our troubles if we could but clear up the horrible uncertainty
remaining.

What had become of my sister and little Ralph?

While the servants of the hotel attended to the stricken man, Basil
Annesley plied the detectives with eager questions. He urged them to
tell all they knew; it should be made worth their while; they no
longer owed allegiance to their late employer. He entreated them to
withhold nothing. Where and how had Lord Blackadder met Henriette?
What had he done with her? Where was she now?

We could get nothing out of these men; they refused to answer our
questions from sheer mulish obstinacy, as we thought at first, but we
saw at length that they did not understand us. What were we driving
at? They assured us they had seen no lady, nor had the unfortunate
peer accosted any one, or interfered with any one on his way between
the two hotels. He had come straight from the Villa Shereef to the
Hotel Atlas, racing down at a run, pausing nowhere, addressing no one
on the road.

If not Lord Blackadder, what then? What could have happened to
Henriette? Tangier was a wild place enough, but who would interfere
with an English woman in broad daylight accompanied by her servant, by
an escort, her attendant Moorish guide? Full of anxiety, Basil called
for a horse, and was about to ride off to institute a hue and cry,
when my sister appeared in person upon the scene.

"Getting anxious about me?" she asked, with careless, almost childish
gaiety. "I am awfully late, but I have had such an extraordinary
adventure. Why, how serious you look! Not on my account, surely?"

I took her aside, and in a few words told her of the terrible
catastrophe that had just occurred, and for a time she was silent and
seemed quite overcome.

"It's too shocking, of course, to happen in this awful way. But
really, I cannot be very sorry except for one thing--that now he will
never know."

"Know what, Henriette? Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"Know that I have discovered the whole plot of which I was the
victim. My dear, I have found Susan Bruel, and she has made a full
confession. They were bribed to go away, and they have been here
hiding in Tangier."

"Go on, go on. Tell me, please, all about it."

"You must know we went out, the three of us, on our donkeys, and the
fancy seized me to explore some of the dark, narrow streets where the
houses all but join overhead. I got quite frightened at last. I was
nearly suffocated for