lled it up with scarcely an effort. It was made
of a stout light wood, with short steel brackets affixed at intervals.

"Blood on this too," said Ela, then, to the constable who had come to
his ring, he jerked his orders rapidly: "Inspector on duty to surround
the office with all the reserve--'phone Cannon Row all men available to
circle Scotland Yard, and to take into custody a man with a cut
hand--'phone all stations to that effect."

"There's little chance of getting our friend," said T. B. He took up a
magnifying glass and examined the stains on the pad.

"Who was he?" asked Ela.

T. B. pointed to the stain.

"Montague," he said, briefly, "and he now knows the very thing I did not
wish him to know."

"And that is?"

T. B. did not speak for a moment. He stood looking down at the evidence
which the intruder had left behind.

"He knows how much I know," he said, grimly, "but he may also imagine I
know more--there are going to be developments."

CHAPTER IV

It was a bad night in London, not wild or turbulent, but swathed to the
eyes like an Eastern woman in a soft grey garment of fog. It engulfed
the walled canyons of the city, through which the traffic had roared all
day, plugged up the maze of dark side-streets, and blotted out the open
squares. Close to the ground it was thick, viscous, impenetrable, so
that one could not see a yard ahead, and walked ghostlike, adventuring
into a strange world.

Occasionally it dispersed. In front of the Jollity Theatre numbers of
arc-lights wrought a wavering mist-hung yellow space, into which a
constant line of vehicles, like monstrous shiny beetles, emerged from
the outer nowhere, disgorged their contents, and were eclipsed again.
And pedestrians in gay processional streamed across the rudy glistening
patch like figures on a slide.

Conspicuous in the shifting throng was a sharp-faced boy, ostensibly
selling newspapers, but with a keen eye upon the arriving vehicles.
Suddenly he darted to the curb, where an electric coupe had just drawn
up. A man alighted heavily, and turned to assist a young woman.

For an instant the lad's attention was deflected by the radiant vision.
The girl, wrapped in a voluminous cloak of ivory colour, was tall and
slim, with soft white throat and graceful neck; her eyes under shadowy
lashes were a little narrow, but blue as autumn mist, and sparkling now
with amusement.

"Watch your steps, auntie," she warned laughingly, as a plu