y-nilly.

"Let me go, oh, please let me go!" she wailed. Louise's lower lip
trembled sympathetically. Such a tender slip of a heroine to be at the
mercy of such an unscrupulous monster!

"Still stubborn, Martha?" Mordaunt snarled.

The girl drew herself up proudly. Only her heaving bosom told of the
physical struggle which had forced her into the basement den. John could
not help marvelling at her recuperative powers.

"Still," she murmured with flashing eye.

"Think it over well," the black mustachioed one persisted. "Am I so
odious? Marriage with me means riches, girl, riches. And I would be kind
to you."

She shook her head vehemently. "Never, never, never would I marry a man
who lives as you. Though you beat me, though you torture me [Louise's
eyes welled in spite of herself], never can you force me into such
wedlock."

Hasty footsteps sounded at the head of the stairway. Ralph, the etcher,
dashed down into the room.

"The police!" he shrieked. "They are about to raid us!"

Merrilac muttered a curse. "Take her away," he growled to his sister of
the clinging robes. "Take her to your home by the secret passage." He
pressed a button and a panel in the wall swung back. "Ralph and I must
remain to destroy the die! Quick, on your life, be quick!"

Would the police come in time? Nay, John and Sid and Louise, not yet.
That would have ended the play in the first act. Dolores dragged the
heroine away with her. Mordaunt swung the panel back into place and ran
over to the table where the counterfeiting apparatus lay.

"Look you to your automatics!" he shouted. "And up with the trapdoor,
Ralph. The acid vats must be hidden."

But the police were upon them as he spoke. Revolvers cracked. Jack
Harkness, blonde, curly haired, and of magnificent physique, let his
firearm drop as he clapped his hand to a suddenly nerveless right arm.

"I'm wounded," he bellowed, "but after them! Let not that arch villain
escape!"

A bluecoat sprang forward, halted, and fell flat on his face. Ralph, a
heroic sacrifice in spite of his guilt, intercepted a bullet meant for
Mordaunt. Then the master counterfeiter, realizing that his cause was
hopeless, raised a hand as a token of surrender, and advanced slowly to
receive the waiting handcuffs. As the policeman raised his hands to slip
them on, he dashed suddenly past to the stairway, and slammed the door
behind him. A key squeaked in its little-used lock, and the
representatives of the