"In that will he conveyed unchallengeable instructions for the girl to marry Frank Doughton without delay. I suspect that the girl now knows he is alive. Probably, panic-stricken by her tardiness, he has disclosed his hand so far as the alleged death is concerned."

T. B. looked out of the window on to the stream of life which was flowing east and west along Piccadilly; his face was set in a little frown of doubt and anxiety.

"I can take Farrington to-morrow if I want to," he said after a moment, "but I wish to gather up every string of organization in my hands."

"What of Lady Constance Dex?" asked Ela. "Whilst we are waiting, she is in some little danger."

T. B. shook his head.

"If she is not dead now," he said simply, "she will be spared. If Farrington wished to kill her—for Farrington it was who spirited her away—he could have done so in the house; no one would have been any the wiser as to the murderer. Lady Constance must wait; we must trust to luck before I inspect that underground chamber of which I imagine she is at present an unwilling inmate. I want to crush this blackmailing force," he said, thumping the table with energy; "I want to sweep out of England the whole organization which is working right under the nose of the police and in defiance of all laws; and until I have done that, I shall not sleep soundly in my bed."

"And Poltavo?"

"Poltavo," smiled T. B., "can wait for just a little while."

He paid the bill and the two men passed out of the hotel and crossed Piccadilly. A man who had been lounging along apparently studying the shop windows saw them out of the corner of his eye and followed them carelessly. Another man, no less ostentatiously reading a newspaper, as he walked along the pavement on the opposite side of the thoroughfare, followed close behind.

T. B. and his companion turned into Burlington Arcade and reached Cork Street. Save for one or two pedestrians the street was utterly deserted, and the first of the shadowers quickened his pace. He put his hand in his tail pocket and took out something which glinted in the April sunlight, but before he could raise his hand the fourth man, now on his heels, dropped his newspaper, and flinging one arm around the shadower's neck, and placing his knee in the small of the other's back, wrenched the pistol away with his disengaged hand.

T. B. turned at the sound of the struggle and came back to assist the shadowing detective. The prisoner was a little man, sharp-featured, and obviously a member of one of the great Latin branches of the human race. A tiny black moustache, fierce scowling eyebrows, and liquid brown eyes now blazing with hate, spoke of a Southern origin.

Deftly the three police officers searched and disarmed him; a pair of adjustable handcuffs snapped upon the man's thin wrists, and before the inevitable crowd could gather the prisoner and his custodians were being whirled to Vine Street in a cab.

They placed the man in the steel dock and asked him the usual questions, but he maintained a dogged silence. That his object had been assassination no one could doubt, for in addition to the automatic pistol, which he had obviously intended using at short range, trusting to luck to make his escape, they found a long stiletto in his breast pocket.

More to the point, and of greater interest to T. B., there was a three-line scrawl on a piece of paper in Italian, which, translated, showed that minute instructions had been given to the would-be murderer as to T. B.'s whereabouts.

"Put him in a cell," said T. B. "I think we are going to find things out. If this is not one of Poltavo's hired thugs, I am greatly mistaken."

Whatever he was, the man offered no information which might assist the detective in his search for the truth, but maintained an unbroken silence, and T. B. gave up the task of questioning him in sheer despair.

The next morning at daybreak the prisoner was aroused and told to dress. He was taken out to where a motor car was awaiting him, and a few moments later he was speeding on the way to Dover. Two detective officers placed him on a steamer and accompanied him to Calais. At Calais they took a courteous leave of him, handing him a hundred francs and the information in his own tongue that he had been deported on an order from the Home Secretary, obtained at midnight the previous night.

The prisoner took his departure with some eagerness and spent the greater portion of his hundred francs in addressing a telegram to Poltavo.

T. B. Smith, who knew that telegram would come, was sitting in the Continental instrument room of the General Post Office when it arrived. He was handed a copy of the telegram and read it. Then he smiled.

"Thank you," he said, as he passed it back to the Superintendent of the department, "this may now be transmitted for delivery. I know all I want to know."

Poltavo received the message an hour later, and having read it, cursed his subordinate's indiscretion, for the message was in Italian, plain for everybody to read who understood that language, and its purport easy to understand for anybody who had a knowledge of the facts.

He waited all that day for a visit from the police, and when T. B. arrived in the evening Poltavo was ready with an excuse and an explanation. But neither excuse nor explanation was asked for. T. B.'s questions had to do with something quite different, namely the new Mrs. Doughton and her vanished fortune.

"I was in the confidence of Mr. Farrington," said Poltavo, relieved to find the visit had nothing to do with that which he most dreaded, "but I was amazed to discover that the safe was empty. It was a tremendous tragedy for the poor young lady. She is in Paris now with her husband," he added.

T. B. nodded.

"Perhaps you will give me their address?" he asked.

"With pleasure," said Count Poltavo, reaching for his address book.

"I may be going to Paris myself to-morrow," T. B. went on, "and I will look these young people up. I suppose it is not the correct thing for any one to call upon honeymoon couples, but a police officer has privileges."

There was an exchange of smiles. Poltavo was almost exhilarated that T. B.'s visit had nothing to do with him personally. A respect, which amounted almost to fear, characterized his attitude toward the great Scotland Yard detective. He credited T. B. with qualities which perhaps that admirable man did not possess, but, as a set-off against this, he failed to credit him with a wiliness which was peculiarly T. B.'s chief asset. For who could imagine that the detective's chief object in calling upon Poltavo that evening was to allay his suspicions and soothe down his fears. Yet T. B. came for no other reason and with no other purpose. It was absolutely necessary that Poltavo should be taken off his guard, for T. B. was planning the coup which was to end for all time the terror under which hundreds of innocent people in England were lying.

After an exchange of commonplace civilities the two men parted,—T. B., as he said, with his hand on the door, to prepare for his Paris trip, and Poltavo to take up what promised to be one of the most interesting cases that the Fallock blackmailers had ever handled.

He waited until he heard the door close after the detective; until he had watched him, from the window, step into his cab and be whirled away, then he unlocked the lower drawer of his desk, touched a spring in the false bottom, and took from a secret recess a small bundle of letters.

Many of the sheets of notepaper which he spread out on the table before him bore the strawberry crest of his grace the Duke of Ambury. The letters were all in the same sprawling handwriting; ill-spelt and blotted, but they were very much to the point. The Duke of Ambury, in his exuberant youth, had contracted a marriage with a lady in Gibraltar. His regiment had been stationed at that fortress when his succession to the dukedom had been a very remote possibility, and the Spanish lady to whom, as the letters showed, he had plighted his troth, and to whom he was eventually married in the name of Wilson (a copy of the marriage certificate was in the drawer), had been a typical Spaniard of singular beauty and fascination, though of no distinguished birth.

Apparently his grace had regretted his hasty alliance, for two years after his succession to the title, he had married the third daughter of the Earl of Westchester without—so far as the evidence in Poltavo's possession showed—having gone through the formality of releasing himself from his previous union.

Here was a magnificent coup, the most splendid that had ever come into the vision of the blackmailers, for the Duke of Ambury was one of the richest men in England, a landlord who owned half London and had estates in almost every county. If ever there was a victim who was in a position to be handsomely bled, here was one.

