when anything may be happening to Ruth!

"It's been hours since she was kidnapped. They may have taken her
anywhere, even outside of London by now. And instead of searching for
her, you sit here and talk gibberish about Doors!"

Inspector Campbell seemed unmoved by Ennis' passion. A bulky, almost
bald man, he looked up with his colorless, sagging face, in which his
eyes gleamed like two crumbs of bright brown glass.

"You're not helping me much by giving way to your emotions, Mr. Ennis,"
he said in his flat voice.

"Give way? Who wouldn't give way?" cried Ennis. "Don't you understand,
man, it's Ruth that's gone--my wife! Why, we were married only last week
in New York. And on our second day here in London, I see her whisked
into a limousine and carried away before my eyes! I thought you men at
Scotland Yard here would surely act, do something. Instead you talk
crazy gibberish to me!"

"Those words are _not_ gibberish," said Pierce Campbell quietly. "And I
think they're related to the abduction of your wife."

"What do you mean? How could they be related?"

The inspector's bright little brown eyes held Ennis'. "Did you ever hear
of an organization called the Brotherhood of the Door?"

Ennis shook his head, and Campbell continued, "Well, I am certain your
wife was kidnapped by members of the Brotherhood."

"What kind of an organization is it?" the young American demanded. "A
band of criminals?"

"No, it is no ordinary criminal organization," the detective said. His
sagging face set strangely. "Unless I am mistaken, the Brotherhood of
the Door is the most unholy and blackly evil organization that has ever
existed on this earth. Almost nothing is known of it outside its circle.
I myself in twenty years have learned little except its existence and
name. That ritual I just repeated to you, I heard from the lips of a
dying member of the Brotherhood, who repeated the words in his
delirium."

Campbell leaned forward. "But I know that every year about this time the
Brotherhood come from all over the world and gather at some secret
center here in England. And every year, before that gathering, scores of
people are kidnapped and never heard of again. I believe that all those
people are kidnapped by this mysterious Brotherhood."

"But what becomes of the people they kidnap?" cried the pale young
American. "What do they do with them?"

* * * * *

Inspector Campbell's bright brown eyes s