked this door and they entered a well-furnished bedroom; on a more elaborate scale than that which T. B. had seen before.

"This is our spare bedroom," said Dr. Fall, easily; "we seldom use it."

T. B. slipped into the apartment and made a quick scrutiny. There was nothing of a suspicious character here.

"I hope you are satisfied now," said Dr. Fall as he led the way out, "and that your two friends below are not growing impatient."

"You have seen them, then," said T. B.

"I have seen them," said the other gravely. "I saw them a few moments after you entered the hall. You see, Mr. Smith," he went on, "we do not employ anything so vulgar as bells to alarm us. When the entrance door opens, a red light shows above my bed. Unfortunately, the moment you came in I happened to be in an adjoining room at work. I had to go into my bedroom to get a paper, when I saw the light. So, though I am perhaps inaccurate in saying that I have been keeping you under observation from the moment you arrived, there was little you did which was not witnessed. I will show you, if you will be good enough to accompany me to my room."

"I shall be delighted," said T. B.

He was curious to learn anything that the house or its custodian could teach him. Dr. Fall's room was on the first floor, immediately over the entrance hall, a plain office with a door leading to a cosily, though comparatively expensively furnished bedroom. By the side of the doctor's bed was a round pillar, which looked for all the world like one of those conventional and useless articles of furniture which the suburban housewife employs to balance a palm upon.

"Look down into that," said the doctor.

T. B. obeyed. It was quite hollow, and a little way down was what appeared to be a square sheet of silver paper. It was unlike any other silver paper because it appeared to be alive. He could see figures standing against it, two figures that he had no difficulty in recognizing as Ela and Johnson.

"It is a preparation of my own," said the doctor. "I thought of taking out a patent for it. An adjustment of mirrors throws the image upon a luminous screen which is so sensitive to light that it can record an impression of your two friends even in the semi-darkness of the hall."

"Thank you," said T. B.

There was nothing to do but to accept his defeat as graciously as possible. For baffled he was, caught at every turn, and puzzled, moreover, by his extraordinary experience.

"You will find some difficulty in opening the door," said the pleasant Doctor Fall.

"In that I think you are mistaken," smiled T. B.

The doctor stopped to switch on the light, and the two discomforted detectives watched the scene curiously.

"We have left the door ajar."

"Still I think you will find a difficulty in getting out," insisted the other. "Open the door."

Ela pulled at it, but it was impossible to move the heavy oaken panel.

"Electrically controlled," said the doctor; "and you can neither move it one way nor the other. It is an ingenious idea of mine, for which I may also apply for a patent one of these days."

He took a key from his pocket and inserted it in an almost invisible hole in the oak panelling of the hall; instantly the door opened slowly.

"I wish you a very good night," said Doctor Fall, as they stood on the steps. "I hope we shall meet again."

"You may be sure," said T. B. Smith, grimly, "that we shall."



CHAPTER XIII

Doris Gray was face to face with a dilemma. She stood in a tragic position; even now, she could not be sure that her guardian was dead. But dead or alive, he had left her a terrible problem, for terrible it seemed to her, for solution.

She liked Frank Doughton well enough, but she was perhaps too young, had too small a knowledge of the great elements of life to appreciate fully her true feelings in the matter; and then the influence of this polished man of the world, this Count of the Roman Empire as he described himself, with his stories of foreign capitals, his easy conversation, his acquaintance with all the niceties of social intercourse, had made a profound impression upon her. At the moment, she might not say with any certainty, whether she preferred the young Englishman or this suave man of the world.

The balance was against Frank, and the command contained in the will, the knowledge that she must, so she told herself, make something of a sacrifice, was a subject for resentment. Not even the sweetest girl in the world, obeying as she thought the command of a dead man, who was especially fond and proud of her, could be compensated for the fact that he had laid upon her his dead hands, charging her to obey a command which might very easily be repugnant and hateful to her.

She did not, in truth, wish to marry anybody. She could well afford to allow the question of her fortune to lapse; she had at least five years in which to make up her mind, as to how she felt toward Frank Doughton. She liked him, there was something especially invigorating and wholesome in his presence and in his very attitude towards her. He was so courteous, so kindly, so full of quick, strong sympathy and yet—there were some depths he could not touch, she told herself, and was vague herself as to what those depths were.

She was strolling in Green Park on a glorious April morning, in a complacent mood, for the trees were in fresh green bud and the flower beds were a blaze of colour, when she met Frank, and Frank was so obviously exhilarated that something of his enthusiasm was conveyed to her. He saw her before she had seen him, and came with quickening footsteps toward her.

"I say," he said explosively, "I have some splendid news!"

"Let us sit down," she said, with a kindly smile, and made a place for him by her side on a bench near by. "Now, what is this wonderful news?"

"You remember Mr. Farrington gave me a commission to find the missing heir of Tollington?"

She nodded.

"Well, I have found him," he said, triumphantly; "it is an extraordinary thing," he went on, "that I should have done so, because I am not a detective. I told Mr. Farrington quite a long time ago that I never expected to make any discovery which would be of any use to him. You see Mr. Farrington was not able to give me any very definite data to work on. It appears that old Tollington had a nephew, the son of his dead sister, and it was to this nephew that his fortune was left. Tollington's sister had been engaged to a wealthy Chicago stockbroker, and the day before the wedding she had run away with an Englishman, with whom her family was acquainted, but about whom they knew very little. She guessed that he was a ne'er-do-well, who had come out to the States to redeem his fallen fortune. But he was not a common adventurer apparently, for he not only refused to communicate with the girl's parents, although he knew they were tremendously wealthy, but he never allowed them to know his real name. It appears that he was in Chicago under a name which was not his own. From that moment they lost sight of him. In a roundabout way they learned that he had gone back to England and that he had by his own efforts and labours established himself there. This news was afterwards confirmed. The girl was in the habit of writing regularly to her parents, giving neither her surname nor address. They answered through the columns of the London Times. That is how, though they knew where she was situated, all efforts to get in touch with her proved to be unavailing; and when her parents died, and her brother renewed his search, he was met with a blank wall. You see," Frank went on, a little naively, "it is quite impossible to discover anybody when their name is not even known to one."

"I see," smiled the girl; "and have you succeeded where all these people have failed?"

"I have hardly progressed so far as that," he laughed. "What I have discovered is this: that the man, who seventy years ago left the United States with the sister of old Tollington, lived for some years in Great Bradley."

"Great Bradley!" she said, in surprise; "why, isn't that where Lady Constance Dex lives?"

He nodded.

"Everybody seems to live there," he said, ruefully; "even our friend," he hesitated.

"Our friend?" she repeated, inquiringly.

"Your friend Poltavo is there now," he said, "permanently established as the guest of Dr. Fall. You have heard of the Secret House?—but everybody in England has heard of it."

"I am afraid that everybody does not include me," she smiled, "but go on with your story; how did you find that he lived in Great Bradley?"

"Well, it was rather a case of luck," he explained. "You see, I lived some years in Great Bradley myself; that is where I first met your uncle. I was a little boy at the time. But it wasn't my acquaintance with Great Bradley which helped me. Did you see in the paper the other day the fact that, in pulling down an old post office building, a number of letters were discovered which had evidently slipped through the floor of the old letter-box, and had not been delivered?"

"I read something about it," she smiled; "forty or fifty years old, were they not?"

He nodded.

"One of these," he said, quietly, "was addressed to Tollington, and was signed by his sister. I saw it this morning at the General Post Office. I happened to spot the paragraph, which was sent in to my paper, to the effect that these letters had been undelivered for forty or fifty years, and fortunately our correspondent at Great Bradley had secured a list of the addresses. I saw that one of these was to George Tollington of Chicago, and on the off chance I went down to Great Bradley. Thanks to the courtesy of the Postmaster-General I was able to copy the letter. It was a short one."