The Spanish wife was now dead, but an heir had been born to the Duke of Ambury before the death, and the whole question of succession was affected by the threatened disclosure. All the facts of the case were in Poltavo's possession; they were written in this curiously uneducated hand which filled the pages of the letters now spread upon the table in front of him. The marriage certificate had been supplied, and a copy of the death certificate had also been obligingly extracted by a peccant servant, and matters were now so far advanced that Poltavo had received, through the Agony column of the Times, a reply to the demand he had sent to his victim.

That reply had been very favourable; there had been no suggestion of lawyers; no hint of any intervention on the part of the police. Ambury was willing to be bled, willing indeed, so the agony advertisement indicated to Poltavo, to make any financial sacrifice in order to save the honour of his house.

It was only a question of terms now. Poltavo had decided upon fifty thousand pounds. That sum would be sufficient to enable him to clear out of England and to enjoy life as he best loved it, without the necessity for taking any further risks. With Doris Gray removed from his hands, with the approval of society already palling upon him, he thirsted for new fields and new adventures. The fifty thousand seemed now within his grasp. He should, by his agreement with Farrington, hand two-thirds of that sum to his employer, but even the possibility of his doing this never for one moment occurred to him.

Farrington, so he told himself, a man in hiding, powerless and in Poltavo's hands practically, could not strike back at him; the cards were all in favour of the Count. He had already received some ten thousand pounds as a result of his work in London, and he had frantic and ominous letters from Dr. Fall demanding that the "house" share should be forwarded without delay. These demands Poltavo had treated with contempt. He felt master of the situation, inasmuch that he had placed the major portion of the balance of money in hand, other than that which had been actually supplied by Farrington, to his own credit in a Paris bank. He was prepared for all eventualities, and here he was promised the choicest of all his pickings—for the bleeding of the Duke of Ambury would set a seal upon previous accomplishments.

He rang a bell, and a man came, letting himself into the room with a key. He was an Italian with a peculiarly repulsive face; one of the small fry whom Poltavo had employed from time to time to do such work as was beneath his own dignity, or which promised an unnecessary measure of danger in its performance.

"Carlos," said Poltavo, speaking in Italian, "Antonio has been arrested, and has been taken to Calais by the police."

"That I know, signor," nodded the man. "He is very fortunate. I was afraid when the news came that he would be put into prison."

Poltavo smiled.

"The ways of the English police are beyond understanding," he said lightly. "Here was our Antonio, anxious and willing to kill the head of the detective department, and they release him! Is it not madness? At any rate, Antonio will not be coming back, because though they are mad, the police are not so foolish as to allow him to land again. I have telegraphed to our friend to go on to Paris and await me, and here let me say, Carlos,"—he tapped the table with the end of his penholder,—"that if you by ill-fortune should ever find yourself in the same position of our admirable and worthy Antonio, I beg that you will not send me telegrams."

"You may be assured, excellent signor," said the man with a little grin, "that I shall not send you telegrams, for I cannot write."

"A splendid deficiency," said Poltavo.

He took up a letter from the table.

"You will deliver this to a person who will meet you at the corner of Branson Square. The exact position I have already indicated to you."

The man nodded.

"This person will give you in exchange another letter. You will not return to me but you will go to your brother's house in Great Saffron Street, and outside that house you will see a man standing who wears a long overcoat. You will brush past him, and in doing so you will drop this envelope into his pocket—you understand?"

"Excellency, I quite understand," said the man.

"Go, and God be with you," said the pious Poltavo, sending forth a message which he believed would bring consternation and terror into the bosom of the Duke of Ambury.

It was late that night when Carlos Freggetti came down a steep declivity into Great Saffron Street and walked swiftly along that deserted thoroughfare till he came to his brother's house. His brother was a respectable Italian artisan, engaged by an asphalt company in London. Near the narrow door of the tenement in which his relative lived, a stranger stood, apparently awaiting some one. Carlos, in passing him, stumbled and apologized under his breath. At that moment he slipped the letter into the other's pocket. His quick eyes noted the identity of the stranger. It was Poltavo. No one else was in the street, and in the dim light even the keenest of eyes would not have seen the transfer of the envelope. Poltavo strolled to the end of the thoroughfare, jumped into the taxicab which was waiting and reached his house after various transferences of cabs without encountering any of T. B.'s watchful agents. In his room he opened the letter with an anxious air. Would Ambury agree to the exorbitant sum he had demanded? And if he did not agree, what sum would he be prepared to pay as the price of the blackmailer's silence? The first words brought relief to him.

"I am willing to pay the sum you ask, although I think you are guilty of a dastardly crime," read the letter, "and since you seem to suspect my bonafides, I shall choose, as an agent to carry the money to you, an old labourer on my Lancashire estate who will be quite ignorant of the business in hand, and who will give you the money in exchange for the marriage certificate. If you will choose a rendezvous where you can meet, a rendezvous which fulfills all your requirements as to privacy, I will undertake to have my man on the spot at the time you wish."

There was a triumphant smile on Poltavo's face as he folded the letter.

"Now," he said half aloud, "now, my friend Farrington, you and I will part company. You have ceased to be of any service to me; your value has decreased in the same proportion as my desire for freedom has advanced. Fifty thousand pounds!" he repeated admiringly. "Ernesto, you have a happy time before you. All the continent of Europe is at your feet, and this sad England is behind you. Congratulations, amigo!"

The question of the rendezvous was an important one. Though he read into the letter an eagerness on the part of his victim to do anything to avoid the scandal and the exposure which Poltavo threatened, yet he did not trust him. The old farm labourer was a good idea, but where could they meet? When Poltavo had kidnapped Frank Doughton he had intended taking him to a little house he had hired in the East End of London. The journey to the Secret House was a mere blind to throw suspicion upon Farrington and to put the police off the real track. The car would have returned to London, and under the influence of a drug he had intended to smuggle Frank into the small house at West Ham, where he was to be detained until the period which Farrington had stipulated had expired.

But the transfer of money in the house was a different matter. The place could be surrounded by police. No, it must be an open space; such a space as would enable Poltavo to command a clear view on every side.

Why not Great Bradley, he thought, after a while? Again he would be serving two purposes. He would be leading the police to the Secret House, and he would have the mansion of mystery and all its resources as a refuge in case anything went wrong at the last moment. He could, in the worst extremity, explain that he was collecting the money on behalf of Farrington.

Yes, Great Bradley and the wild stretch of down on the south of the town was the place. He made his arrangements accordingly.



CHAPTER XVIII

It was three days after the exchange of letters that Count Poltavo, in the rough tweeds of a country gentleman—a garb which hardly suited his figure or presence—strolled carelessly across the downs, making his way to their highest point, a great rolling slope, from the crest of which a man could see half a dozen miles in every direction.

The sky was overcast and a chill wind blew; it was such a day upon which he might be certain no pleasure-seekers would be abroad. To his left, half hidden in the furthermost shelter of the downs, veiled as it was for ever under a haze of blue grey smoke, lay Great Bradley, with its chimneys and its busy industrial life. To his right he caught a glimpse of the square ugly facade of the Secret House, half hidden by the encircling trees. To its right was a chimney stack from which a lazy feather of smoke was drifting. Behind him the old engine house of the deserted mines, and to the right of that the pretty little cottage from which a week before Lady Constance Dex had so mysteriously disappeared, and which in consequence had been an object of pilgrimage for the whole countryside.

