tened to get the upper hand.
Then--

"Two days ago," she almost whispered, "he set out--to ... get the
slipper!"

"To steal it?"

"To steal it!"

"From Hassan of Aleppo?"

I could scarcely believe that any man, single-handed, could have
had the hardihood to attempt such a thing.

"From Hassan, yes!"

I faced her, amazed, incredulous.

"Dexter had suffered mutilation, he knew that the Hashishin sought
his life for his previous attempts upon the relic of the Prophet,
and yet he dared to venture again into the very lions' den?"

"He did, Mr. Cavanagh, two days ago. And--"

"Yes?" I urged, as gently as I could, for she was shaking pitifully.

"He never came back!"

The words were spoken almost in a whisper. She clenched her hands
and leapt from the chair, fighting down her grief and with such a
stark horror in her beautiful eyes that from my very soul I longed
to be able to help her.

"Mr. Cavanagh" (she had courage, this bewildering accomplice of a
cracksman), "I know the house he went to! I cannot hope to make you
understand what I have suffered since then. A thousand times I have
been on the point of going to the police, confessing all I knew, and
leading them to that house! O God! if only he is alive, this shall
be his last crooked deal--and mine! I dared not go to the police,
for his sake! I waited, and watched, and hoped, through two such
nights and days ... then I ventured. I should have gone mad if I
had not come here. I knew you had good cause to hate, to detest me,
but I remembered that you had a great grievance against Hassan. Not
as great, O heaven! not as great as mine, but yet a great one. I
remembered, too, that you were the kind of man--a woman can come
to..."

She sank back into the chair, and with her fingers twining and
untwining, sat looking dully before her.

"In brief," I said, "what do you propose?"

"I propose that we endeavour to obtain admittance to the house of
Hassan of Aleppo--secretly, of course, and all I ask of you in
return for revealing the secret of its situation is--"

"That I let Dexter go free?"

Almost inaudibly she whispered: "If he lives!"

Surely no stranger proposition ever had been submitted to a
law-abiding citizen. I was asked to connive in the escape of a
notorious criminal, and at one and the same time to embark upon an
expedition patently burglarious! As though this were not enough,
I was invited to beard Hassan of Aleppo, the most dr