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper.

"DEAR GEORGE," he read, "this is just to tell you that we are quite well and prosperous. I saw your advertisement in the Times newspaper and was pleased to hear from you. Henry sends to you his kindest regards and duties.

"Your loving sister, "ANNIE."

"Of course, it is not much to go on," he said apologetically, folding the letter up and replacing it in his pocket. "I suppose Great Bradley has had a constant procession of Annies, but at any rate it is something."

"It is indeed," she smiled.

"It means quite a lot to me, or at least it did," he corrected himself. "I had an arrangement with your uncle, which was approved by the other trustees of the estate. It means a tremendous lot," he repeated. There was some significance in his tone and she looked up to him quickly.

"In money?" she asked.

"In other things," he said, lowering his voice. "Doris, I have not had an opportunity of saying how sorry I am about the will; it is hateful that you should be forced by the wishes of your guardian to take a step which may be unpleasant to you."

She coloured a little and turned her eyes away.

"I—I do not want to take advantage of that wish," he went on awkwardly. "I want you to be happy. I want you to come to me for no other reason than the only one that is worth while; that you have learned to care for me as I care for you."

Still she made no response and he sighed heavily.

"Some day," he said, wistfully, "I had hoped to bring in my hands all the material advantages which a man can offer to the woman he loves."

"And do you think that would make a difference?" she asked quickly.

"It would make this difference," he replied, in the same quiet tone, "that you could not think of me as one who loved you for your fortune, or one who hoped to gain anything from the marriage but the dearest, sweetest woman in the world."

The eyes which she turned upon him were bright with unshed tears.

"I do not know how I feel, Frank," she said. "I am almost as much a mystery to myself as I must be to you. I care for you in a way, but I am not sure that I care for you as you would like me to."

"Is there anybody else?" he asked, after a pause.

She avoided his glance, and sat twining the cord of her sunshade about her fingers.

"There is nobody else—definitely," she said.

"Or tentatively?" he insisted.

"There are always tentative people in life," she smiled, parrying his question. "I think, Frank, you stand as great a chance as anybody." She shrugged her shoulders. "I speak as though I were some wonderful prize to be bestowed; I assure you I do not feel at all like that. I have a very humble opinion of my own qualities. I do not think I have felt so meek or so modest about my own qualities as I do just now."

He walked with her to the end of the park, and saw her into a taxicab, standing on the pavement and watching as she was whirled into the enveloping traffic, out of sight.

As for Doris Gray, she herself was suffering from some uneasiness of mind. She needed a shock to make her realize one way or the other where her affections lay. Poltavo loomed very largely; his face, his voice, the very atmosphere which enveloped him, was constantly present with her.

She reached Brakely Square and would have passed straight up to her room, but the butler, with an air of importance, stopped her.

"I have a letter here, miss. It is very urgent. The messenger asked that it should be placed in your hands at the earliest possible moment."

She took the letter from him. It was addressed to her in typewritten characters. She stripped the envelope and found yet another inside. On it was typewritten:

"Read this letter when you are absolutely alone. Lock the door and be sure that nobody is near when you read it."

She raised her pretty eyebrows. What mystery was this? she asked. Still, she was curious enough to carry out the request. She went straight to her own room, opened the envelope, and took out a letter containing half a dozen lines of writing.

She gasped, and went white, for she recognized the hand the moment her eyes fell upon it. The letter she held in her shaking hand ran:

"I command you to marry Frank Doughton within seven days. My whole fortune and my very life may depend upon this."

It was signed "Gregory Farrington," and heavily underlined beneath the signature were the words, "Burn this, as you value my safety."

* * * * *

T. B. Smith stepped briskly into the office of his chief and closed the door behind him.

"What is the news?" asked Sir George, looking up.

"I can tell you all the news that I know," said T. B., "and a great deal that I do not know, but only surmise."

"Let us hear the facts first and the romance afterwards," growled Sir George, leaning back in his chair.

"Fact one," said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off his fact on the first finger of his hand, "is that Gregory Farrington is alive. The man whose body was picked up in the Thames is undoubtedly the gentleman who was shot in the raid upon the Custom House. The inference is, that Gregory was the second party in the raid, and that the attempt to secure the trunk of the admirable Dr. Goldworthy was carefully conceived. The box apparently contained a diary which gave away Gregory to one who had it in her power to do him an immense amount of harm."

"You refer to Lady Constance Dex?" asked the chief, interestedly.

T. B. nodded.

"That is the lady," he said. "Evidently Farrington has played it pretty low down upon her; was responsible for the death of her lover, and, moreover, for a great deal of her unhappiness. Farrington was the man who told George Doughton about some scandal of her youth, and Doughton, that high-spirited man, went straight off to Africa without communicating with the lady or discovering how far she was guilty in the matter. The documents in the box would, I surmise, prove this to Lady Dex's satisfaction, and Farrington, who was well informed through his agents on the Coast, would have every reason for preventing these letters getting into the hands of a woman who would be remorseless in her vengeance."

"Is that fact established?" asked the chief.

"Pretty well," said T. B.

He took some papers out of his pocket and laid them on the desk before him.

"I have now got a copy of the letter which the dead lover wrote to Lady Constance. I need not say," he said lightly, "how I obtained possession of this, but we in our department do not hesitate to adopt the most drastic methods——"

"I know all about that," said the chief, with a little smile; "there was burglary at the rectory two days ago, and I presume your interesting burglar was your own Private Sikes."

"Exactly," said T. B. cheerfully. "Fact number two," he went on, "is that Gregory Farrington and the international blackmailer named Montague Fallock are one and the same person."

The chief looked up.

"You do not mean that?"

"I do indeed," said T. B. "That interesting paragraph in the will of the late Mr. Farrington confirms this view. The will was especially prepared to put me off the scent. Letters which have been received by eminent personages signed 'Montague Fallock' and demanding, as usual, money with threats of exposure have recently been received and confirm this theory."

"Where is Montague Fallock now?"

"Montague Fallock is an inmate of the Secret House," said T. B.

"It seems pretty easy to take him, does it not?" asked Sir George, in surprise. "Have you moved in the matter?"

T. B. shook his head.

"It is not so easy as you imagine," he said. "The Secret House contains more secrets than we can at present unravel. It was built, evidently and obviously, by a man of extraordinary mechanical genius as Farrington was, and the primary object with which it was built was to enable him on some future occasion to make his escape. I am perfectly certain that any attempt to raid the house would result immediately in the bird flying. We have got to wait patiently."

"What I cannot understand," said his chief, after awhile, "is why he should make a dramatic exit from the world."

"That is the easiest of all to explain," smiled T. B. "He was scared; he knew that I identified him with the missing Fallock; he knew, too, that I strongly suspected him of the murder of the two men in Brakely Square. Don't you see the whole thing fits together? He imported from various places on the Continent, and at various periods, workmen of every kind to complete the house at Great Bradley. Although he began his work thirty years ago, the actual finishing touches have not been made until within the last few years. Those finishing touches were the most essential. I have discovered that the two men who were shot in Brakely Square, were separately and individually employed in making certain alterations to the house and installing certain machinery.

"One was a young architect, the other was a general utility man. They were unknown to each other; each did his separate piece of work and was sent back to his native land. By some mischance they succeeded in discovering who their employer was, and they both arrived, unfortunately for them, simultaneously at the door of Fallock or Farrington's house with the object of blackmailing him. Farrington overheard the conversation; he admitted as much.

