margin left.

He hurried down the hall, flung open the door behind which his captive
lay, then recoiled, with mouth agape. The closet was empty!

"Alfred!" he called. "Alfred!" But his voice echoed lonesomely through
the empty rooms. Not a sound broke the silence. There on the floor lay
the handkerchief and the two tasseled curtain cords. He felt a chill of
apprehension, for unseen eyes were observing him, he was certain. With
that vindictive little ruffian at large, the situation altered; each
door might hide a menace, each moment add to his peril.

The thought of that rifled safe, and the consequences of discovery,
convinced Van Dam that this was no place for a respectable New York
society man, so he clapped on his mask and darted down the hall toward
the rear of the house.

Past the pantry and into the kitchen he fled, his precipitate haste
nearly causing him to collide with another masked figure that had just
entered from the garden. Instinctively the two men recoiled. Van Dam saw
that the stranger wore a black domino like his own, and that a white
gardenia was pinned over his heart--it was a twin to the flower that
reposed upon his own breast.

"Emile!" he exclaimed.

With a start the new-comer swept his mask downward, and simultaneously
he conjured an automatic revolver from some place of concealment. The
face that he exposed was not pleasant to look upon, for it was coarsened
by dissipation, and the eyes were both violent and furtive. Underneath
his heavy, passionate features, however, lay a marked resemblance to the
blind mother who had just left.

"Yes. I am Emile," he panted; then, with a snarl, he raised his weapon
until it bore upon Van Dam's breast. "And you are one of the gang, eh?"

"Here! Don't point that confounded thing at me. It might go off." Roly
brushed the mask from his own face, explaining, "I'm not one of the
gang; I'm a friend."

Emile eyed him intently before lowering his weapon. "I never saw you
before."

"Of course not. But--come. We've both got to get out of here."

"Indeed! I came to see my cousin Alfred. It is a little call I promised
him."

"I know everything; and, believe me, you have no time to lose."

"How do you come to know so much?" demanded Emile, suspiciously. "And
what is that?" With the muzzle of his weapon he indicated the waxen
white flower upon Roly's domino.

"There's no time to explain everything--but I know why you are here. The
old man has gone--"

"G