ack figures converging on the
house. A sedan stood in the driveway, its spotlight sweeping the house.

"The police!"

Cold sweat stood out on Mark's forehead as he gasped the exclamation.
But he did not hesitate. Keeping to the shadows, he headed for the
still-open gate through which the car had come.

The iron fence loomed close. He ran along it in a half-crouch.

"Hey, you! Stick 'em up or we shoot!"

For the barest fraction of a second Mark halted in mid-stride. The
spotlight was swinging toward him.

But the gate was only a dozen yards away. He made for it in a mad rush.
Bullets sang about him. Slugs ricocheted from the iron spikes. But on he
went. Lunged through the opening and into the shadowy fastnesses across
the street.

The return to Professor Duchard's laboratory was a nightmare of mad
dashes and narrow escapes. Squad cars seemed everywhere. Police always
on his heels.

And then--

He was slipping through the door, alive and unharmed, with the picture
clasped under his arm!

The professor jerked about from the task of hanging a new and bigger
time mirror on the easel. It still was shrouded with a heavy cloth.

"It's ready?"

The scientist nodded.

"Yes. I got special co-operation from an old friend who is manager of a
glass works." He paused. "And you?"

Mark waved the Jerbette.

"I got the picture," he clipped, "but we're going to have to work fast.
The police probably are on their way here now. Vance caught me in the
act of stealing the painting." He still was panting from the exertion of
his race here.

"Then clip it to this frame quickly!" The professor indicated an
arrangement like an oversize drawing board. He hurried to assist the
younger man. In a moment their work was done.

There, at last, was "Elaine Duchard's Escape." Mark for the first time
studied it carefully.

* * * * *

Four people were shown. The central figure was that of the first Elaine
Duchard. She was in the act of entering a carriage, her lovely face
alive with panic. Beside her a young man--his face in the shadows--held
a horse pistol on another man. This second man's features were twisted
with hate; Mark thought he never had seen such malevolent eyes.

"Baron Morriere" the professor explained. "The younger man is Jacques
Rombeau, Elaine Duchard's lover."

Mark nodded. Turned to scrutinize a third man, unidentifiable, who was
clambering to the driver's seat of the coach.

Th