"He stood at the door, saw them flourishing their pistols and thought it was an excellent opportunity to rid himself of a very serious danger. He shot them from the doorway, closed the doorway behind him, and returned the revolver to its drawer in his study, and came down in time to meet the policeman with energetic protestations of his terror. I smelt the powder when I went into the house; there is no mistaking the smell of cordite fired in so confined a place as the hallway of a house. And Lady Dex was also there; she must have witnessed the shooting."

"Why did she come?" asked the chief.

"My conjecture is that she came either to confront Farrington with evidence of his complicity, which is unlikely, or else to secure confirmation of the story her lover told in his last letter."

"But why shouldn't Farrington disappear in an ordinary way—or why need he disappear at all?" asked Sir George. "He had plenty of credit in the city. He had the handling of his niece's fortune. He could have blocked out your suspicion; he is not the kind of man to be scared of a little thing like that."

"That is where I am at sea," said T. B. "I must confess his disappearance is not consistent with his known character. He certainly had the fortune of the girl, and I have no doubt in my mind that he has a very genuine affection for his niece. Her inheritance, by the way, falls due next month; I do not suppose that had anything to do with it. If he had robbed her of it, or he had dissipated this money which was left in his care, one could have understood it, but the fact that he is dead will not restore the fortune if it is gone."

"What are you doing?" asked the chief.

"About Farrington?" asked T. B. "I am having the house kept under observation, and I am taking whatever precautions I can to prevent our friend from being scared. I am even attempting to lure him into the open. Once I can catch him outside of the Secret House, I think he will be a clever man to escape."

"And Poltavo?"

"He is in town," said T. B. "I think he will be a fairly easy man to circumvent; he is obviously acting now as the agent of our friend Farrington, and he is horribly proud of himself!"



CHAPTER XIV

As T. B. had said, Poltavo had returned from his brief sojourn in Great Bradley, and emerged into society a new and more radiant being than ever he had been before.

There had always been some doubt as to the Count's exact financial position, and cautious hostesses had hesitated before they had invited this plausible and polished man to their social functions. There were whispers adverse as to his standing; there were even bold people who called into question his right to employ the title which graced his visiting cards. There were half a dozen Poltavos in the Almanack De Gotha, any one of whom might have been Ernesto, for so vague is the Polish hierarchy that it was impossible to fix him to any particular family, and he himself answered careless inquiries with a cryptic smile which might have meant anything.

But with his return to London, after his brief absence, there was no excuse for any hostess, even the most sceptical, in refusing to admit him to social equality on the ground of poverty. The very day he returned he acquired the lease of a house in Burlington Gardens, purchased two motor-cars, paying cash down for an early delivery, gave orders left and right for the enrichment of his person and his domicile, and in forty-eight hours had established himself in a certain mode of living which suggested that he had never known any other.

He had had his lesson and had profited thereby. He had experienced an unpleasant fright, though he might not admit it to Dr. Fall and his master; it was nevertheless a fact that, realizing as he did that he had stood face to face with a particularly unpleasant death, he had been seized by a panic which had destroyed his ordinary equilibrium.

"You may trust me, my friend," he muttered to himself, as he sorted over the papers on his brand-new desk in his brand-new study, in a house which was still redolent of the painter's art and presence. "You may trust me just so long as I find it convenient for you to trust me, but you may be sure that never again will I give you the benefit of my presence in the Secret House."

He had come back with a large sum of money to carry out his employer's plans. There were a hundred agents through the country, particulars of whom Poltavo now had in his possession. Innocent agents, and guilty agents; agents in high places and active agents in the servants' hall. Undoubtedly Gossip's Corner was a useful institution.

Farrington had not made a great deal of money from its sale; indeed, as often as not, it showed a dead loss every year. But he paid well for contributions which were sent to him, and offered a price, which exceeded the standard rate of pay, for such paragraphs as were acceptable.

Men and women, with a malicious desire to score off some enemy, would send him items which the newspapers would publish if they concerned somebody who might not be bled. Many of these facts in an amended form were, in fact, printed.

But more often than not the paragraphs and articles which came to the unknown editor dealt with scandal which it was impossible to put into print. Nevertheless, the informant would be rewarded. In some far-away country home a treacherous servant would receive postal orders to his or her great delight, but the news she or he had sent in their malice, a tit-bit concerning some poor erring woman or some foolish man, would never see the light of day, and the contributor might look in vain for the spicy paragraph which had been composed with such labour.

The unfortunate subjects of domestic treachery would receive in a day or two a letter from the mysterious Montague Fallock, retailing, to their horror, those precious secrets which they had imagined none knew but themselves. They would not associate the gossipy little rag, which sometimes found its way to the servants' hall, with the magnificent demand of this prince of blackmailers, and more often than not they would pay to the utmost of their ability to avoid exposure.

It was not only the servants' hall which supplied Montague Fallock with all the material for his dastardly work. There were men scarcely deserving the name, and women lost to all sense of honour, who found in this little journal means by which they could "come back" at those favoured people who had offered them directly or indirectly some slight offence. Sometimes the communication would reach the Gossip anonymously, but if the facts retailed were sufficiently promising, one of Fallock's investigators would be told off to discover how much truth there was in it. A bland letter would follow, and the wretched victim would emerge from the transaction the poorer in pocket and often in health.

For this remorseless and ruthless man destroyed more than fortunes; he trafficked in human lives. There had been half a dozen mysterious suicides which had been investigated by Scotland Yard, and found directly traceable to letters received in the morning, and burnt by the despairing victim before his untimely and violent departure from life.

The office of the paper was situated at the top of a building in Fleet Street; one back room comprised the whole of its editorial space, and one dour man its entire staff. It was his duty to receive the correspondence as it came and to convey it to the cloakroom of a London station. An hour later it would be called for by a messenger and transferred to another cloakroom. Eventually it would arrive in the possession of the man who was responsible for the contents of the paper. Many of these letters contained contributions in the ordinary way of business, a story or two contributed by a more or less well-known writer. Fallock, or Farrington, needed these outside contributions, not only to give the newspaper a verisimilitude of genuineness, but also to fill the columns of the journal.

He himself devoted his energies to two pages of shrewdly edited tit-bits of information about the great. They were carefully written, often devoid of any reference to the person whom they affected, and were more or less innocuous. But in every batch of letters there were always one or two which gave the master blackmailer an opportunity for extracting money from people, who had been betrayed by servants or friends. There was a standing offer in the Gossip of five guineas for any paragraph which might be useful to the editor, and it is a commentary upon the morality of human nature that there were times when Farrington paid out nearly a thousand pounds a week for the information which his unscrupulous contributors gave him.

There was work here for Poltavo; he was an accomplished scholar, and a shrewd man of affairs. If Farrington had been forced to accept his service, having accepted them, he could do no less than admit the wisdom of his choice. In his big study, with the door locked, Poltavo carefully sorted the correspondence, thinking the while.

If he played his cards well he knew his future was assured. The consequence of his present employment, the misery it might bring to the innocent and to the foolishly guilty alike, did not greatly trouble him; he was perfectly satisfied with his own position in the matter. He had found a means of livelihood, which offered enormous rewards and the minimum of risk. In his brief stay at the Secret House, Farrington had impressed upon him the necessity for respecting trifles.

"If you can make five shillings out of a working man," was his dictum, "make it. We cannot afford to despise the smallest amount," and in consequence Poltavo was paying as much attention to the ill-written and illiterate scrawls which came from the East End of London, as he was to the equally illiterate efforts of the under-butler, describing an error of his master's in a northern ducal seat. Poltavo went through the letters systematically, putting this epistle to the right, and that to the left; this to make food for the newspaper; that, as a subject for further operations. Presently he stopped and looked up at the ceiling.