But Lady Constance Dex's disappearance had become a nine days' wonder. There were many explanations offered for her unexpected absence. The police of the country were hunting systematically and leisurely, and only T. B. and those in his immediate confidence were satisfied that the missing woman was less than two miles away from the scene of her disappearance.

Count Poltavo had armed himself with a pair of field-glasses, and now he carefully scrutinized all the roads which led to the downs. A motor-car, absurdly diminutive from the distance, came spinning along the winding white road two miles away. He watched it as it mounted the one hill and descended the other, and kept his glasses on it until it vanished in a cloud of dust on the London road. Then he saw what he sought. Coming across the downs a mile away was the bent figure of a man who stopped now and again to look about, as though uncertain as to the direction he should take. Poltavo, lying flat upon the ground, his glasses fixed upon the man, waited, watching the slow progress with lazy interest.

He saw an old man, white-bearded and grey-haired, carrying his hat in his hand as he walked. His rough homespun clothing, his collarless shirt open at the throat, the plaid scarf around his neck, all these Poltavo saw through his powerful glasses and was satisfied.

This was not the kind of man to play tricks, he smiled to himself. Poltavo's precautions had been of an elaborate nature. Three roads led to the downs, and in positions at equal distances from where he stood he had placed three cars. He was ready for all emergencies. If he had to fly, then whichever way of escape was necessary would bring him to a means of placing a distance between himself and any possible pursuer.

The old man came nearer. Poltavo made a hasty but narrow survey of the messenger.

"Good," he said.

He walked to meet the old man.

"You have a letter for me?" he inquired.

The other glanced at him suspiciously.

"Name?" he asked gruffly.

"My name," said the smiling Pole, "is Poltavo."

Slowly the messenger groped in his pockets and produced a heavy package. "You've got to give me something," he said.

Poltavo handed over a sealed packet, receiving in exchange the messenger's.

Again Poltavo shot a smiling glance at this sturdy old man. Save for the beard and the grey hair which showed beneath the broad-brimmed, wide-awake hat, this might have been a young man.

"This is an historic meeting," Poltavo went on gaily. His heart was light and his spirits as buoyant as ever they had been in his life. All the prospects which this envelope, now bulging in his pocket, promised, rose vividly before his eyes.

"Tell me your name, my old friend, that I may carry it with me, and on some occasion which is not yet, that I may toast your health."

"My name," said the old man, "is T. B. Smith, and I shall take you into custody on a charge of attempting to extort money by blackmail."

Poltavo sprang back, his face ashen. One hand dived for his pistol-pocket, but before he could reach it T. B. was at his throat. That moment the Pole felt two arms gripping him, two steel bands they seemed, and likely to crush his arms into his very body. Then he went over with the full weight of the detective upon him, and was momentarily stunned by the shock. He came to himself rapidly, but not quickly enough. He was conscious of something cold about his wrists, and a none too kindly hand dragged him to his feet. T. B. with his white beard all awry was a comical figure, but Poltavo had no sense of humour at that moment.

"I think I have you at last, my friend," said T. B. pleasantly. He was busy removing his disguise and wiping his face clean of the grease paint, which had been necessary, with a handkerchief which was already grimy with his exertions.

"You will have some difficulty in proving anything against me," said the other defiantly; "there is only you and I, and my word is as good as yours. As to the Duke of Ambury——"

T. B. laughed, a long chuckling laugh of delight.

"My poor man," he said pityingly, "there is no Duke of Ambury. I depended somewhat upon your ignorance of English nobility, but I confess that I did not think you would fall so quickly to the bait. The Dukedom of Ambury ceased to exist two hundred years ago. It is one of those titles which have fallen into disuse. Ambury Castle, from which the letters were addressed to you, is a small suburban villa on the outskirts of Bolton, the rent of which," he said carefully, "is, I believe, some forty pounds a year. We English have a greater imagination than you credit us with, Count," he went on, "and imagination takes no more common flight than the namings of the small dwellings of our humble fellow-citizens."

He took his prisoner by the arm and led him across the downs.

"What are you going to do with me?" asked Poltavo.

"I shall first of all take you to Great Bradley police station, and then I shall convey you to London," said T. B. "I have three warrants for you, including an extradition warrant issued on behalf of the Russian Government, but I think they may have to wait a little while before they obtain any satisfaction for your past misdeeds."

The direction they took led them to Moor Cottage. In a quarter of an hour a force of police would be on the spot, for T. B. had timed his arrangements almost to the minute. He opened the door of the cottage and pushed his prisoner inside.

"We will avoid the study," he smiled; "you probably know our mutual friend Lady Constance Dex disappeared under somewhat extraordinary circumstances from that room, and since I have every wish to keep you, we will take the drawing-room as a temporary prison."

He opened the door of the little room in which the piano was, and indicated to his captive to sit in one of the deep-seated chairs.

"Now, my friend," said T. B., "we have a chance of mutual understanding. I do not wish to disguise from you the fact that you are liable to a very heavy sentence. That you are only an agent I am aware, but in this particular case you were acting entirely on your own account. You have made elaborate and thorough preparations for leaving England."

Poltavo smiled.

"That is true," he said, frankly.

T. B. nodded.

"I have seen your trunks all beautifully new, and imposingly labelled," he smiled, "and I have searched them."

Poltavo sat, his elbows on his knees, reflectively smoothing his moustache with his manacled hands.

"Is there any way I can get out of this?" he asked, after a while.

"You can make things much easier for yourself," replied T. B. quietly.

"In what way?"

"By telling me all you know about Farrington and giving me any information you can about the Secret House. Where, for instance, is Lady Constance Dex?"

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"She is alive, I can tell you that. I had a letter from Fall in which he hinted as much. I do not know how they captured her, or the circumstances of the case. All I can tell you is that she is perfectly well and being looked after. You see Farrington had to take her—she shot at him once—hastened his disappearance in fact, and there was evidence that she was planning further reprisals. As to the mysteries of the Secret House," he said, frankly, "I know little or nothing. Farrington, of course, is——"

"Montague Fallock," said T. B. quietly. "I know that also."

"Then what else do you want to know?" asked the other, in surprise. "I am perfectly willing, if you can make it easy for me, to tell you everything. The man who is known as Moole is a half-witted old farm labourer who was picked up by Farrington some years ago to serve his purpose. He is the man who unknowingly poses as a millionaire. It is his estate which Farrington is supposed to be administering. You see," he explained, "this rather takes off the suspicion which naturally attaches to a house which nobody visits, and it gives the inmates a certain amount of protection."

"That I understand," said T. B.; "it is, as you say, an ingenious idea—what of Fall?"

Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

"You know as much of him as I. There are, however, many things which you may not know," he went on slowly, "and of these there is one which you would pay a high price to learn. You will never take Farrington."

"May I ask why?" asked T. B. interestedly.

"That is my secret," said the other; "that is the secret I am willing to sell you."

"And the price?" asked T. B. after a pause.

