nd--where is Horbury!
Answer!--without lying. You devil!--I tell you I know--_know_! I have
seen Mrs. Carswell!"

Gabriel had moved a little as he went on speaking--moved nearer to his
nephew, still pointing the incriminating and accusing finger at him. And
Joseph had moved, too--backward. He was watching his uncle with a queer
expression. Neale saw the tip of his tongue emerge from his lips, as if
the lips had become dry, and he wanted to moisten them. And suddenly his
face changed, and Neale, closely watching him, saw his hand go quickly
to his breast pocket, and caught the gleam of a revolver....

Neale was a cricketer--of reputation and experience. On a felt-covered
stand close by him lay a couple of heavy spherical objects, fashioned of
some shining-surfaced metal and about the size of a cricket ball, which
he had previously noticed and handled in looking round. He snatched one
of them up now, and flung it hard and straight at Joseph Chestermarke,
intending to stun him. But for once in a way he missed his mark; the
missile crashed against the wall behind. And then came a great flash,
and the roar of all the world going to pieces, and a mighty lifting and
upheaving--and he saw and felt and knew no more.

CHAPTER XXX

WRECKAGE

The four people standing beneath the portico of the police-station
remained as if spell-bound for a full moment after the sudden flash and
the sudden roar. Betty Fosdyke unconsciously clutched at Lord
Ellersdeane's arm: Lord Ellersdeane spoke, wonderingly.

"Thunder?" he exclaimed. "Strange!"

Easleby turned sharply from Starmidge, who, holding by one of the
pillars, was staring towards the quarter of the Market-Place, from
whence the scream of dire fear had come.

"That's no thunder, my lord!" he said. "That's an explosion!--and a
terrible one, too! Are there any gasworks close at hand? It was
like----"

Polke came rushing out of the lobby behind them, followed by some of his
men. And at the same instant people began running along the pavements,
calling to each other.

"Did you hear that?" cried the superintendent excitedly. "An explosion!
Which direction?"

Starmidge suddenly started, as if from a reverie. He put up his hand and
wiped something from his cheek, and held the hand out to a shaft of
light which came from the open door behind them. A smear of blood lay
across his open palm.

"A splinter of falling glass," he said quietly. "Come on, all of you!
That was an