"So she must marry Frank Doughton within a week," he said to himself in wonder.

Yes, Farrington had insisted upon carrying out his plans, knowing the power he held, and he, Poltavo, had accepted the ultimatum in all meekness of spirit.

"I must be losing my nerve," he muttered. "Married in a week! Am I to give her up, this gracious, beautiful girl—with her future, or without her fortune?"

He smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile to see. "No, my friend, I think you have gone a little too far. You depended too much upon my acquiescence. Ernesto, mon ami, you have to do some quick thinking between now and next Monday."

A telephone buzzed at his elbow, and he took it off and listened.

"Yes?" he asked, and then he recognized the speaker's voice, and his voice went soft and caressing, for it was the voice of Doris Gray that he heard.

"Can you see me to-morrow?" she asked.

"I can see you to-day, my lady, at once, if you wish it," he said, lightly.

There was a little hesitation at the other end of the wire.

"If you could, I should feel glad," she said. "I am rather troubled."

"Not seriously, I hope?" he asked, anxiously.

"I have had a letter from some one," she said, meaningly.

"I think I understand," he replied; "some one wishes you to do a thing which is a repugnant to you."

"I cannot say that," she said, and there was despair in her voice; "all I know is that I am bewildered by the turn events have taken. Do you know the contents of the letter?"

"I know," he said, gently; "it was my misfortune to be the bearer of the communication."

"What do you think?" she asked, after a while.

"You know what I think," he said, passionately. "Can you expect me to agree to this?"

The intensity of his voice frightened her, and she rapidly strove to bring him down to a condition of normality.

"Come to-morrow," she said, hastily. "I would like to talk it over with you."

"I will come at once," he said.

"Perhaps you had better not," she hesitated.

"I am coming at once," he said, firmly, and hung up the receiver.

In that moment of resentment against the tyranny of his employer, he forgot all the dangers which the Secret House threatened; all its swift and wicked vengeance. He only knew, with the instinct of a beast of prey who saw its quarry stolen under its very eyes, the loss which this man was inflicting upon him. Five minutes later he was in Brakely Square with the girl. She was pale and worried; there were dark circles round her eyes which spoke eloquently of a sleepless night.

"I do not know what to do," she said. "I am very fond of Frank. I can speak to you, can I not, Count Poltavo?"

"You may confide in me absolutely," he said, gravely.

"And yet I am not so fond of him," she went on, "that I can marry him yet."

"Then why do you?" he asked.

"How can I disobey this?" She held the letter out.

He took it from her hand with a little smile, walked to the fireplace and dropped it gently upon the glowing coals.

"I am afraid you are not carrying out instructions," he said, playfully.

There was something in this action which chilled her; he was thinking more of his safety and his duty to Farrington than he was of her, she thought: a curiously inconsistent view to take in all the circumstances, but it was one which had an effect upon her after actions.

"Now listen to me," he said, with his kindly smile; "you have not to trouble about this; you are to go your own way and allow me to make it right with Farrington. He is a very headstrong and ambitious man, and there is some reason perhaps why he should want you to marry Doughton, but as to that I will gain a little more information. In the meantime you are to dismiss the matter from your mind, leaving everything to me."

She shook her head.

"I am afraid I cannot do that," she said. "Unless I have a letter from my guardian expressing wishes to the contrary, I must carry out his desires. It is dreadful—dreadful,"—she wrung her hands piteously,—"that I should be placed in this wretched position. How can I help him by marrying Frank Doughton? How can I save him—can you tell me?"

He shook his head.

"Have you communicated with Mr. Doughton?"

She nodded.

"I sent him a letter," she hesitated. "I have kept a draft of it; would you like to see it?"

A little shade of bitter anger swept across his face, but with an effort he mastered himself.

"I should," he said, evenly.

She handed the sheet of paper to him.

"DEAR FRANK," it ran, "for some reason which I cannot explain to you, it is necessary that the marriage which my uncle desired should take place within the next week. You know my feelings towards you; that I do not love you, and that if it were left to my own wishes this marriage would not take place, but for a reason which I cannot at the moment give you I must act contrary to my own wishes. This is not a gracious nor an easy thing to say to you, but I know you well enough, with your large, generous heart and your kindly nature, to realize that you will understand something of the turmoil of feelings which at present dominate my heart."

Poltavo finished reading, and put the letter back on the table; he walked up and down the room without saying a word, then he turned on her suddenly.

"Madonna!" he said, in the liquid Southern accents of his—he had spent his early life in Italy and the address came naturally to him—"if Frank Doughton were I, would you hesitate?"

A look of alarm came into the girl's eyes; he saw then his mistake. He had confounded her response to his sympathy with a deeper feeling which she did not possess. In that one glimpse he saw more than she knew herself, that of the two Frank was the preferable. He raised his hand and arrested her stammering speech.

"There is no need to tell me," he smiled; "perhaps some day you will realize that the love Count Poltavo offered you was the greatest compliment that has ever been paid to you, for you have inspired the one passion of my life which is without baseness and without ulterior motives."

He said this in a tremulous voice, and possibly he believed it. He had said as much before to women whom he had long since forgotten, but who carried the memory of his wicked face to their graves.

"Now," he said, briskly, "we must wait for Mr. Doughton's answer."

"He has already answered," she said; "he telephoned me."

He smiled.

"How typically English, almost American, in his hustle; and when is the happy event to take place?" he bantered.

"Oh, please, don't, don't,"—she raised her hands and covered her face,—"I hardly know that, even now, I have the strength to carry out my uncle's wishes."

"But when?" he asked, more soberly.

"In three days. Frank is getting a special licence; we are——" She hesitated, and he waited.

"We are going to Paris," she said, with a pink flush in her face, "but Frank wishes that we shall live"—she stopped again, and then went on almost defiantly—"that we shall live apart, although we shall not be able to preserve that fact a secret."

He nodded.

"I understand," he said; "therein Mr. Doughton shows an innate delicacy, which I greatly appreciate."

Again that little sense of resentment swept through her; the patronage in his tone, the indefinable suggestion of possession was, she thought, uncalled for. That he should approve of Frank in that possessive manner was not far removed from an impertinence.

"Have you thought?" he asked, after a while, "what would happen if you did not marry Frank Doughton in accordance with your uncle's wishes—what terrible calamity would fall upon your uncle?"

She shook her head.

"I do not know," she said, frankly. "I am only beginning to get a dim idea of Mr. Farrington's real character. I always thought he was a kindly and considerate man; now I know him to be——" She stopped, and Poltavo supplied her deficiency of speech.

"You know him to be a criminal," he smiled, "a man who has for years been playing upon the fears and the credulity of his fellow-creatures. That must have been a shocking discovery, Miss Gray, but at least you will acquit him of having stolen your fortune."

"It is all very terrible," she said; "somehow every day brings it to me. My aunt, Lady Dinsmore, was right."

"Lady Dinsmore is always right," he said, lightly; "it is one of the privileges of her age and position. But in what respect was she right?"

The girl shook her head.

"I do not think it is loyal of me to tell you, but I must. She always thought Mr. Farrington was engaged in some shady business and has warned me time after time."

"An admirable woman," said Poltavo, with a sneer.

"In three days," he went on, thoughtfully. "Well, much may happen in three days. I must confess that I am anxious to know what would be the result of this marriage not taking place."

He did not wait for an expression of her views, but with a curt little bow he ushered himself out of the room.

"Three days," he found himself repeating, as he made his way back to his house. "Why should Farrington be in such a frantic hurry to marry the girl off, and why should he have chosen this penniless reporter?"

This was a matter which required a great deal of examination.

