Make it six. He's got such a crowd of accomplices!"

"Six of us, then----"

"I wish you'd let Scotland Yard take it in hand."

"As you please. It's for you to say. But they have made so many
blunders----"

"You're right! Hang the expense! I'll see to this business myself!"

"Then we shall want rather more men than I'd arranged for. Suppose we go
and ring up Sullivan's?"

Zoe was wide awake now. A door shut. She sat up with a start. The
darkness was redolent of strong tobacco-smoke, the smoke of a cheroot.
She realised, instantly, what had happened--

Her father and Alden had entered the little room for an undisturbed chat
and had not troubled to switch the light on. Many people like to talk in
the dark; J.J. Oppner was one of them. Hidden amid the cushions of the
big chair, she had not been seen. Since they had found the room in
darkness, her presence had not been suspected. And what had she thus
overheard?

A plot to capture Severac Bablon!

Now, indeed, she was face to face with the hard facts of her situation.
What should she do? What _could_ she do?

He must be warned. It was impossible to think of seeing him a
prisoner--seeing him in the dock like a common felon. It was impossible
to think of meeting his eyes, his grave, luminous eyes, and reading
reproach there!

But how should she act? This was Tuesday, and they had spoken of
Wednesday as the day when the attempt was to be made. If only she had a
confidant! It was so hard to come, unaided, to a decision respecting the
right course to follow.

Laurel Cottage, Dulwich Village, that was the address which he had
confided to her. But how should she get there? To go in the car was
tantamount to taking the chauffeur into her confidence. She must go,
then, in a cab.

Zoe was a member of that branch of American society which laughs at the
theory of chaperons. There was nothing to prevent her going where she
pleased, when she pleased, and how she pleased. Her mind, then, was made
up very quickly.

She ran to her room, and without troubling her maid, quickly changed
into a dark tweed costume and put on one of those simple, apparently
untrimmed hats which the masculine mind values at about three-and-nine,
but which actually cost as much as a masculine dress suit.

Fearful of meeting her father in the lifts, she went down by the stair,
and slipped out of the hotel unnoticed.

"A cab, madam?"

She nodded. Then, just as the man raised his whistle, she sho