re, ours is theirs! Oh, help him, save him, Mr. Cleek--for
his own sake--for mine--for France! Save him, and win my gratitude
forever!"

"That is a temptation that would carry me to the ends of the earth, Miss
Lorne. Tell me what the work is, and I will carry it through. What is
this incomprehensible thing of which both you and Baron de Carjorac have
spoken, this thing you allude to as 'The Red Crawl'?"

She gave a little shuddering cry and fell back a step, covering her face
with both hands.

"Oh!" she said, with a shiver of repulsion. "It is horrible--it is
necromancy beyond belief! Why, oh, why were we ever driven to that
horrible Chateau Larouge? Why could not fate have spared the Villa de
Carjorac? It could not have happened then!"

"Villa de Carjorac? That was the name of the baron's residence, I
believe. I remember reading in the newspapers some five or six weeks ago
that it was destroyed by fire, which originated--nobody knew how--in the
apartments of the late baroness in the very dead of the night. I thought
at the time it read suspiciously like the work of an incendiary,
although nobody hinted at such a thing. The Chateau Larouge I also have
a distinct memory of, as an old historic property in the neighbourhood
of St. Cloud. Speaking from past experience, I know that, although it is
in such a state of decay, and supposed to be uninhabitable, it has, in
fact, often been occupied at a period when the police and the public
believed it to be quite empty. Gentlemen of the Apache persuasion have
frequently made it a place of retreat. There is also an underground
passage, executed by those same individuals, which connects with the
Paris sewers. That, too, the police are unaware of. What can the ruined
Chateau Larouge possibly have to do with the affairs of the Baron de
Carjorac, Miss Lorne, that you connect them like this?"

"They have everything to do with them. The Chateau is no longer a ruin,
however. It was purchased, rebuilt, refitted by the Comtesse Susanne de
la Tour, Mr. Cleek, and she and her brother live there. So do we,
Athalie, Baron de Carjorac, and I. So, also, does the creature--the
thing--the abominable horror known as 'The Red Crawl.'"

"My dear Miss Lorne, what are you saying?"

"The truth, nothing but the truth!" she answered hysterically. "Oh, let
me begin at the beginning. You'll never understand unless I do. I'll
tell you in as few words as possible, as quickly as I can. It all began
las