"The price is my freedom," said the other boldly. "I know you can do anything with the police. As yet, no charge has been made against me. At the most, it is merely a question of attempting to obtain money by a trick—and even so you will have some difficulty in proving that I am guilty. Yes, I know you will deny this, but I have some knowledge of the law, Mr. Smith, and I have also some small experience of English juries. It is not the English law that I am afraid of, and it is not the sentence which your judges will pass upon me which fills me with apprehension. I am afraid of my treatment at the hands of the Russian Government."

He shivered a little.

"It is because I wish to avoid extradition that I make this offer. Put things right for me, and I will place in your hands, not only the secret of Farrington's scheme for escape, but also the full list of his agents through the country. You will find them in no books," he said with a smile; "my stay in the Secret House was mainly occupied from morning till night in memorizing those names and those addresses."

T. B. looked at him thoughtfully.

"There is something in what you say," he said. "I must have a moment to consider your offer."

He heard a noise from the road without and pulled aside the blind. A car had driven up and was discharging a little knot of plain clothes Scotland Yard men. Amongst them he recognized Ela.

"I shall take the liberty of locking you in this room for a few moments whilst I consult my friends," said T. B.

He went out, turned the key in the lock and put it in his pocket. Outside he met Ela.

"Have you got him?" asked the detective.

T. B. nodded.

"I have taken him," he said; "moreover, I rather fancy I have got the whole outfit in my hands."

"The Secret House?" asked Ela eagerly.

"Everything," said T. B.; "it all depends upon what we can do with Poltavo. If we can avoid bringing him before a magistrate, I can smash this organization. I know it is contrary to the law, but it is in the interests of the law. How many men have we available?"

"There are a hundred and fifty in the town of Great Bradley itself," said Ela calmly; "half of them local constabulary, and half of them our own men."

"Send a man down to order them to take up a position round the Secret House, allow nobody to leave it, stop all motor-cars approaching or departing from the house, and above all things no car is to leave Great Bradley without its occupants being carefully scrutinized. What's that?" he turned suddenly.

A sudden muffled scream had broken into the conversation and it had come from the inside of the cottage.

"Quick!" snapped T. B.

He sprang into the passage of the cottage, reached the door of the room where he had left his prisoner, slipped the key in the lock with an unerring hand and flung open the door.

The room was empty.



CHAPTER XIX

Farrington and Dr. Fall were closeted together in the latter's office. Something had happened, which was responsible for the gloom on the face of the usually imperturbable doctor, and for the red rage which glowered in the older man's eyes.

"You are sure of this?" he asked.

"Quite sure," said Dr. Fall briefly; "he is making every preparation to leave London. His trunks went away from Charing Cross last night for Paris. He has let his house and collected the rent in advance, and he has practically sold the furniture. There can be no question whatever that our friend has betrayed us."

"He would not dare," breathed Farrington.

The veins stood out on his forehead; he was controlling his passionate temper by a supreme effort.

"I saved this man from beggary, Fall; I took the dog out of the gutter, and I gave him a chance when he had already forfeited his life. He would not dare!"

"My experience of criminals of this character," said Dr. Fall calmly, "is that they will dare anything. You see, he is a particularly obnoxious specimen of his race; all suaveness, treachery, and remorseless energy. He would betray you; he would betray his own brother. Did he not shoot his father—or his alleged father, some years ago? I asked you not to trust him, Farrington; if I had had my way, he would never have left this house."

Farrington shook his head.

"It was for the girl's sake I let him go. Yes, yes," he went on, seeing the look of surprise in the other's face, "it was necessary that I should have somebody who stood in fear of me, who would further my plans in that direction. The marriage was necessary."

"You have been, if you will pardon my expressing the opinion," said Dr. Fall moodily, "just a little bit sentimental, Farrington."

The other turned on him with an oath.

"I want none of your opinions," he said gruffly. "You will never understand how I feel about this child. I took her from her dead father, who was one of my best friends, and I confess, that in the early days the thought of exploiting her fortune did occur to me. But as the years passed she grew towards me—a new and a beautiful influence in life, Fall. It was something that I had never had before, a factor which had never occurred in my stormy career. I grew to love the child, to love her more than I love money, and that is saying a lot. I wanted to do the right thing for her, and when my speculations were going wrong and I had to borrow from her fortune I never had any doubt but what I should be able to pay it back. When all the money went,"—his voice sank until it was little more than a whisper,—"and I realized that I had ruined the one human being in the world whom I loved, I took the step which of all my crimes I have most regretted. I sent George Doughton out of the way in order that I might scheme to marry Doris to the Tollington millionaire. For I knew the man we were seeking was Doughton. I killed him," he said defiantly, "for the sake of his son's wife. Oh, the irony of it!" He raised his hand with a harsh laugh. "The comedy of it! As to Poltavo," he went on more calmly, "I let him go because, as I say, I wanted him to further my object. That he failed, or that he was remiss, does not affect the argument. Doris is safely married," he mused; "if she does not love her husband now, she will love him in time. She respects Frank Doughton, and every day that passes will solidify that respect. I know Doris, and I know something of her secret thoughts and her secret wishes. She will forget me,"—his voice shook,—"please God she will forget me."

He changed the subject quickly.

"Have you heard from Poltavo this morning?"

"Nothing at all," said Fall; "he has been communicating with somebody or other, and the usual letters have been passing. Our man says that he has a big coup on, but upon that Poltavo has not informed us."

"If I thought he was going to play us false——"

"What would you do?" asked Fall quietly. "He is out of our hands now."

There was a little buzz in one corner of the room, and Fall turned his startled gaze upon the other.

"From the signal tower," he said. "I wonder what is wrong."

High above the house was one square solitary tower, in which, day and night, a watcher was stationed. Fall went to the telephone and took down the receiver. He spoke a few words and listened, then he hung up the receiver again and turned to Farrington.

"Poltavo is in Great Bradley," he said; "one of our men has seen him and signalled to the house."

"In Great Bradley!" Farrington's eyes narrowed. "What is he doing here?"

"What was his car doing here the other day," asked Fall, "when he kidnapped Frank Doughton? It was here to throw suspicion on us and take suspicion off himself, the most obvious thing in the world."

Again the buzzer sounded, and again Fall carried on a conversation with the man on the roof in a low tone.

"Poltavo is on the downs," he said; "he has evidently come to meet somebody; the look-out says he can see him from the tower through his glasses, and that there is a man making his way towards him."

"Let us see for ourselves," said Farrington.

They passed out of the room into another, opened what appeared to be a cupboard door, but which was in reality one of the innumerable elevators with which the house was furnished, and for the working of which the great electrical plant was so necessary.

They stepped into the lift, and in a few seconds had reached the interior of the tower, with its glass-paned observation windows and its telescopes. One of the foreign workmen, whom Farrington employed, was carefully scrutinizing the distant downs through a telescope which stood upon a large tripod.

"There he is," he said.

Farrington looked. There was no mistaking Poltavo, but who the other man was, an old man doubled with age, his white beard floating in the wind, Farrington could not say; he could only conjecture.

Dr. Fall, searching the downs with another telescope, was equally in the dark.

"This is the intermediary," said Farrington at last.

They watched the meeting, saw the exchange of the letters, and Farrington uttered a curse. Then suddenly he saw the other leap upon Poltavo and witnessed the brief struggle on the ground. Saw the glitter of handcuffs and turned with a white face to the doctor.

