Caldegard. "But
I am convinced that I have found a means of releasing at least unwilling
slaves from that bondage."

"But what do you gain by telling us?" asked Dick.

"Secrecy," said Caldegard. "You and my daughter know now the importance
of my two years' work, and you cannot fail to see the danger of a rumour
that 'Professor Caldegard, we understand, has achieved an epoch-making
discovery in the history of science. An anodyne with more than all the
charms and few of the dangers of opium will bring comfort with a good
conscience to thousands of sufferers in this nerve-racked world.' Every
chemist in the country that knows my line of work will be searching in a
furious effort to forestall the new legislation by discovering and
putting on the market new synthetic opiates. There is not, perhaps, much
fear that chance shooting will achieve the actual bull's-eye of
Ambrotox. But there is a greater danger than commercial
rivalry--criminal! The illicit-drug interest is growing in numbers and
wealth. Every threat of so-called temperance legislation stimulates it.
We have lately heard much of crime as a policy. Soon, perhaps, the world
will learn with startled disgust, that crime went into trade two years
ago.

"There are men in every big city to whom thousands of pounds and the
lives of many hirelings would be a small price to pay for the half-sheet
of paper and the small bottle hidden in the safe in that alcove.

"Knowing a little," he concluded, turning to Dick, "you might have told
too much. Knowing everything, you will tell nothing at all."

There was a silence in the room, so heavy that it seemed long. And then,

"Some dope," said Dick Bellamy.

CHAPTER VI.

AMARYLLIS.

A little after noon on the following day, Amaryllis and Dick Bellamy,
followed by Gorgon with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, entered the
hall by the front door, clamouring for drinks, to find Caldegard
swearing over a telegram.

"What's the matter, dad?" she asked.

"Sir Charles Colombe," replied her father. "He will be deeply indebted
if I will call at the Home Office at one-thirty p.m. I should think he
would be! If the message had been sent in time I could have caught the
twelve thirty-five. It's a quarter past now, and it can't be done."

"Yes, it can," said Dick. "Grab your hat and tie it on, while I get my
car."

Randal, coming from his study, was in time to see the car vanish in a
cloud of dust.

"Where are they goi