ions, for no stranger came again to the
door. But last night a thing we had never counted upon happened. In the
dead of the night the unknown broke into the house--into the very
nursery itself--and but that Lady Chepstow, impelled she does not know
by what, only that she was nervous and wakeful, and felt the need of
some companionship, rose and carried the sleeping child into her own
bed, he would assuredly have been murdered. The nurse, awakened by a
horrible suffocating sensation, opened her eyes to find a man bending
over her with a chloroform-soaked cloth, which he was about to lay over
her face. She shrieked and fainted, but not before she saw the man
spring to the little bed on the other side of her own, hack furiously
at it with a long, murderous knife, then dart to the window and vanish.
In the darkness he had not, of course, been able to see that that little
bed was empty, for its position kept it in deep shadow, and hearing the
household stir at the sound of the nurse's shriek, he struck out blindly
and flew to save himself from detection. The nurse states that he was
undoubtedly a foreigner--a dark-skinned Asiatic--and her description of
him tallies with that his little lordship gave of the man who attempted
to kill him that day in the Park. There, Mr. Cleek," she concluded,
"that's the whole story. Can't you do something to help us--something to
lift this constant state of dread and to remove this terrible danger
from little Lord Chepstow's life?"

"I'll try, Miss Lorne; but it is a most extraordinary case. Where is the
boy, now?"

"At home, closely guarded. We appealed to Mr. Narkom, and he generously
appointed two detective officers to sit with his little lordship and
keep constant watch over him whilst we are away."

"And in the meantime," added Mr. Narkom, "I've issued orders for a
general rounding-up of all the Cingalese who can be traced or are known
to be in town. Petrie and Hammond have that part of the job in hand, and
if they hit upon any Asiatic who answers to the description of this
murderous rascal--"

"I don't believe they will," interposed Cleek; "or, if they do, I don't
for a moment believe he will turn out to be the guilty party. In other
words, I have an idea that the fellow will prove to be a European."

"But, my dear fellow, both his little lordship and the nurse saw the
man, and, as you have heard, they both agree that he was dark-skinned
and quite Oriental in appearance."

"One o