as
he came to it. When he had reached the end, he turned and crawled up the
other side.

At the far end of the conservatory, he stood up with a baffled grunt. "I
know that you are in here," he said.

Something tickled the back of his neck. He whirled like a Dervish, but
found only a drooping, blood-red plant like nothing ever created by
nature confronting him.

"I am getting jumpy," Colonel Glinka growled. "A little jumpy in my
business is good, but too much is bad for the health." And he went,
straightway, and closed the back door of the conservatory and dragged a
heavy rack of trailing orchids in front of it, humming a furious little
march from _The Guardsman_ as he worked.

"You must know," he said loudly, "that I do not altogether believe you,
Stefanik, when you imply that you have abandoned this research. Nor will
they. For who, then, are these degenerate wretches who stand upon the
hills and gawk at us, and why must you feed them? I know that they were
not created by you, but it is possible that they are paid to be your
guinea pigs. Perhaps you are all in the pay of the British. Am I right?"

He listened. There was no answer.

Completing his examination of the conservatory, he entered the main
villa and searched it thoroughly, as he had been trained to do, looking
in every cupboard and closet and under the beds.

When he had exhausted these hiding places, he left by the front door and
closed it after him, with a narrow, jamming wedge that he had made of
half a lead pencil.

There were many places to hide in the garden, but Colonel Glinka took
them one by one, glancing behind him from time to time in order to make
certain that he was not being followed around and around the house in a
grim sort of Maypole dance.

"I know that you are out here, Comrade," he said.

Presently he had arrived back where he had started, sweating profusely,
and was about to retrace the entire circuit when he caught a glimpse of
something moving in the undergrowth of patchouli near the gate. He aimed
the Malacca cane and pressed a part of its handle with his thumb. A
bullet whined off the steel gatepost.

"Stop there, my friend!" he commanded.

Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar slowly rose from the bushes with his hands high
above his head.

"You got me, Joe," he said.

* * * * *

The gate was wide open; Stefanik's route of escape now painfully
obvious.

Colonel Glinka stared thoughtfully up at t