"My God!" he whispered. "Trapped!"

For the space of a few seconds they looked one at the other.

"Will he betray us?" asked Farrington, voicing the unspoken thoughts of Fall.

"He will betray us as much as he can," said the other. "We must watch and see what happens. If he takes him into town, we are lost."

"Is there any sign of police?" asked Farrington.

They scanned the horizon, but there was no evidence of a lurking force, and they turned to watch T. B. Smith and his prisoner making their slow way across the downs. For five minutes they stood watching, then Fall uttered an exclamation.

"They are going to the cottage!" he said, and again the men's eyes met.

"Impossible," said Farrington, but there was a little glint in his eye which spoke of the hope behind the word.

Again an interval of silence. Three pairs of eyes followed the men.

"It is the cottage!" said Fall. "Quick!"

In an instant the two men were in the lift and shooting downwards; they did not stop till they reached the basement.

"You have a pistol?" asked Farrington.

Fall nodded. They quitted the lift and walked swiftly along a vaulted corridor, lighted at intervals with lamps set in niches. On their way they passed a door made in the solid wall to their left.

"We must get her out of this, if necessary," said Farrington in a low voice. "She is not giving any trouble?"

Dr. Fall shook his head.

"A most tactful prisoner," he said, dryly.

At the end of the corridor was another door. Fall fitted a key and swung open the heavy iron portal and the two men passed through to a darkened chamber. Fall found the switch and illuminated the apartment. It was a little room innocent of windows, and lit as all the rest of the basement was by cornice lamps. In one corner was a grey-painted iron door. This Fall pushed aside on its noiseless runners. There was another elevator here. The two men stepped in and the lift sunk and sunk until it seemed as though it would never come to the end. It stopped at last, and the men stepped out into a rock-hewn gallery.

It was easy to see that this was one of the old disused galleries of the old mine over which the house was built. Fall found the switch he sought and instantly the corridor was flooded with bright light.

On a set of rails which ran the whole length of the gallery to a point which was out of sight from where they stood, was a small trolley. It was unlike the average trolley in that it was obviously electrically driven. A third rail supplied the energy, and the controlling levers were at the driver's hand.

Farrington climbed to the seat, and his companion followed, and with a whirr of wheels and a splutter of sparks where the motor brush caught the rail, the little trolley drove forward at full speed.

They slowed at the gentle curves, increased speed again when any uninterrupted length of gallery gave them encouragement, and after five minutes' travel Farrington pulled back the lever and applied the brake. They stepped out into a huge chamber similar to that which they had just left. There was the inevitable lift set, as it seemed, in the heart of the rock, though in reality it was a bricked space. The two men entered and the lift rose noiselessly.

"We will go up slowly," whispered Fall in the other's ear; "it will not do to make a noise or to arouse any suspicions; we must not forget that we have T. B. Smith to deal with."

Farrington nodded, and presently the lift stopped of its own accord. They made no attempt to open whatever door was before them. They could hear voices: one was T. B.'s, and the other was unmistakably Poltavo's, and Poltavo was speaking.

Poltavo was offering in his eager way to betray the men who sat in the darkness listening to his treachery. They heard the motor-car's arrival outside, and presently T. B.'s voice announcing his temporary retirement. They heard the slam of the door, and the key click in the lock, and then Dr. Fall stepped forward, pressed a spring in the rough woodwork in front of him and one of the panels of the room slid silently back.

Poltavo did not see his visitors until they stood over him, then he read in those hateful faces which were turned toward him an unmistakable forecast of his doom.

"What do you want?" he almost whispered.

"Do not raise your voice," said Farrington in the same tone, "or you are a dead man." He held the point of a knife at the other's throat.

"To where are you taking me?" asked Poltavo, ghastly white of face and shaking from head to foot.

"We are taking you to a place where your opportunity for betraying us will be a mighty small one," said Fall.

There was a horrible smile on his thin lips, and Poltavo, with a premonition of what awaited him beyond the tunnel, forgot the menacing knife at his throat and screamed.

Hands gripped him and strangled the cry as it escaped him. Something heavy struck him behind the ear and he lost consciousness. He awoke to find himself travelling smoothly along the rock gallery. He was half lying, half reclining on Fall's knees. He did not attempt to move; he knew now that he was in mortal peril of his life. No word was spoken when he was dragged roughly from the car, placed in another elevator and whirled upwards, emerging into a little chamber at the end of the underground corridor which ran beneath the Secret House.

A door was opened and he was thrust in without a word. He heard the clang of the steel door behind him, and the lights came on to show him that once again he was in the underground room where he had been confined before.

There was the table, there was the heavy chair, there in the far corner of the room was the barred entrance to the other elevator. Anyway he was free from the police; that was something. He was safe just so long as it suited the book of Farrington and his friend to keep him safe. What would they do? What excuse could he offer? They had overheard the conversation between himself and T. B., he knew that, and cursed his folly. He ought to have kept away from Moor Cottage. He knew there was something sinister about the place, but T. B. should have known that even better than he. Why had T. B. left him?

These and a thousand other thoughts shot through his mind as he paced the vaulted apartment. They were in no hurry to feed him. He had almost forgotten what time it was; whether it was day or night in that underground vault into which no ray of sunlight ever penetrated. They had left him with the handcuffs on his wrists; they would come and relieve him of these encumbrances. What were their plans with him? He felt his pockets carefully. T. B. had taken away the only weapon he had had, and for the first time for many years Count Poltavo was unarmed.

His heart was beating with painful rapidity and his breath came laboriously. He was terror-stricken. He turned to find the door through which he had come, and to his surprise he could not see it. So far as he could detect, the stone wall ran without a break from one end of the apartment to the other. Escape could not lie that way; of that he was satisfied. There was nothing to do but to wait, with whatever patience he could summon, to discover their plans. He did not doubt that he was to suffer. He had forfeited all right to their confidence, but if this was to be the only consequence of his ill-doing he was not greatly worried. Count Poltavo, as he had boasted before in this identical room, had been in some tight corners and had faced death in many strange and terrible guises, but the inevitability of doom was never so impressed upon his mind as it was at this moment when he lay guarded by a hundred secret forces in the tomb of the Secret House.

He had one hope, a faint one, that T. B. would discover the method of his exit from the room in Moor Cottage and would track him here.

Evidently the occupants of the Secret House had the same fear, for even here, in the quietness of his underground prison, Poltavo could hear strange whining noises, rumbling, and groaning and grinding, as though the whole of the house were changing its construction.

He had not long to wait for news. A corner lift came swiftly down and Fall stepped briskly towards his prisoner.

"T. B. Smith is in the house," he said, "and is making an inspection; he will be down here in a moment. In these circumstances I shall have to betray one of the secrets of this house." He caught the other roughly by the arm and half led, half dragged, him to a corner of the room. Handcuffed as he was, Poltavo could offer no resistance. Dr. Fall apparently only touched one portion of the wall, but he must have moved, either with his foot or with his hand, some particularly powerful spring, for a section of the stone wall swung backwards revealing a black gap.

"Get in there," said Fall, and pushed him into the darkness.