Two of those three days were dream days for Frank Doughton; he could not believe it possible that such a fortune could be his. But with his joy there ran the knowledge that he was marrying a woman who had no desire for such a union.

But she would learn to love him; so he promised himself in his optimism and the assurance of his own love. He had unbounded faith in himself, and was working hard in these days, not only upon his stories, but upon the clue which the discovery of the belated letter afforded him. He had carefully gone through the parish list to discover the Annies of the past fifty years. In this he was somewhat handicapped by the fact that there must have been hundreds of Annies who enjoyed no separate existence, married women who had no property qualification to appear on ratepayers' lists; anonymous Annies, who perhaps employed that as a pet name, instead of the name with which they had been christened.

He had one or two clues and was following these industriously. For the moment, however, he must drop this work and concentrate his mind upon the tremendous and remarkable business which his coming marriage involved. He had a series of articles to write for the Monitor, and he applied himself feverishly to this work.

It was two nights before his marriage that he carried the last of his work to the great newspaper office on the Thames Embankment, and delivered his manuscript in person to the editor.

That smiling man offered his congratulations to the embarrassed youth.

"I suppose we shall not be looking for any articles from you for quite a long time," he said, at parting.

"I hope so," said the other. "I do not see why I should starve because I am married. My wife will be a very rich woman," he said quietly, "but so far as I am concerned that will make no difference; I do not intend taking one penny of her fortune."

The journalist clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good lad," he said, approvingly; "the man who lives on his wife's income is a man who has ceased to live."

"That sounds like an epigram," smiled Frank.

He looked at his watch as he descended the stairs. It was nine o'clock and he had not dined; he would go up to an eating house in Soho and have his frugal meal before he retired for the night. He had had a heavy day, and a heavier day threatened on the morrow. Outside the newspaper office was a handsome new car, its lacquer work shining in the electric light. Frank was passing when the chauffeur called him.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, touching his cap, "are you Mr. Frank Doughton?"

"That is my name," said Frank, in surprise, for he did not recognize the man.

"I have been asked to call and pick you up, sir."

"Pick me up?" asked the astonished Frank—"by whom?"

"By Sir George Frederick," said the man, respectfully.

Frank knew the name of the member of Parliament and puzzled his brain as to whether he had ever met him.

"But what does Sir George want with me?" he asked.

"He wanted five minutes' conversation with you, sir," said the man.

It would have been churlish to have refused the member's request; besides, the errand would take him partly on his way. He opened the door of the landaulet and stepped in, and as the door swung to behind him, he found he was not alone in the car.

"What is the——" he began, when a powerful hand gripped his throat, and he was swung backward on the padded seat as the car moved slowly forward and, gathering speed as it went, flew along the Thames Embankment with its prisoner.



CHAPTER XV

In the rectory at Great Bradley, Lady Constance Dex arose from a sleepless night to confront her placid brother at the breakfast table. The Reverend Jeremiah Bangley, a stout and easy man, who spent as much of his time in London as in his rectory, was frankly nonplussed by the apparition. He was one of those men, common enough, who accept the most extraordinary happenings as being part of life's normal round. An earthquake in Little Bradley which swallowed up his church and the major portion of his congregation would not have interested him any more than the budding of the trees, or a sudden arrival of flower life in his big walled garden. Now, however, he was obviously astonished.

"What brings you to breakfast, Constance?" he asked. "I have not seen you at this table for many years."

"I could not sleep," she said, as she helped herself at the sideboard to a crisp morsel of bacon. "I think I will take my writing pad to Moor Cottage."

He pursed his lips, this easy going rector of Little Bradley.

"I have always thought," he said, "that Moor Cottage was not the most desirable gift the late Mr. Farrington could have made to you." He paused, to allow her a rejoinder, but as she made no reply, he went on: "It is isolated, standing on the edge of the moor, away from the ordinary track of people. I am always scared, my dear Constance, that one of these days you will have some wretched tramp, or a person of the criminal classes, causing you a great deal of distress and no little inconvenience."

There was much of truth in what he said. Moor Cottage, a pretty little one-storied dwelling, had been built by the owner of the Secret House at the same time that the house itself had been erected. It was intended, so the builder said, to serve the purpose of a summer house, and certainly it offered seclusion, for it was placed on the edge of the moor, approached by a by-road which was scarcely ever traversed, since Bradley mines had been worked out and abandoned.

Many years ago when the earth beneath the moor had been tunnelled left and right by the seekers after tin and lead, Moor Cottage might have stood in the centre of a hive of industry. The ramshackle remains of the miners' cottage were to be seen on the other side of the hill; the broken and deserted headgear of the pit, and the discoloured chimney of the old power house were still visible a quarter of a mile from the cottage.

It suited the owner of the Secret House, however, to have this little cottage erected, though it was nearly two miles from the Secret House, and he had spared neither expense nor trouble in preparing a handsome interior.

Lady Constance Dex had been the recipient of many gifts from Mr. Farrington and his friends. There had been a period when Farrington could not do enough for her, and had showered upon her every mark of his esteem, and Moor Cottage had perhaps been the most magnificent of these presents. Here she could find seclusion, and in the pretty oak-panelled rooms reconstruct those happy days which Great Bradley had at one time offered to her.

"It is a little lonely," she smiled at her brother.

She had a good-natured contempt for his opinion. He was a large, lethargic man, who had commonplace views on all subjects.

"But really you know, Jerry, I am quite a capable person, and Brown will be near by, in case of necessity."

He nodded, and addressed himself again to the Times, the perusal of which she had interrupted.

"I have nothing more to say," he said from behind his newspaper. By and by he put it down.

"Who is this Mr. Smith?" he asked, suddenly.

"Mr. Smith?" she said, with interest. "Which Mr. Smith are you referring to?"

"I think he is a detective person," said the Reverend Jeremiah Bangley; "he has honoured us with a great number of visits lately."

"You mean——?"

"I mean Great Bradley," he explained. "Do you think there is anything wrong at the Secret House?"

"What could there be wrong," she asked, "that has not been wrong for the last ten or twenty years?"

He shrugged his massive shoulders.

"I have never quite approved of the Secret House," he said, unnecessarily.

She finished her hurried breakfast and rose.

"You have never approved of anything, Jerry," she said, tapping him on the shoulder as she passed.

She looked through the window; the victoria she had ordered was waiting at the door, with the imperturbable Brown sitting on the box.

"I shall be back to lunch," she said.

Looking through a window he saw her mount into the carriage carrying a portfolio. In that letter case, although he did not know it, were the letters and diaries which Dr. Goldworthy had brought from the Congo. In the seclusion of Moor Cottage she found the atmosphere to understand the words, written now in fire upon her very soul, and to plan her future.

There was no servant at Moor Cottage. She was in the habit of sending one of her own domestic staff after her visit to make it tidy for her future reception.

She let herself in through the little door placed under the green-covered porch.

"You can unharness the horse; I shall be here two hours," she said to the waiting Brown.

The man touched his hat. He was used to these excursions and was possessed of the patience of his class. He backed the victoria on to the moor by the side of the fence which surrounded the house. There was a little stable at the back, but it was never used. He unharnessed the horse, fixed his nosebag, and sat down to read his favourite newspaper; a little journal which dealt familiarly with the erratic conduct of the upper classes. He was not a quick reader, and there was sufficient in the gossipy journal to occupy his attention for three or four hours. At the end of an hour he thought he heard his lady's voice calling him, and jumping up, he walked to the door of the cottage.

He listened, but there was no other sound, and he came back to his previous position, and continued his study of the decadent aristocracy. Four hours he waited, and assailed by a most human hunger, his patience was pardonably exhausted.

