gly--where a wiser man would
have held his tongue--"you'll not be sticking at a small matter like
wholesale murder if it's to make us masters of England?"

"Of England?" the German echoed. "Herr Gott! Of the world!"

"And you, Excellency, our master," the inventor added, shrewdly.

A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few
minutes it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high tension,
studied closely the face of their leader and found it altogether illegible.

On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but himself,
forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great chair, his
body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black magic, his far
gaze probing unfathomable remotenesses of thought.

Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of
weariness he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so
breathlessly upon the issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric
smile returned.

"If the thing be feasible," he promised, "it shall be done. It remains for
Thirteen to be more explicit."

With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket a
folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table.

"A map of London," he announced, "based on the latest Ordnance Survey and
coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each individual gas
depot. Thus you will observe"--what his long, bony finger indicated--"the
district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas works, comprising
Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, and the
Admiralty, Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the aristocracy. All
these we can at will turn into the deadliest of death traps."

A tense voice interrupted with the demand: "How?"

"Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout
London, all under the control of his Excellency"--the inventor bowed to
Number One--"it should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men
with the Westminster gas works."

"It can readily be done," Number One affirmed. "And then--?"

"While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in the
guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to corrupt those
already so employed therein. At the designated hour--"

The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the quiet
with short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a messa