twenty miles an hour."

- - -

Tyler and Bentley were near by when the car squealed to a stop before
the Hervey residence and a hatless, disheveled man leaped out almost
before the car stopped rolling.

"That's not Hervey," said Tyler. "That's his private secretary.
Something's up. It's time we took a hand in things."

Tyler and Bentley grasped the young man by the elbow.

"What's up?" demanded Tyler.

"It's Mr. Hervey, sir," panted the secretary. "It just happened. He's
been kidnaped!"

The secretary was a slight man, but fear had given him strength. He
almost dragged Tyler and Bentley off their feet as he strode on up the
walk leading to the home of Hervey.

"You'll scare his family half to death!" said Tyler.

"It'll have to come sometime, Tyler," said Bentley. "It might as well
be now. They'll have to know. We'll have to sit inactively from this
moment on. Tyler, there's nothing that can be done for Hervey. Barter
has scored. We couldn't catch him now to save ourselves from
perdition. But his next step will involve the Hervey menage. We'll
have to wait there for his next move."

Tyler and Bentley entered the vast gloomy structure of the
old-fashioned Hervey domicile on the heels of the frightened
secretary. Mrs. Hervey, a faded woman of sixty or so, met them at the
door. Her head was held high, her lips grimly drawn into a straight
line.

"So," she said evenly, "they've got Mr. Hervey. I begged him to take
those threats seriously. He's been either killed or kidnaped."

"Kidnaped," said Bentley, continuing brutally because of the courage
he saw in the old woman's face. "And that means he'll be dead within
the hour, if he isn't dead already. We've got to stay here for a few
hours, to await the next move of the madman calling himself the Mind
Master, in the hope that we can trace him when he makes his next
move."

Mrs. Hervey lifted her head still higher.

"We'll place no obstacles in your path, gentlemen," she said, "if you
are from the police. The family will confine itself to the upper
floors of the house."

- - -

Tyler and Bentley took possession of the living room. Outside a dozen
plain-clothes men were to patrol the grounds during the hours of
darkness.

Other men were at every adjacent street corner. A rat could not have
got through unobserved.

Tyler and Bentley took seats at a table facing the door. The police
car in which they had arrived stood at the curb,