He rose slowly, harnessed the horse, and drove the victoria ostentatiously before the window of the little sitting-room which Lady Constance Dex used as a study. Another half an hour passed without any response, and he got down from his box and knocked at the door.

There was no answer; he knocked again; still no reply.

In alarm he went to the window and peered in. The floor was strewn with papers scattered in confusion. A chair had been overturned. More to the point, he saw an overturned inkpot, which was eloquent to his ordered mind of an unusual happening.

Increasingly alarmed, he put his shoulder to the door, but it did not yield. He tried the window; it was locked.

It was at that moment that a motor came swiftly over the hill from the direction of the rectory. With a jar it came to a sudden stop before the house, and T. B. Smith leapt out.

Brown had seen the detective before on his visits to the rectory, and now hailed him as veritably god-sent.

"Where is Lady Constance?" asked T. B., quickly.

The man pointed to the house with trembling finger.

"She's in there somewhere," he said, fretfully, "but I can't make her answer ... and the room appears to be very disordered."

He led the way to the window. T. B. looked in and saw that which confirmed his worst fears.

"Stand back," he said.

He raised his ebony stick and sent it smashing through the glass. In a second his hand was inside unlocking the latch of the window; a few seconds later he was in the room itself. He passed swiftly from room to room, but there was no sign of Lady Constance. On the floor of the study was a piece of lace collar, evidently wrenched from her gown.

"Hullo!" said Ela, who had followed him. He pointed to the table. On a sheet of paper was the print of a bloody palm.

"Farrington," said T. B., briefly, "he has been here; but how did he get out?"

He questioned the coachman closely, but the man was emphatic.

"No, sir," he said, "it would have been impossible for anybody to have passed out of here without my seeing them. Not only could I see the cottage from where I sat, but the whole of the hillside."

"Is there any other place where she could be?"

"There is the outhouse," said Brown, after a moment's thought; "we used to put up the victoria there, but we never use it nowadays in fine weather."

The outhouse consisted of a large coachhouse and a small stable. There was no lock to the doors, T. B. noticed, and he pulled them open wide. There was a heap of straw in one corner, kept evidently as a provision against the need of the visiting coachman. T. B. stepped into the outhouse, then suddenly with a cry he leant down, and caught a figure by the collar and swung him to his feet.

"Will you kindly explain what you are doing here?" he asked, and then gave a gasp of astonishment, for the sleepy-eyed prisoner in his hands was Frank Doughton.

"It is a curious story you tell me," said T. B.

"I admit it is curious," said Frank, with a smile, "and I am so sleepy that I do not know how much I have told you, and how much I have imagined."

"You told me," recapitulated T. B., "that you were kidnapped last night in London, that you were carried through London and into the country in an unknown direction, and that you made your escape from the motor-car by springing out in the early hours of this morning, whilst the car was going at a slackened speed."

"That is it," said the other. "I have not the slightest idea where I am; perhaps you can tell me?"

"You are near Great Bradley," said T. B., with a smile. "I wonder you do not recognize your home; for home it is, as I understand."

Frank looked round with astonished eyes.

"What were they bringing me here for?" he demanded.

"That remains to be discovered," replied T. B.; "my own impression is that you——"

"Do you think I was being taken to the Secret House?" interrupted the young man, suddenly.

T. B. shook his head.

"I should think that was unlikely. I suspect our friend Poltavo of having carried out this little coup entirely on his own. I further suspect his having brought the car in this direction with no other object than to throw suspicion upon our worthy friends across the hill—and how did you come to the outhouse?"

"I was dead beat," explained Frank. "I had a sudden spasm of strength which enabled me to out-distance those people who were pursuing me, but after I had shaken them off I felt that I could drop. I came upon this cottage, which seemed the only habitation in view, and after endeavouring to waken the occupants I did the next best thing, I made my way into the coachhouse and fell asleep."

T. B. had no misgivings so far as this story was concerned; he accepted it as adding only another obstacle to the difficulties of his already difficult task.

"You heard no sound whilst you lay there?"

"None whatever," said the young man.

"No sound of a struggle, I mean," said T. B., and then it was that he explained to Frank Doughton the extraordinary disappearance of the owner of Moor Cottage.

"She must be in the house," said Frank.

They went back and resumed their search. Upstairs was a bedroom, and adjoining a bath-room. On the ground floor were two rooms: the study he had quitted and a smaller room beautifully decorated and containing a piano. But the search was fruitless; Lady Constance Dex had disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed her up. There was no sign of a trap in the whole of the little building, and T. B. was baffled.

"It is a scientific axiom," he said, addressing Ela with a thoughtful glint in his eye, "that matter must occupy space, therefore Lady Constance Dex must be in existence, she cannot have evaporated into thin air, and I am not going to leave this place until I find her."

Ela was thinking deeply, and frowning at the untidiness of the table.

"Do you remember that locket which you found on one of the dead men in Brakely Square?" he asked suddenly.

T. B. nodded. He put his hand in his waistcoat pocket, for he had carried that locket ever since the night of its discovery.

"Let us have a look at the inscription again," said Ela.

They drew up chairs to the table and examined the little circular label which they had found in the battered interior.

"Mor: Cot. God sav the Keng."

Ela shook his head helplessly.

"I am perfectly sure there is a solution here," he said. "Do you see those words on the top? 'Mor: Cot.'—that stands for Moor Cottage."

"By Jove, so it does," said T. B., picking up the locket; "that never struck me before. It was the secret of Moor Cottage which this man discovered, and with which he was trying to blackmail our friend. So far as the patriotic postscript is concerned that is beyond my understanding."

"There is a meaning to it," said Ela, "and it is not a cryptogram either. You see how he has forgotten to put the 'e' in 'save'? And he has spelt 'king' 'keng.'"

They waited before the house whilst Brown drove to the rectory, and then on to the town. Jeremiah Bangley arrived in a state of calm anticipation. That his sister had disappeared did not seem to strike him as a matter for surprise, though he permitted himself to say that it was a very remarkable occurrence.

"I have always warned Constance not to be here alone, and I should never have forgiven myself if Brown had not been on the spot," he said.

"Can you offer any explanation?"

The rector shook his head. He was totally ignorant of the arrangements of the house, had never, so he said, put foot in it in his life. This was perfectly true, for he was an incurious man who did not greatly bother himself about the affairs of other people. The local police arrived in half an hour, headed by the chief inspector, who happened to be in the station when the report was brought in.

"I suppose I had better take this young man to the station?" he said, indicating Frank.

"Why?" asked T. B. calmly; "what do you gain by arresting him? As a matter of fact there is no evidence whatever which would implicate Mr. Doughton, and I am quite prepared to give you my own guarantee to produce him whenever you may require him.

"The best thing you can do is to get back to town," he said kindly to that young man; "you need a little sleep. It is not a pleasant prelude to your marriage. By the way, that is to-morrow, is it not?" he asked, suddenly.

Frank nodded.

"I wonder if that has anything to do with your kidnapping," said T. B. thoughtfully. "Is there any person who is anxious that this marriage should not come about?"

Frank hesitated.

"I hardly like to accuse a man," he said, "but Poltavo——"

"Poltavo?" repeated T. B. quickly.

"Yes," said Frank; "he has some views on the question of Miss Gray."

He spoke reluctantly, for he was loath to introduce Doris' name into the argument.

"Poltavo would have a good reason," mused T. B. Smith. "Tell me what happened in the car."

Briefly Frank related the circumstances which had led up to his capture.

"When I found myself in their hands," he said, "I decided to play 'possum for a while. The car was moving at incredible speed, remembering your stringent traffic regulations,"—he smiled,—"and I knew that any attempt to escape on my part would result in serious injury to myself. They made no bones about their intentions. Before we were clear of London they had pulled the blinds, and one of them had switched on the electric lamp. They were both masked, and were, I think, foreigners. One sat opposite to me, all through the night, a revolver on his knees, and he did not make any disguise of his intention of employing his weapon if I gave the slightest trouble.

