s that great riches were yet to be his, he sat down on
that bed and began to write a few lines in his illiterate way to
that mother before wholly undressing and getting between the
sheets. The mark on his palm is a clear proof that when the
powder suddenly descended upon him he involuntarily closed his hand
on that letter and the perspiration transferred to his flesh the
shape of the scrawl upon which it rested. Pardon? How did I know
through that scrawl that I was really on the track, and that it
was the Bareva Reef that was at the bottom of the whole game? My
dear Mr. Narkom, I won't insult your intelligence by explaining
that. All you have to do is to turn that tracing upside down and
look _through_ it--or at it in a mirror--and you'll have the answer
for yourself. What's that? The parcel the girl gave Edgburn to
carry out on the pretext of taking it to an orphanage? Oh, that
was how they were slowly getting rid of the victims' clothes.
Cutting them up into little pieces and throwing them into the
river, I suppose, or if not----"

He stopped suddenly, his ear caught by a warning sound; then turned
in his seat and glanced through the little window at the back of the
limousine.

"I thought as much," he said, half aloud; then leaned forward,
caught up the pipe of the speaking tube, and signalled Lennard. "Look
sharp--taxi following us!" he said. "Put on a sudden spurt--that chap
will increase speed to keep pace with us--then pull up sharp and
let the other fellow's impetus carry him by before he can help
himself. Out with the light, Mr. Narkom--out with it quick!"

Both Lennard and his master followed instructions. Of a sudden the
lights flicked out, the car leapt forward with a bound, then pulled
up with a jerk that shook it from end to end. In that moment the
taxi in the rear whizzed by them, and Narkom, leaning forward to
look as it flashed past, saw seated within it the figure of Count
Waldemar of Mauravania.

"By James! Did you see that, Cleek?" he cried, and switched round
and made a grab for Cleek's arm.

But Cleek was not there. His seat was empty, and the door beside it
was swinging ajar.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" exclaimed the superintendent, fairly
carried out of himself--for, even in his old Vanishing Cracksman's
days, when he had slipped the leash and eluded the police so often,
the man had not made a more adroit, more silent, more successful
getaway than this. "Of all the astonishing----! Gad, an