herself from setting out without a moment's delay
for the Gate House, which, I readily perceived, was the place to
which our strange venture was leading us.

I found something very stimulating in the reflection that, rash
though the expedition might be, and, viewed from whatever standpoint,
undeniably perilous, it promised to bring me to that secret
stronghold of deviltry where the sinister Hassan of Aleppo so
successfully had concealed himself.

The work of the modern journalist had many points of contact with
that of the detective; and since the murder of Professor Deeping I
had succumbed to the man-hunting fever more than once. I knew that
Scotland Yard had failed to locate the hiding-place of the
remarkable and evil man who, like an efreet of Oriental lore, obeyed
the talisman of the stolen slipper, striking down whomsoever laid
hand upon its sacredness. It was a novel sensation to know that,
aided by this beautiful accomplice of a rogue, I had succeeded where
the experts had failed!

Misgivings I had and shall not deny. If our scheme succeeded it
would mean that Deeping's murderer should be brought to justice.
If it failed-well, frankly, upon that possibility I did not dare to
reflect!

It must be needless for me to say that we two strangely met allies
were ill at ease, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. We
proceeded on our way in almost unbroken silence, and, save for a
couple of farm hands, without meeting any wayfarer, up to the time
that we reached the brow of the hill and had our first sight of the
Gate House lying in a little valley beneath. It was a small Tudor
mansion, very compact in plan and its roof glowed redly in the
rays of the now setting sun.

From the directions given by the host of the Vinepole it was
impossible to mistake the way or to mistake the house. Amid
well-wooded grounds it stood, a place quite isolated, but so
typically English that, as I stood looking down upon it, I found
myself unable to believe that any other than a substantial country
gentleman could be its proprietor.

I glanced at Carneta. Her violet eyes were burning feverishly, but
her lips twitched in a bravely pitiful way.

Clearly now my adventure lay before me; that red-roofed homestead
seemed to have rendered it all substantial which hitherto had been
shadowy; and I stood there studying the Gate House gravely, for it
might yet swallow me up, as apparently it had swallowed Earl Dexter.

There, amid t