"I could not tell, because of the lowered blinds, which direction we were taking, but presently we struck the country and they let down one of the windows without raising the blind and I could smell the sweet scent of the fields, and knew we were miles away from London.

"I think I must have dozed a little, for very suddenly, it seemed, daylight came, and I had the good sense in waking to make as little stir as possible. I found the man sitting opposite was also in a mild doze, and the other at my side was nodding.

"I took a very careful survey of the situation. The car was moving very slowly, and evidently the driver had orders to move at no particular pace through the night, in order to economize the petrol. There was an inside handle to each of the doors, and I had to make up my mind by which I was to make my escape. I decided upon the near side. Gathering up my energies for one supreme effort, I suddenly leapt up, flung open the door, and jumped out. I had enough experience of the London traffic to clear the car without stumbling.

"I found myself upon a heath, innocent of any cover, save for a belt of trees about half a mile ahead of me as I ran. Fortunately the down, which was apparently flat, was, in fact, of a rolling character, and in two minutes I must have been out of sight of the car—long before they had brought the driver, himself half asleep probably, to an understanding that I had made my escape. They caught sight of me as I came up from the hollow, and one of them must have fired at me, for I heard the whistle of a bullet pass my head. That is all the story I have to tell. It was rather a tame conclusion to what promised to be a most sensational adventure."

At the invitation of the Reverend Jeremiah he drove back to the rectory, and left T. B. to continue his search for the missing Lady Constance. No better result attended the second scrutiny of the rooms than had resulted from the first.

"The only suggestion I can make now," said T. B., helplessly, "is that whilst our friend the coachman was reading, his lady slipped out without attracting his attention and strolled away; she will in all probability be awaiting us at the rectory."

Yet in his heart he knew that this view was absolutely wrong. The locked doors, the evidence of a struggle in the room, the bloody hand print, all pointed conclusively to foul play.

"At any rate Lady Constance Dex is somewhere within the radius of four miles," he said, grimly, "and I will find her if I have to pull down the Secret House stone by stone."



CHAPTER XVI

The morning of Doris Gray's wedding dawned fair and bright, and she sat by the window which overlooked the gardens in Brakely Square, her hands clasped across her knees, her mind in a very tangle of confusion. It was happy for her (she argued) that there were so many considerations attached to this wedding that she had not an opportunity of thinking out, logically and to its proper end, the consequence of this act of hers.

She had had a wire from Frank on the night previous, and to her surprise it had been dated from Great Bradley. For some reason which she could not define she was annoyed that he could leave London, and be so absorbed in his work on the eve of his wedding. She gathered that his presence in that town had to do with his investigations in the Tollington case. She thought that at least he might have spent one day near her in case she wished to consult him. He took much for granted, she thought petulantly. Poltavo, on the contrary, had been most assiduous in his attention. He had had tea with her the previous afternoon, and with singular delicacy had avoided any reference to the forthcoming marriage or to his own views on the subject. But all that he did not speak, he looked. He conveyed the misery in which he stood with subtle suggestion. She felt sorry for him, had no doubt of the genuineness of his affection, or his disinterestedness. A profitable day for Poltavo in ordinary circumstances.

A maid brought her from her reverie to the practical realities of life.

"Mr. Debenham has called, miss," said the girl. "I have shown him into the drawing-room."

"Mr. Debenham?" repeated Doris, with a puzzled frown. "Oh, yes, the lawyer; I will come down to him."

She found the staid solicitor walking up and down the drawing-room abstractedly.

"I suppose you know that I shall be a necessary guest at your wedding," he said, as he shook hands. "I have to deliver to you the keys of your uncle's safe at the London Safe Deposit. I have a memorandum here of the exact amount of money which should be in that safe."

He laid the paper on the table.

"You can look at the items at your leisure, but roughly it amounts to eight hundred thousand pounds, which was left you by your late father, who, I understand, died when you were a child."

She nodded.

"That sum is in gilt-edged securities, and you will probably find that a number of dividends are due to you. The late Mr. Farrington, when he made his arrangements for your future, chose this somewhat unusual and bizarre method of protecting your money, much against my will. I might tell you," he went on, "that he consulted me about six years ago on the subject, and I strongly advised him against it. As it happened, I was wrong, for immediately afterwards, as his books show, he must have suffered enormous losses, and although I make no suggestion against his character,"—he raised his hand deprecatingly,—"yet I do say that the situation which was created by the slump in Canadian Pacifics of which he was a large holder, might very easily have tempted a man not so strong-willed as Mr. Farrington. At the present moment," he went on, "I have no more to do than discharge my duty, and I have called beforehand to see you and to ask whether your uncle spoke of the great Tollington fortune of which he was one of the trustees, though as I believe—as I know, in fact—he never handled the money."

She looked surprised.

"It is curious that you should ask that," she said. "Mr. Doughton is engaged in searching for the heir to that fortune."

Debenham nodded.

"So I understand," he said. "I ask because I received a communication from the other trustees in America, and I am afraid your future husband's search will be unavailing unless he can produce the heir within the next forty-eight hours."

"Why is that?" she asked in surprise.

"The terms of the will are peculiar," said Mr. Debenham, walking up and down as he spoke. "The Tollington fortune, as you may know——"

"I know nothing about it," she interrupted.

"Then I will tell you." He smiled. "The fortune descends to the heir and to his wife in equal proportions."

"Suppose he is not blessed with a wife?" She smiled with something like her old gaiety.

"In that case the money automatically goes to the woman the heir eventually marries. But the terms of the will are that the heir shall be discovered within twenty years of the date of Tollington's death. The time of grace expires to-morrow."

"Poor Frank," she said, shaking her head, "and he is working so hard with his clues! I suppose if he does not produce that mysterious individual by to-morrow there will be no reward for him?"

The lawyer shook his head.

"I should hardly think it likely," he said, "because the reward is for the man who complies with the conditions of the will within a stipulated time. It was because I knew Mr. Doughton had some interest in it, and because also"—he hesitated—"I thought that your uncle might have taken you into his confidence."

"That he might have told me who this missing person was, and that he himself knew; and for some reason suppressed the fact?" she asked, quickly. "Is that what you suggest, Mr. Debenham?"

"Please do not be angry with me," said the lawyer, quickly; "I do not wish to say anything against Mr. Farrington; but I know he was a very shrewd and calculating man, and I thought possibly that he might have taken you that much into his confidence, and that you might be able to help your future husband a part of the way to a very large sum of money."

She shook her head again.

"I have absolutely no knowledge of the subject. My uncle never took me into his confidence," she said; "he was very uncommunicative where business was concerned—although I am sure he was fond of me." Her eyes filled with tears, not at the recollection of his kindness, but at the humiliation she experienced at playing a part in which she had no heart. It made her feel inexpressibly mean and small.

"That is all," said Mr. Debenham. "I shall see you at the registrar's office."

She nodded.

"May I express the hope," he said, in his heavy manner, "that your life will be a very happy one, and that your marriage will prove all you hope it will be?"

"I hardly know what I hope it will be," she said wearily, as she accompanied him to the door.

That good man shook his head sadly as he made his way back to his office.

Was there ever so unromantic and prosaic affair as this marriage, thought Doris, as she stepped into the taxicab which was to convey her to the registrar's office? She had had her dreams, as other girls had had, of that wonderful day when with pealing of the organ she would walk up the aisle perhaps upon the arm of Gregory Farrington, to a marriage which would bring nothing but delight and happiness. And here was the end of her dreams, a great heiress and a beautiful girl rocking across London in a hired cab to a furtive marriage.