A few moments later T. B. Smith, accompanied by three detectives, inspected the room which Poltavo had left. There was no sign of the man, no evidence of his having so recently been an occupant of his prison house. For an interminable time Poltavo stood in the darkness. He found he was in a small cell-like apartment with apparently no outlet save that through which he had come.

He was able to breathe without difficulty, for the perfect system of ventilation throughout the dungeons of the Secret House had been its architect's greatest triumph.

It seemed hours that he waited there, though in reality it was less than twenty minutes after his entrance that the door swung open again and he was called out.

Farrington was in the room now, Farrington with his trusty lieutenant, and behind them the one-eyed Italian desperado whom Poltavo remembered seeing in the power house one day, when he had been allowed the privilege of inspection.

Some slight change had been made in the room since he was there last. Poltavo's nerves were in such a condition that he was sensitive to this variation. He saw now what the change was. The table had been drawn back leaving the chair where it was fixed.

Yes, it was a fixed chair, he remembered that and wondered why it had been screwed to the wood block floor. Dr. Fall and the engineer grasped him roughly and hurried him across the room, thrusting him into the chair.

"What are you going to do?" asked Poltavo, white as death.

"That you shall see."

Deftly they strapped him to the chair; his wrists and elbows were securely fastened to the arms, and his ankles to the legs of the massive piece of furniture.

From where he sat Poltavo confronted Farrington, but the big man's mask-like face did not move, nor his eyes waver as he surveyed his treacherous prisoner. Then Fall knelt down and did something, and Poltavo heard the ripping and tearing of cloth.

They were slitting up each trouser leg, and he could not understand why.

"Is this a joke?" he asked with a desperate attempt at airiness.

No reply was made. Poltavo watched his captors curiously. What was the object of it all? The two men busy at the chair lifted a number of curious-looking objects from the floor; they clamped one on each wrist, and he felt the cold surface of some instrument pressing against each calf. Still he did not realize the danger, or the grim determination of these men whose secret he would have betrayed.

"Mr. Farrington," he appealed to the big man, "let us have an understanding. I have played my game and lost."

"You have indeed," said Farrington.

They were the first words he had spoken.

"Give me enough to get out of the country," Poltavo appealed, "just the money that I have in my pocket, and I promise you that I will never trouble you again."

"My friend," said Farrington, "I have trusted you too long. You forced yourself upon me when I did not desire you, you thwarted me at every turn, you betrayed me whenever it was possible to betray me, or whenever it was to your advantage to do so, and I am determined that you shall have no other chance of doing me an injury."

"What is this foolery?" asked Poltavo, in a mixture of blind fear and rage. They had unlocked the handcuffs and taken them off him, and now for the first time Poltavo noticed that the curious bronze clamps on his wrists were attached by thick green cords to a plug in the wall.

He shrieked aloud as he saw this, and the full horror of the situation flashed upon him.

"My God," he screamed, "you are not going to kill me?"

Farrington nodded slowly.

"We are going to kill you painlessly, Poltavo," he said. "It was your life or ours. We do not desire to cause you unnecessary suffering, but here is the end of the adventure for you, my friend."

"You are not going to electrocute me?" croaked the man in the chair, in a hoarse cracked voice. "Don't say that you are going to electrocute me, Farrington! It is diabolical, it is terrible. Give me a chance of life! Give me a pistol, give me a knife, but fight me fair. Treat me as you will; hand me to the police, anything but this; for God's sake, Farrington, don't do this!"

The doctor reached down and lifted a leather helmet from the floor and placed it gently over the doomed man's head.

"Don't do it, Farrington." Poltavo's muffled voice came painfully from behind the leather screen. "Don't! I swear I will not betray you."

Farrington made a little signal and the doctor walked to the wall and placed his hand upon a black switch.

"I will not betray you," said the man in the chair in hollow tones. "Give me a chance. I will not tell them anything that you——"

He did not speak again, for the black switch had been pressed down and death came with merciful swiftness.

They stood watching the figure. A slight quivering of the hands and then Farrington nodded and the doctor turned the switch over again.

Rapidly they unfastened the straps, and the limp thing which was once human, with a brain to think and a capacity for life and love, slipped out of the chair in an inanimate heap upon the ground.

So passed Ernesto Poltavo, an adventurer and a villain, in the prime of his life.

Farrington looked down upon the body with sombre eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

He had opened his mouth to speak and Fall had walked to the switchboard and was about to put the deadly apparatus out of gear, when a sharp voice made them both turn.

"Hands up!" it said.

The stone door, through which Poltavo had passed to his doom from the corridor without, was wide open, and in the doorway stood T. B. and a little behind him Ela, and in T. B.'s hand was a pistol.



CHAPTER XX

T. B. Smith's inspection of the Secret House had yielded nothing satisfactory; he had not expected that it would; he was perfectly satisfied that the keen, shrewd brains which dominated the menage would remove any trace there was of foul play.

"Where now?" asked Ela, as they turned out of the house.

"Back to Moor Cottage," said T. B., climbing into the car. "I am certain that we are on the verge of our big discovery. There is a way out of the cottage by some underground chamber, a way by which first Lady Constance and then Poltavo were smuggled, and if it is necessary I am going to smash every panel in those two ground floor rooms, but I will find the way in to Mr. Farrington's mystery house."

For half an hour the two men were engaged in the room from which Poltavo had been taken. They probed with centre bits and gimlets into every portion of the room.

The first discovery that they made was that the oaken panels of the chamber were backed with sheet iron or steel.

"It is a hopeless job; we shall have to get another kind of smith here to tear down all the panellings," said T. B., lighting the gloom of his despair with a little flash of humour.

He fingered the tiny locket absently and opened it again.

"It is absurd," he laughed helplessly. "Here is the solution in these simple words, and yet we brainy folk from the Yard cannot understand them!"

"God sav the Keng!" said Ela ruefully. "I wonder how on earth that is going to help us."

A gasp from T. B. made him turn his face to his chief.

T. B. Smith was pointing at the piano. In two strides he was across the room, and sitting on the stool he lifted the cover and struck a chord. The instrument sounded a little flat and apparently had not received the attention of a tuner for some time.

"I am going to play 'God save the King,'" said T. B. with a light in his eyes, "and I think something is going to happen."

Slowly he pounded forth the familiar tune; from beginning to end he played it, and when he had finished he looked at Ela.

"Try it in another key," suggested Ela, and again T. B. played the anthem. He was nearing the last few bars when there was a click and he leapt up. One long panel had disappeared from the side of the wall. For a moment the two men looked at one another. They were alone in the house, although a policeman was within call. The main force was gathered in the vicinity of the Secret House.

T. B. flashed the light of his indispensable and inseparable little electric lamp into the dark interior.

"I will go in first and see what happens," he said.

"I think we will both go together," said Ela grimly.

"There is a switch here," said T. B.

He pulled it down and a small lamp glowed, illuminating a tiny lift cage.

"And here I presume are the necessary controlling buttons," said T. B., pointing to a number of white discs; "we will try this one."

He pressed the button and instantly the cage began to fall. It came to a standstill after a while and the men stepped out.

"Part of the old working," said T. B.; "a very ingenious idea."

He flashed his lamp over the walls to find the electrical connection. They were here, as they were at the other end, perfectly accessible. An instant later the long corridor was lighted up.

