se two betrayed her
to me. Clodoche is a renegade Alsatian, a spy in the pay of the German
Government, and an old _habitue_ of 'The Inn of the Twisted Arm,' where
the Queen of the Apaches and her pals hold their frequent revels. I can
guess the remainder of your story now. You carried this news to the
Baron de Carjorac, and he, breaking down, confessed to you that he had
lost something."

"Yes, yes--a dreadful 'something,' Mr. Cleek: the horrible thing that
has been making life an agony to him ever since. On the night when that
abominable 'Red Crawl' first overcame him, there was upon his person a
most important document--a rough draft of the maps of fortification and
the plan of the secret defences of France, the identical document from
which was afterwards transcribed the parchment now deposited in the
secret archives of the Republic. When Baron de Carjorac recovered his
senses after his horrifying experience--"

"That document was gone?"

"Part of it, Mr. Cleek--thank God, only a part! If it had been the
parchment itself, no such merciful thing could possibly have happened.
But the paper was old, much folding and handling had worn the creases
through, and when, in his haste, the secret robber grabbed it, whilst
that loathsome creature held the old man down, it parted directly down
the middle, and he got only a vertical section of each of its many
pages."

"Victoria! 'And the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,'"
quoted Cleek. "So, then, the hirelings of the enemy have only got half
what they are after; and, as no single sentence can be complete upon a
paper torn like that, nothing can be made of it until the other half is
secured, and--our German friends are still 'up a gum-tree.' I know now
why the baron stayed on at the Chateau Larouge, and why 'The Red Crawl'
is preparing to pay him another visit to-night: he hoped, poor chap, to
find a clue to the whereabouts of the fragment he had lost; and that
thing is after the fragment he still retains. Well, it will be a long,
long day before either of those two fragments fall into German hands."

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, you think you can get the stolen paper back? You believe
you can outwit those dreadful people and save the Baron de Carjorac's
honour and his life?"

"Miss Lorne"--he took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips--"Miss
Lorne, I thank you for giving me the chance! If you will do what I ask
you, be where I ask you in two hours' time, so surely as w