t it might all mean. And with that Mayes turned, and I saw that he
was about to make for the door I had entered by. I resolved he should
not pass me if I could prevent it, and I sprang up and seized my chair
in my left hand, shouting aloud for help as I did so.

Mayes came with a bound, and flung his lighted lamp full at my head. It
struck the chair and smashed to a thousand pieces, and in that instant
of time Mayes was on me. Plainly he had no weapon, or he would have used
it; but I was at disadvantage enough, with my right wrist chained to the
wall. I clung with all my might, and endeavoured to swing my enemy round
against the wall in order that I might clasp my hands about him, and I
shouted my loudest as I did it. But the chair and the broken glass
hampered me, and Mayes was desperate. The agony in my right wrist was
unbearable, and just as I was conscious of a rush of approaching feet a
heavy blow took me full in the face, and I felt Mayes rush over me while
I fell and hung from the wrist.

I had a stunned sense of lights and voices and general confusion, and
then I remembered nothing.

III

I came to myself on the floor of a lighted room, with Hewitt's face over
mine. My wrist seemed broken, though it was free, there was oil and
blood on my clothes, and in my left hand I still gripped a piece of
Mayes's coat.

"Stop him!" I cried. "He's gone by the stable! Have they got him?"

"No good, Brett," Hewitt answered soberly. "You did your best, but he's
gone, and Peytral after him!"

"Peytral?"

"Yes. He brought his own message to town. But see if you can stand up."

I was well enough able to do that, and, indeed, I had only fainted from
the pain of the strain on my wrist. Several policemen were in the room,
beside Hewitt and Plummer. Mayes's stronghold was in the hands of his
enemies.

Then I suddenly remembered.

"The Admiralty code!" I cried. "It was in the office desk. Have you got
it?"

"No," Hewitt answered. "Come, Plummer, up the ladder!"

Little time was lost in forcing Mayes's desk, and there the document was
found, grey cover, red tape and all intact. The police were left to make
a vigorous search for any possible copy, and the original was handed to
Plummer, as chief representative of the law present. He had been trapped
precisely as I had been, except that he had been led further, and shut
in a cellar as well as fastened by the wrist. Mayes, it seemed, had
wasted very little time in