out of the country now, and go abroad, the danger would be
averted. Beatrice began to see her way to manage the thing.

"I will do what I can," she said. "You have that L500 intact? Very good.
But there are some things that I am bound to tell you. People who are in
a position to know, say that your mining concessions are very valuable
indeed."

"Worth absolutely nothing," Sir Charles said. "Tried it before. Besides,
if they were worth a lot of money, it is impossible to work the mine.
The country is too disturbed and dangerous for anything of that kind.
Besides, I have sold the concessions, and there is an end of it. Even
without a business mind you can see that."

"All the same, I feel pretty sure that I am right," Beatrice said. "My
dear father, you have been the victim of a strange conspiracy. You had
not taken too much wine that night, but you were drugged by some mineral
or vegetable in such a manner that the next day you were taken for dead.
I did not know that fact till I was married; indeed, the news was kept
from me and brought to me at church. The man whom you regard as your
benefactor wanted certain papers of yours, and the doctor, Bentwood, was
going to do the drugging. It was done too well; you were regarded as
dead. Then, for some reason or other, probably because it was necessary
for you to sign certain papers--your body was stolen, and you were
taken, still in a state like death, to the house of Carl Sartoris at
Wandsworth."

"God bless my soul, you don't really mean it?" Sir Charles cried.

"Indeed I do," Beatrice went on. "This Bentwood is a doctor who is an
expert in the miracles and the hocus pocus of the East. The drug they
administered to you is not known in England; the thing has never been
seen here. I understand that they could have kept you in a state of
suspended animation as long as they pleased. But they desired to see you
in the flesh again so that you could sign that paper relating to those
mines."

"I signed the paper this very morning," Sir Charles cried. "But I don't
understand it all. Begin at the beginning and tell me all over again."

Beatrice did so, but it was a long time before her father appeared to
comprehend. When he did so he was utterly incapable of seeing what Carl
Sartoris had had in his mind.

"I can see that they didn't want to murder me," he said. "A
_post-mortem_ would have prevented that part of the scheme that required
my signature--hence the daring theft of