"By heavens," said T. B. admiringly, "they have even got an underground tramway; look here!"

At this tiny terminus there were two branches of rails and a car was in waiting. A few minutes later T. B. Smith had reached the other end of the mine gallery and was seeking the second elevator.

"Here we are," he said—"everything run by electricity. I thought that power house of Farrington's had a pretty stiff job, and now I see how heavy is the load which it has to carry. Step carefully into this," he continued, "and make a careful note of the way we are going. I think we must be about a hundred feet below the level of the earth; just gauge it roughly as we go up. Here we go."

He pressed a button and up went the lift. They passed out of the little mine chamber, carefully propping back the swing door, and made their way along the corridor.

"This looks like an apartment," said T. B., as he stopped before a red-painted steel door in one of the walls. He pressed it gently, but it did not yield. He made a further examination, but there was no keyhole visible.

"This is either worked by a hidden spring or it does not work at all," he said in a low voice.

"If it is a spring," said Ela, "I will find it."

His sensitive hands went up and down the surface of the door and presently they stopped.

"There is something which is little larger than a pin hole," he said. He took from his pocket a general utility knife and slipped out a thin steel needle. "Pipe cleaners may be very useful," he said, and pressed the long slender bodkin into the aperture. Instantly, and without sound, the door opened.

T. B. was the first to go in, revolver in hand. He found himself in a room which, even if it were a prison, was a well-disguised prison. The walls were hung with costly tapestry, the carpet under foot was thick and velvety and the furniture which garnished the room was of a most costly and luxurious description.

"Lady Constance!" gasped T. B. in surprise.

A woman who was sitting in a chair near the reading lamp rose quickly and turned her startled gaze to the detective.

"Mr. Smith," she said, and ran towards him. "Oh, thank God you have come!"

She grasped him by his two arms; she was half hysterical in that moment of her release, and was babbling an incoherent string of words; a description of her capture—her fear—her gratitude—all in an inextricably confused rush of half completed phrases.

"Sit down, Lady Constance," said T. B. gently; "collect yourself and try to remember—have you seen Poltavo?"

"Poltavo?" she said, startled into coherence. "No, is he here?"

"He is somewhere here," said T. B. "I am seeking for him now. Will you stay here or will you come with us?"

"I would rather come with you," she said with a shiver.

They passed through the door together.

"Do all these doors open upon rooms similar to this?" asked T. B.

"I believe there are a number of underground cells," she answered in a whisper, "but the principal one is that which is near." She pointed to a red-painted door some twenty paces away from the one from which they were emerging. There was another pause whilst Ela repeated his examination of the door.

Apparently they all worked on the pick system, a method which medieval conspirators favoured, and which the Italian workmen probably imported from the land of their birth; a land which has given the world the Borgias and the Medicis and the Visconti.

"Stay here," said T. B. in a low voice, and Lady Constance shrank back against the wall.

Ela pressed in his little needle and again the result was satisfactory. The door opened slowly and T. B. stepped in.

He stood for a moment trying to understand all that the terrible scene signified. The limp body on the floor; the two remorseless men standing close by; Farrington with folded arms and his eye glowering down upon the dead man at his feet. Fall at the switchboard.

Then T. B.'s revolver rose swiftly.

"Hands up!" he said.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the room was plunged in darkness, his companion was flung violently backward as the electrical control came into operation and the door slammed in Ela's face. He pressed it without avail. He brought to his aid the little needle, but this time the lock would not move.

Ela's face went chalk white.

"My God!" he gasped, "they've got T. B.!"

He stood for a moment in indecision. He had visualized the scene and knew what fate would befall his chief.

"Back to the gallery," he said harshly, and led the way, holding the woman's arm in support. He found his way without difficulty to the lift, sprang into it, after Lady Constance, and pressed the button.... Now they were speeding along the sparking rail ... now they were in the lift rising swiftly to the room in Moor Cottage. T. B.'s car was outside.

"You had better come with me," said Ela quickly.

Lady Constance jumped into the car after him.

"To the Secret House," said Ela to the chauffeur, and as the car drove forward he turned to the woman at his side.

"I will put you amongst your friends in a few moments," he said; "at present I dare not risk the loss of a second."

"But what will they do?"

"I pretty well know what they will do," said Ela grimly. "Farrington is playing his last hand, and T. B. Smith is to be his last victim."

In the darkness of the underground chamber T. B. faced his enemies, striving to pierce the gloom, his finger in position upon the delicate trigger of his automatic pistol.

"Do not move," he said softly; "I will shoot without any hesitation."

"There is no need to shoot," said the suave voice of the doctor; "the lights went out, quite by accident, I assure you, and you and your friends have no need to fear."

T. B. groped his way along the wall, his revolver extended. In the gloom he felt rather than saw the bulky figure of the doctor and reached out his hand gingerly.

Then something touched the outstretched palm, something that in ordinary circumstances might have felt like the rough points of a bass broom. T. B. was flung violently backwards and fell heavily to the ground.

"Get him into the chair quick," he heard Farrington's voice say. "That was a good idea of yours, doctor."

"Just a sprayed wire," said Dr. Fall complacently; "it is a pretty useful check upon a man. You took a wonderful assistant when you pressed electricity to your aid, Farrington."

The lights were all on now, and T. B. was being strapped to the chair. He had recovered from the shock, but he had recovered too late. In the interval of his unconsciousness the body of Poltavo had been removed out of his sight. They were doing to him all that they had done to Poltavo. He felt the electrodes at his calf and on his wrists and clenched his teeth, for he knew in what desperate strait he was.

"Well, Mr. Smith," said Farrington pleasantly, "I am afraid you have got yourself into rather a mess. Where is the other man?" he asked quickly. He looked at Fall, and the doctor returned his gaze.

"I forgot the other man," said Fall slowly; "in the corridor outside." He went to the invisible door and it opened at his touch. He was out of the room a few minutes, and returned looking old and drawn.

"He has got away," he said; "the woman has gone too."

Farrington nodded.

"What does he matter?" he asked roughly; "they know as much as they are likely to know. Put the control on the door."

Fall turned over a switch and the other renewed his attention to T. B.

"You know exactly how you are situated, Mr. Smith," said Farrington, "and now I am going to tell you exactly how you may escape from your position."

"I shall be interested to learn," said T. B. coolly, "but I warn you before you tell me that if my escape is contingent upon your own, then I am afraid I am doomed to dissolution."

The other nodded.

"As you surmise," he said, "your escape is indeed contingent upon mine and that of my friends. My terms to you are that you shall pass me out of England. I know you are going to tell me that you have not the power, but I am as well acquainted with the extraordinary privileges of your department as you are. I know that you can take me out of the Secret House and land me in Calais to-morrow morning, and there is not one man throughout the length and breadth of England who will say you nay. I offer you your life on condition that you do this, otherwise——"

"Otherwise?" asked T. B.

