had, I
understood, been called to Switzerland on "business"--the nature of
which I could easily guess.

At the end of the month we were back in London again.

One evening I had dined at the Carlton with Lola, her father and
Madame, and the two ladies having gone off to the theater, he took me
round to the set of luxurious chambers he occupied in Half Moon
Street.

When we were alone together with our cigars, he suddenly said:

"I want you to go out for a run to-night--to Bristol."

"To Bristol! To-night?" I echoed.

"Yes. I want you to take the new 'A. C.' and get to the Clifton
Suspension Bridge by two o'clock to-morrow morning. There, in the
center of the bridge, you will await a stranger--an elderly hunchback
whose name is Morley Tarrant. He'll give you, as _bona fides_, the
word 'Mask.' When you meet him act upon his instructions. He is to be
trusted."

The tryst seemed full of suspicion, and I certainly did not like it.
The evening was bright and clear, and the run in the fast two-seater
would be enjoyable. But to meet a man who would give a password
savored too much of crookdom.

He quickly saw my hesitation, and added:

"Now, Hargreave, I ought not to conceal from you the fact that there
may be a trap. If so, you must evade it and escape at all costs. I
have enemies, you know--pretty fierce ones."

Again, for the hundredth time, I debated within myself whether I dare
cast myself adrift from the round-faced, prosperous-looking
cosmopolitan who sat before me so full of good humor and so fearless.

I had been cleverly inveigled into accepting the situation he had
offered me, but I had never dreamed that by accepting, I was throwing
in my lot with the most marvelously organized gang of evil-doers that
that world had ever known.

Other similar gangs blundered at one time or another and left
loopholes through which the police were able to attack them and break
them up. But Rudolph Rayne had flung his octopus-like tentacles so far
afield that he had actually attached to him--by fear of blackmail--an
eminent Counsel who appeared for the defense of any member of the
circle who happened to make a slip. That well-known member of the Bar
I will call Mr. Henry Moyser, a lawyer whose fame was of world-wide
repute, and who was employed for the defense in most of the really
great criminal trials.

I sat astounded when, by a side-wind, I was told that Mr. Moyser would
defend me if I were unlucky enough to be arr