in enough. The bond robbery had been brought to naught, thanks to
Martin Hewitt, and Henning was now useless. Worse, he might be caught,
or give himself up, and was thus a perpetual danger. And probably he
wanted money. This being so, it was a singular fact that at the inquest
the surgeon who had examined the wound gave it as his most positive
opinion that it had been self-inflicted. And it was inflicted with a
razor, Henning's own, as was very clearly proved after inquiry. For the
razor was found in the barn by the police, entangled with the blackened
frame of an old lantern. Here was still another puzzle; one to which the
final revelation of the mystery of the Red Triangle gave an answer, as
will be seen in due place.

THE CASE OF THE ADMIRALTY CODE

I

Quick on the heels of the case of the Burnt Barn followed the next of
the Red Triangle affairs. Indeed, the interval was barely two days. Mr.
Victor Peytral, it will be remembered, had declined to reveal to Hewitt
the addresses of the two houses in London which he had seen Mayes visit,
desiring to think the matter over for a few days first; but before any
more could be heard from him, news of another sort was brought by
Inspector Plummer.

It may give some clue to the period whereabout the whole mystery of the
Red Triangle began to be cleared up if I say that at the time of
Plummer's visit this country was on the very verge of war with a great
European State. It is a State with which the present relations of
England are of the friendliest description, and, since the dreaded
collision was happily averted, there is no need to particularise in the
matter now, especially as the name of the country with which we were at
variance matters nothing as regards the course of events I am to
relate. Though most readers will recognise it at once when I say that
the war, had it come to that, would have been a naval war of great
magnitude; and that during the time of tension swift but quiet
preparations were going forward at all naval depots, and movements and
dispositions of our fleet were arranged that extended to the remotest
parts of the ocean.

It was at the height of the excitement, and, as I have said, two days
after the return of Hewitt and myself from Throckham, when the case of
the Burnt Barn had been disposed of, that Detective-Inspector Plummer
called. I was in Hewitt's office at the time, having, in fact, called in
on my way to learn if he had heard mo