o looked straight at
the cab. He let the paper flutter from his fingers, but he did not dare
glance back to see if the policeman had picked it up.

The cab halted in a dark side street off Lexington Avenue. A man stepped
from the shadows and waved his hand. They alighted and walked with an
unconcern that surprised Garth to the servants' entrance of a large
house. This Nora unlocked. They entered and waited in the alley while
one by one the four from the boat slipped through after them.

Garth understood what these numbers meant. In order that Nora, George,
and he might accomplish their task undisturbed, these men would bear to
each inmate of the house chloroform, or, under necessity, something more
permanently silencing.

Walking heavy-hearted through the alley at Nora's heels, one last
saving possibility occurred to Garth. Could this be another police
trick? It was likely that the inspector had denied him his full
confidence. Could Nora be on the same errand as himself, working for her
father?

When she had unlocked the house door he found himself brushing against
her in the hall. Impulsively he reached down and clasped her hand. But
her hand was like ice. She snatched it away. In her action and the sharp
intake of her breath he felt his doubts resolved.

Then he was flung into a stealthy, sure, and dreadful whirlpool of
action. He heard feline movements on the stairs, a muffled thud in the
darkness ahead, from the second floor a shrill cry, all at once
strangled and beaten back into the heavy silence.

He waited, panting. Upstairs someone rapped sharply three times. A
pocket lamp flashed ahead, throwing a white shaft against finely-grained
mahogany.

A hand in the shaft signalled him, and he crept forward until he
stumbled over a round, inert mass which lay just outside the room where
the white light searched the mahogany.

The light, wavering around to greet him, disclosed the obstacle. It was
a man, deftly bound, and bandaged about the mouth, the ears, the eyes.

"Shut the door."

Garth closed the door on this disturbing vision.

The mahogany formed the doors of a large and very wide cabinet. George
knelt in front of this, inserting slender, gleaming tools in the lock
with the adroitness of a watchmaker. To one side Nora crouched, playing
the light on his illicit undertaking.

George opened the doors and nodded to Garth. The light glowed now on the
sleek, steel belly of a safe; and, as Garth, a trifle