Frank was waiting for her on the pavement outside the grimy little office. Mr. Debenham was there, and a clerk he had brought with him as witness. The ceremony was brief and uninteresting; she became Mrs. Doughton before she quite realized what was happening.

"There is only one thing to do now," said the lawyer as they stood outside again on the sunlit pavement.

He looked at his watch.

"We had best go straight away to the London Safe Deposit, and, if you will give me the authority, I will take formal possession of your fortune and place it in the hands of my bankers. I think these things had better be done regularly."

The girl acquiesced.

Frank was singularly silent during the drive; save to make some comment upon the amount of traffic in the streets, he did not speak to her and she was grateful for his forbearance. Her mind was in a turmoil; she was married—that was all she knew—married to somebody she liked but did not love. Married to a man who had been chosen for her partly against her will. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes; if she was joyless, no less was he. It was an inauspicious beginning to a married life which would end who knew how? Before the depressing granite facade of the London Safe Deposit the party descended, Mr. Debenham paid the cabman, and they went down the stone steps into the vaults of the repository.

There was a brief check whilst Mr. Debenham explained his authority for the visit, and it was when the officials were making reference to their books that the party was augmented by the arrival of Poltavo.

He bowed over the girl's hand, holding it a little longer than Frank could have liked, murmured colourless congratulations and nodded to Debenham.

"Count Poltavo is here, I may say," explained the lawyer, "by your late uncle's wishes. They were contained in a letter he wrote to me a few days before he disappeared."

Frank nodded grudgingly; still he was generous enough to realize something of this man's feelings if he loved Doris, and he made an especial effort to be gracious to the new-comer.

A uniformed attendant led them through innumerable corridors till they came to a private vault guarded by stout bars. The attendant opened these and they walked into a little stone chamber, illuminated by overhead lights.

The only article of furniture in the room was a small safe which stood in one corner. A very small safe indeed, thought Frank, to contain so large a fortune. The lawyer turned the key in the lock methodically, and the steel door swung back. The back of Mr. Debenham obscured their view of the safe's interior. Then he turned with an expression of wonder.

"There is nothing here," he said.

"Nothing!" gasped Doris.

"Save this," said the lawyer.

He took a small envelope and handed it to the girl. She opened it mechanically and read:

"I have, unfortunately, found it necessary to utilize your fortune for the furtherance of my plans. You must try and forgive me for this; but I have given you a greater one than you have lost, a husband."

She looked up.

"What does this mean?" she whispered.

Frank took the letter from her hand and concluded the reading.

"A husband in Frank Doughton...."

The words swam before his eyes.

"And Frank Doughton is the heir to the Tollington millions, as his father was before him. All the necessary proofs to establish his identity will be discovered in the sealed envelope which the lawyer holds, and which is inscribed 'C.'"

The letter was signed "Gregory Farrington."

The lawyer was the first to recover his self-possession; his practical mind went straight to the business at hand.

"There is such an envelope in my office," he said, "given to me by Mr. Farrington with strict instructions that it was not to be handed to his executors or to any person until definite instructions arrived—instructions which would be accompanied by unmistakable proof as to the necessity for its being handed over. I congratulate you, Mr. Doughton."

He turned and shook hands with the bewildered Frank, who had been listening like a man in a dream; the heir to the Tollington millions; he, the son of George Doughton, and all the time he had been looking for—what? For his own grandmother!

It came on him all of a rush. He knew now that all his efforts, all his search might have been saved, if he had only realized the Christian name of his father's mother.

He had only the dimmest recollection of the placid-faced lady who had died whilst he was at school; he had never associated in his mind this serene old lady, who had passed away only a few hours before her beloved husband, with the Annie for whom he had searched. It made him gasp—then he came to earth quickly as he realized that his success had come with the knowledge of his wife's financial ruin. He looked at her as she stood there—it was too vast a shock for her to realize at once.

He put his arm about her shoulder, and Poltavo, twirling his little moustache, looked at the two through his lowered lids with an ugly smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

"It is all right, dear," said Frank soothingly; "your money is secure—it was only a temporary use he made of it."

"It is not that," she said, with a catch in her throat; "it is the feeling that my uncle trapped you into this marriage. I did not mind his dissipating my own fortune; the money is nothing to me. But he has caught you by a trick, and he has used me as a bait." She covered her face with her hands.

In a few moments she had composed herself; she spoke no other word, but suffered herself to be led out of the building into the waiting cab. Poltavo watched them drive off with that fierce little smile of his, and turned to the lawyer.

"A clever man, Mr. Farrington," he said, in a bitter tone of reluctant admiration.

The lawyer looked at him steadily.

"His Majesty's prisons are filled with men who specialize in that kind of cleverness," he said, drily, and left Poltavo without another word.



CHAPTER XVII

T. B. Smith was playing a round of golf at Walton Heath, when the news was telephoned through to him.

He left immediately for town, and picked up Ela at luncheon at the Fritz Hotel, where the detective had his headquarters.

"The whole thing is perfectly clear, now," he said. "The inexplicable disappearance of Mr. Farrington is explained in poster type, 'that he who runs may read.'"

"I am a little hazy about the solution myself," said Ela dubiously.

"Then I will put it in plain language for you," said T. B. as he speared a sardine from the hors d'oeuvre dish. "Farrington knew all along that the heir to the Tollington millions was George Doughton. He knew it years and years ago, and it was for that reason he settled at Great Bradley, where the Doughtons had their home. Evidently the two older Doughtons were dead at this time, and only George Doughton, the romantic and altogether unpractical explorer, represented the family.

"George was in love with the lady who is now known as Lady Constance Dex, and knowing this, Farrington evidently took every step that was possible to ingratiate himself into her good graces. He knew that the fortune would descend equally to Doughton and to his wife. Doughton was a widower and had a son, a youngster at the time, and it is very possible that, the boy being at school, and being very rarely in Great Bradley, Farrington had no idea of his existence.

"The knowledge that this boy was alive must have changed all his plans; at any rate, the engagement was allowed to drift on, whilst he matured some scheme whereby he could obtain a large portion of the Tollington millions for his own use. Again I think his plans must have been changed.

"It was whilst he was at Great Bradley that he was entrusted with the guardianship of Doris Gray, and as his affection for the young girl grew—an affection which I think was one of the few wholesome things in his life—he must have seen the extraordinary chance which fate had placed in his way.

"With diabolical ingenuity and with a remorselessness which is reminiscent of the Borgias he planned first George Doughton's death, and then the bringing together of Doughton's son and his own ward. There is every proof of this to be found in his subsequent actions. He was prepared to introduce the young people to one another, and by affording them opportunities for meeting, and such encouragement as he could give, to bring about the result he so desired.

"But things did not move fast enough for him, and then he must have learnt, as the other trustees seem to have learnt recently, that there was an undiscovered time limit. He threw out hints to his niece, hints which were received rather coldly. He had taken the bold step of employing Frank Doughton to discover—himself! That was a move which had a twofold purpose. It kept the young man in contact with him. It also satisfied the other trustees, who had entrusted to Farrington the task of employing the necessary measures to discover the missing heir.

"But neither hint nor suggestion served him. The girl's fortune was due for delivery to her care, and his guardianship expired almost at the same time as the time limit for discovery of the Tollington millionaire came to an end. He had to take a desperate step; there were other reasons, of course, contributing to his move.

"The knowledge that he was suspected by me, the certainty that Lady Constance Dex would betray him, once she discovered that he had sent her lover to his death, all these were contributing factors, but the main reason for his disappearance was the will that was read after his bogus death.