"Otherwise I shall kill you," said Farrington briefly, "just as I killed Poltavo. You are the worst enemy I have and the most dangerous. I have always marked you down as one whose attention was to be avoided, and I shall probably kill you with less compunction because I know that but for you I should not have been forced to live this mad dog's life that has been mine for the past few months. You will be interested, Mr. Smith, to learn that you nearly had me once. You see the whole wing of the house in which Mr. Moole lies," he smiled, "works on the principle of a huge elevator. The secret of the Secret House is really the secret of perfectly arranged lifts; that is to say," he went on, "I can take my room to the first floor and I can transport it to the fourth floor with greater ease than you can carry a chair from a basement to an attic."

"I guessed that much," said T. B. "Do you realize that you might have made a fortune as a practical electrician?"

Farrington smiled.

"I very much doubt it," he said coolly; "but my career and my wasted opportunities are of less interest to me at the moment than my future and yours. What are you going to do?"

T. B. smiled.

"I am going to do nothing," he said cheerfully, "unless it be that I am going to die, for I can imagine no circumstance or danger that threatens me or those I love best which would induce me to loose upon the world such dangerous criminals as yourself and your fellow-murderers. Your time has come, Farrington. Whether my time comes a little sooner or later does not alter the fact that you are within a month of your own death, whether you kill me or whether you let me go."

"You are a bold man to tell me that," said Farrington between his teeth.

T. B. saw from a glance at the blanched faces of the men that his words had struck home.

"If you imagine you can escape," T. B. went on unconcernedly, "why, I think you are wasting valuable time which might be better utilized, for every moment of delay is a moment nearer to the gallows for both of you."

"My friend, you are urging your own death," said Fall.

"As to that," said T. B., shrugging his shoulders, "I have no means of foretelling, because I cannot look into the future any more than you, and if it is the will of Providence that I should die in the execution of my duty, I am as content to do so as any soldier upon the battle-field, for it seems to me," he continued half to himself, "that the arrayed enemies of society are more terrible, more formidable, and more dangerous than the massed enemies that a soldier is called upon to confront. They are only enemies for a period; for a time of madness which is called 'war'; but you in your lives are enemies to society for all time."

Fall exchanged glances with his superior, and Farrington nodded.

The doctor leant down and picked up the leather helmet, and placed it with the same tender care that he had displayed before over the head of his previous victim.

"I give you three minutes to decide," said Farrington.

"You are wasting three minutes," said the muffled voice of T. B. from under the helmet.

Nevertheless Farrington took out his watch and held it in his unshaking palm; for the space of a hundred and eighty seconds there was no sound in the room save the loud ticking of the watch.

At the end of that time he replaced it in his pocket.

"Will you agree to do as I ask?" he said.

"No," was the reply with undiminished vigour.

"Let him have it," said Farrington savagely.

Dr. Fall put up his hand to the switch, and as he did so the lights flickered for a moment and slowly their brilliancy diminished.

"Quick," said Farrington, and the doctor brought the switch over just as the lights went out.

T. B. felt a sharp burning sensation that thrilled his whole being and then lost consciousness.



CHAPTER XXI

There was a group of police officers about the gates of the Secret House as the car bearing Ela and the woman came flying up.

The detective leapt out.

"They have taken T. B.," he said. He addressed a divisional inspector, who was in charge of the corps.

"Close up the cordon," he went on, "and all men who are armed follow me."

He raced up the garden path, but it was not toward the Secret House that he directed his steps; he made a detour through a little plantation to the power house.

A man stood at the door, a grimy-faced foreign workman who scowled at the intruders. He tried to pull the sliding doors to their place, but Ela caught the blue-coated man under the jaw and sent him sprawling into the interior.

In an instant the detective was inside, confronting more scowling workmen. A tall, good-looking man of middle age, evidently a decent artisan, was in control, and he came forward, a spanner in his hand, to repel the intruders.

But the pistol Ela carried was eloquent of his earnestness.

"Stand back," he said. "Are you in charge?"

The detective spoke Italian fluently.

"What does this mean, signor?" asked the foreman.

"It means that I give you three minutes to stop the dynamo."

"But that is impossible," said the other. "I cannot stop the dynamo; it is against all orders."

"Stop that dynamo," hissed Ela between his teeth. "Stop it at once, or you are a dead man."

The man hesitated, then walked to the great switchboard, brilliant with a score of lights.

"I will not do it," he said sulkily. "There is the signal; give it yourself."

A little red lamp suddenly glowed on the marble switchboard.

"What is that?" asked Ela.

"That is a signal from the lower rooms," said the man sullenly; "they want more power."

Ela turned on the man with a snarl, raised his pistol and there was murder in his eyes.

"Mercy!" gasped the Italian, and putting out his hand he grasped a long red switch marked 'Danger' and pulled it over. Instantly all the lights in the power house went dim, and the great whirling wheels slowed down and stopped. Only the light of day illuminated the power house. Ela, standing on the controlling platform, wiped his perspiring face with the back of a hand which was shaking as though with ague.

"I wonder if I was in time?" he muttered.

The big machinery hall was now alive with detectives.

"Take charge of every man," Ela ordered; "see that nobody touches any of these switches. Arrest stokers and keep them apart. Now you," he said, addressing the foreman in Italian, "you seem a decent fellow, and I am going to give you a chance of earning not only your freedom, but a substantial reward. I am a police officer and I have come to make an inspection of this house. You spoke of the lower rooms—do you know the way there?"

The man hesitated.

"The lift cannot work, signor," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "now that the electric current is stopped."

"Is there no other way?"

Again the man hesitated.

"There are stairs, signor," he stammered after a while, then continued rapidly: "If this is a crime and Signor Moole is an anarchist, I know nothing of it, I swear to you by the Virgin. I am an honest man from Padua, and I have no knowledge of such things as your Excellency speaks about."

Ela nodded.

"I am willing to believe that," he said in a milder tone. "Now, my friend, you shall undo a great deal of mischief that has been done by showing me the way to the underground rooms."

"I am at your service," said the man helplessly. "I call all men to witness that I have done my best to carry out the instructions which the padrone has given me."

He led the way out of the power house through a door which led to a large stretch of private garden behind the main building, across a well-kept lawn to an area basement which ran the whole length of the house.

In this, at the far end, was a door, and the man opened it with a key upon a bunch which he took from his pocket. They had to pass through two more doors before they came to the spiral staircase which led down into the gloomy depths beneath the Secret House.

To Ela's surprise they were illuminated and he feared that against his orders the dynamo had been restarted, but the man reassured him.

"They are from the storage batteries," he said. "There is sufficient to afford light all over the house, but not enough to give power."

The steps seemed never ending. Ela counted eighty-seven before at last they came to a landing from which one door opened. The detective noticed that the man employed the same method of entering here as he himself had done. A bodkin slipped into an almost invisible hole produced the mechanical unsealing of this doorway.

Ela stepped through the open door. Two lights burned dimly; he saw the strapped figure in the chair and his heart sank. He went forward at a run and Farrington was the first to hear him.

The big man turned, a revolver in his hand. There was a quick deafening report, and another, and a third. Ela stood up unmoved, unharmed, but Farrington, rocking as he staggered to the table, slid to the ground with a bullet through his heart.

"Take that man," said Ela, and in an instant Fall was handcuffed and secure.

Then Ela heard a silent sneeze and through the smoke from the revolver shots the voice of T. B. Smith, saying: "A pity it takes such ill-smelling powder to send our clever friend on his long journey."

THE END