nized
the voice of Mr Babylon. You see, I didn't want to frighten you.

If I had bobbed up from behind the bottles and said "Booh!" you would
have had a serious shock. I wanted to think of a way of breaking my
presence gently to you. But you saved me the trouble, Dad. Was I really
breathing so loudly that you could hear me?'

The girl ended her strange recital, and there was a moment's silence
in the cellar. Racksole merely nodded an affirmative to her concluding
question.

'Well, Nell, my girl,' said the millionaire at length, 'we are much
obliged for your gymnastic efforts--very much obliged. But now, I think
you had better go off to bed. There is going to be some serious trouble
here, I'll lay my last dollar on that?'

'But if there is to be a burglary I should so like to see it, Dad,'
Nella pleaded. 'I've never seen a burglar caught red-handed.'

'This isn't a burglary, my dear. I calculate it's something far worse
than a burglary.'

'What?' she cried. 'Murder? Arson? Dynamite plot? How perfectly
splendid!'

'Mr Babylon informs me that Jules is in London,' said Racksole quietly.

'Jules!' she exclaimed under her breath, and her tone changed instantly
to the utmost seriousness. 'Switch off the light, quick!' Springing to
the switch, she put the cellar in darkness.

'What's that for?' said her father.

'If he comes back he would see the light, and be frightened away,' said
Nella. 'That wouldn't do at all.'

'It wouldn't, Miss Racksole,' said Babylon, and there was in his voice
a note of admiration for the girl's sagacity which Racksole heard with
high paternal pride.

'Listen, Nella,' said the latter, drawing his daughter to him in the
profound gloom of the cellar. 'We fancy that Jules may be trying to
tamper with a certain bottle of wine--a bottle which might possibly be
drunk by Prince Eugen. Now do you think that the man you saw might have
been Jules?'

'I hadn't previously thought of him as being Jules, but immediately you
mentioned the name I somehow knew that he was. Yes, I am sure it was
Jules.'

'Well, just hear what I have to say. There is no time to lose. If he
is coming at all he will be here very soon--and you can help.' Racksole
explained what he thought Jules' tactics might be. He proposed that if
the man returned he should not be interfered with, but merely watched
from the other side of the glass door.

'You want, as it were, to catch Mr Jules alive?' said Babylon,
who seemed rathe