ed
woman told him of Kazmah's attempt to force her to lure Quentin Gray
into the drug coterie. Sir Lucien stood behind her chair, and the icy
reserve which habitually rendered his face an impenetrable mask deserted
him as the story of Rita's treatment at the hands of the Egyptian of
Bond Street was unfolded in all its sordid hideousness. Rita's soft,
musical voice, for which of old she had been famous, shook and wavered;
her pose, her twitching gestures, all told of a nervous agony bordering
on prostration or worse. Finally:

"He dare not refuse you!" she cried. "Ring him up and insist upon him
seeing me tonight!"

"I will see him, Rita."

She turned to him, wild-eyed.

"You shall not! You shall not!" she said. "I am going to speak to that
man face to face, and if he is human he must listen to me. Oh! I have
realized the hold he has upon me, Lucy! I know what it means, this
disappearance of all the others who used to sell what Kazmah sells. If
I am to suffer, he shall not escape! I swear it. Either he listens to me
tonight or I go straight to the police!"

"Be calm, little girl," whispered Sir Lucien, and he laid his hand upon
her shoulder.

But she leapt up, her pupils suddenly dilating and her delicate nostrils
twitching in a manner which unmistakably pointed to the impossibility of
thwarting her if sanity were to be retained.

"Ring him up, Lucy," she repeated in a low voice. "He is there. Now that
I have someone behind me I see my way at last!"

"There may, nevertheless, be a better way," said Sir Lucien; but he
added quickly: "Very well, dear, I will do as you wish. I have a little
cocaine, which I will give you."

He went out to the telephone, carefully closing the study door.

That he had counted upon the influence of the drug to reduce Rita to a
more reasonable frame of mind was undoubtedly the fact, for presently as
they proceeded on foot towards old Bond Street he reverted to something
like his old ironical manner. But Rita's determination was curiously
fixed. Unmoved by every kind of appeal, she proceeded to the appointment
which Sir Lucien had made--ignorant of that which Fate held in store for
her--and Sir Lucien, also humanly blind, walked on to meet his death.

PART THIRD--THE MAN FROM WHITEHALL

CHAPTER XXIII. CHIEF INSPECTOR KERRY RESIGNS

"Come in," said the Assistant Commissioner. The door opened and Chief
Inspector Kerry entered. His face was as fresh-looking, his attire as